Open Sorcery: Sea++

Open Sorcery: Sea++ rivals Zork 1 & Zork 2 in terms of gameplay depth & the need for mapping and note-taking. Highly recommended for all text adventure fans.

A wonderful text-based adventure game with a plethora of puzzles all set in Abigail's fascinating world of magic and computing. It's all wrapped up in the story of a fascinating protagonist that feels like a real person who has lived a very difficult and painful life. The writing and delivery of the material is excellent; there are moments of true sadness and joy mixed in with the magic and wonder as you piece together the protagonist's memories.

Fantastic writing. All the good of an IF game without the frustrations of overly obscure solutions.

I love this game. I cried many times, and I always felt better off for that. [spoiler] At one point I found myself unable to hurt a dream of a character you only know through the thoughts and feelings of the player character. [/spoiler] I cried at the idea of doing that to them, those small glimpses at this person through the memories of them, and feelings about them. They paint a much bigger picture, and like many things in this game it was one that rang as intensely true in my heart. This game has made me feel less alone. Although it is a game, there is still a truth in what it says that helps me feel I'm not the only one who has or is experiencing things i have experienced and have experienced which aren't talked about enough. And which are hard to talk about. Those words do very much come from people. I may not be able to talk to them, but they've been brave enough to talk to me and everyone else playing this game. Hoping someone hears them, I imagine. One experience of mine in particular, has been hard to even understand. But I looked at the screen, and there were words that vocalised what I have gone through in a way I haven't figured out how to myself yet. And that's why I talk so much about emotions, they're the most important part of this for me. The game does have other parts I love though. I love love love puzzles. some of these are very hard and sometimes i used a walkthrough, which i think if fully worth it for the experience. im sure this is also an amazing experience for people who love making notes, drawing maps, looking for clues outside of the game (I did googling for stuff like that a fair few times) A lot of the more challenging stuff is only there if you're inclined to look for it and figure it out, how far you want to dive into this ocean. Even if I'm not the best swimmer I seemed to have gone quite deep so my perspective is from encountering that much higher difficulty. Every puzzle I came across impressed me, fascinated me. Even if I couldn't solve one I loved it. And things can fit together in lots of fun ways. Stuff that makes you smile and go "that works??!!". the way everything fits together and offers multiple questions and answers. And as a huge dork for hypertext, interactive fiction and all that jazz; I cannot name a better example. Top tier "clicking on blue words to expand the ways of conveying meaning in the text medium". The way it plays with space, with conflicting feeling, with the multiple meanings that can be present. It enrichens the character of Pisces and knows how to tell a joke too. Its gorgeous and brilliant and inspiring. I love this game and its story and its everything.

A truly excellent game, with a collection of moving stories and thoughtfully applied mechanics. I rarely play these sorts of games through more than once but I'll admit I am driven to replay this one to get the 'true' ending. I will say that if you are expecting something that feels *just* like Open Sourcery you will be disappointed. As well as having a different perspective, this is a larger, longer game with a much more focused puzzling element to it. It is a very good game! But it isn't quite the lightning in a bottle of Open Sourcery. I will *also* say that certain mechanics may be kind of tedious or frustrating to some people. An action-packed game this is not. Oddly the biggest of these for me was movement – trekking around larger maps using click-buttons is kind of frustrating.

I am not very well versed in the mechanics of what went into the game so I will focus on the story and my personal feelings. I deeply enjoy the matter and motive systems, there is something deeply moving to me that you can be a passionate love (fire & love) or a torrent of anxiety (water & fear as described by the game). Emotions are something that is so human, so vital to being and the idea that we are able to be deconstructed down to a motive or a matter is, emotional to say the least. I deeply enjoyed the emotional connections you were capable of forming in the first game, and the ability this creator gives you to be selfish or selfless with little to no reward at all , and allow you to decide what you consider to be a reward is really something I enjoy.

Very interesting text adventure that doesn't even feel like a game, more like an excursion into the author's mind. It's original, unconventional and clever. I have to say I really enjoyed it. At first, I thought that the first underwater area would be pretty much it but the game has so much content, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. There are several puzzles, riddles, word searches and everything seems to have more than one solution. And your choice of the solution does have some consequences. I never played the first game but now I feel I really should at some point. The music is great and perfectly matched to respective areas. It's relaxing, smooth, does not disturb the reader, just perfect. I especially liked the electric guitar one in Hell location. Top notch. Now for the negatives. At some point I have encountered a character stuck in some cave. The game told me that if I want to save them, I should be properly prepared - I basically had only one chance from what I understood. So I went on with my business, gathered resources and spells and at one point, I felt ready. I went back to the cave only to find the character is no longer there... so that sucked. I probably missed a whole lot of content so thanks for that useless warning, game. I also wouldn't mind having a map of some sort. Even though the locations are not that big, they are not small either. And there is one location where instead of the regular north/south/west/east you could also go up and down and the paths are mostly blocked, it's a mess and I got lost there several times. I don't know if it's because of my original expectations of something short but the game goes on for way too long. It gets really repetitive near the end and starts to feel more like a chore. And at one point, I just got stuck and had to use a guide only to find out that I missed an entire location. I don't know if its existence was hinted somewhere and I was too tired reading all the text but it was not (and still isn't) clear to me how I was supposed to discover it. Maybe some less subtle hint would help. At the end, it was very obvious that I was missing several things, I could not complete one of the final "rooms" because I did not have enough dreams and I had no idea where to get them. It was optional of course, you don't need to complete everything to finish the game, but it really felt like I was being punished for my choices and apparently a lack of exploration (even though I though I was very thorough). The ending left a bittersweet taste because of this. Overall, it was a great adventure regardless. And even though I don't usually play text adventures at all, I have to say that this one was something else entirely.