Ginger

This game is not for everyone. Many, many people will bounce off it. I will try to be as clear as I can about what Ginger is, how to preview it, and the kind of person who might like it. Firstly, look on the Steam store page and find the "View the manual" link in the info side panel, near the information about developer, publisher, and release date. Click it. This PDF is a dump of all of the text in the game, and as far as we know, it's 99% of what the game actually *is*: a dictionary written in an unknown language, and you have to work out what each word means so that you can read it. The game doesn't ever tell you, it's all up to you. The game doesn't ever tell you if your guess is right, it doesn't even have a facility for you to enter a guess. All of that happens outside the game. Does this intrigue you? Keep reading. Does this annoy you? It's not for you. This game has been out for 42 days at the time of writing, and a handful of people on the Discord have been puzzling away at it. We barely know anything: we have a few words that were used in the Controls page of the game; we know the words for counting; we know that "zuli" refers to a person; we *think* that maybe "ee" is a conjunction like "and". There is a lot that we don't know, and I don't think anyone can even read the two-word definition "kap beba" and understand it — and these are two of the most frequent words in the language! The entire thing is an open question. Does this intrigue you? Keep reading. Does this annoy you? It's not for you. If you buy this game, you're not really paying for a game. You're paying for a structured dataset, and you can use it as the context for learning and practicing all sorts of problem-solving skills. I'm using it to learn statistical linguistics and network theory, for example. This game is well-suited to the tinkerer and the tool-maker who wants to challenge themselves with something unfamiliar with no guarantee of success.

没事干就打开Ginger玩一会再一头雾水地关上

This review is as spoiler-free as I can make it. Steam says I've played this game for six hours. Steam is only aware of the time I spent with this game running. Steam does not count the time I spent building tools to help me analyze the structure of the dictionary. It does not count the time I have spent idly discussing strategies for making sense of the language with friends. Yesterday I spent four hours on a stream working on a graph visualization of some data from the game. At the end of it, I had one insight: I think I now have a more complete understanding of what it means when "hh." or "i." appears next to a word. I nearly jumped out of my seat with the magnitude of this discovery. The game was running for maybe an hour of this. The game here is not the program you download and run. That's just your invitation to the game. The game is what you do with a highly-structured body of material with only a few small and subtle places to begin. If you think this game is for you, then yes. Yes it is. If this review is bewildering - do you like being bewildered like this? The game will bewilder you wonderfully. (And seriously, it's $5. Even if you just open it and let the weird art experience wash over you, you've probably got your money's worth.)

Honestly, I cant say whether its worth it all at this point, but if you like jotting notes down in a notebook then this will probably be great for you. I even started a spreadsheet to help me keep track of things. Is a spreadsheet the right way to track it? I have no idea. I don't even like using spreadsheets but it was satisfying here. Uncovering the mechanics as you begin to dig into it is very satisfying and rewarding. I have no idea what awaits. There's something here.

More games should trick you into speaking in tongues.

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If you have ever taken a phonetics course and thought to yourself "gosh I wish I could learn all this content in the form of an obtuse indie mystery game" then this is the game for you. My phonetics professor would love it.

To quote Tommy Lee Jones, "It's worth it, if you're strong enough" I'll add more to this review later, but just know this: WE SEE YOU KEVIN. WE SEE YOU