an icepick through the keyhole

I finished the game, yay! As I've mentioned before, this is a spooky atmospheric puzzle game, very stylized in grayscale with splashes of red, and a sort of phase-shifted overlay effect that makes everything look a little unreal. You play as a mysterious woman who has come to a mysterious hotel full of locked doors somewhere in Europe (Italy? Austria? Germany?) in 1963, at the request of a mysterious man for reasons of ??? The gameplay is very simple: you move with either a controller stick or arrow keys, and you have a single action button to interact with whatever is highlighted in front of you, or if nothing is, to bring up your "introspection" screen that includes inventory, "photographic memory" (images of everything important you've interacted with, text from books/documents/signs you've seen, etc), and "mental notes" which is where your quests, so to speak, show up, e.g. "Unlock room 1957" or "Broken elevator?" The game manual - once you find it :-) - is minimal, and a lot of the game consists of figuring out how you need to figure out the game. The story also makes little sense and is mostly vibes until you accumulate more information, as putting the story together is in some sense the point of the game.

The puzzles are mostly a matter of figuring out codes to open locks (doors, safes, puzzle boxes, computer logins) based on information that is usually near the lock, but may require extra information from books, letters, or other documents in order to transform into the needed code. Some things rely on Greek letters or Roman numerals; some rely on perspective or rotation or other transformation. Usually if I couldn't figure something out, it meant I didn't have the necessary auxiliary information, though sometimes I had it but didn't realize it was the missing piece.

I found the overall game structure really interesting, in that it's sort of separated into informal stages where there are a number of places you can go and things you can do (and a few things you can't do yet and can't figure out at all, e.g. a statue with a hole in it where obviously something is meant to go but you don't know what, or a room you can see but not enter) and within that, you can do things in any order you like, it's completely nonlinear. And then either something you do triggers an event which opens up additional places you can go/things you can do, or you solve a puzzle that gives you a key (possibly literally) to open up a new area. However, sometimes (probably often!) you receive access to a new area before you've solved everything in a previous area, though in order to fully progress the game you'll need to go back and solve whatever you missed. My brother and I compared notes occasionally, and marveled at how we often did things in completely different orders! For example, there's one area called the "Quiz Club" where you have to answer questions about in-game things in order to progress, and to get to it, you need to solve a puzzle that you have access to from fairly early in the game. My brother got there long before I did, because I missed that puzzle entirely until much later, but he was only able to answer a few of the questions, since he hadn't encountered the answers yet; by the time I got there, I was able to get through the whole thing fairly easily.

I did a bit more than 95% completion (there are some optional things you can do, some of which I chose not to) and finished in about 25 hours, which is probably dead slow, but I'm a slow gamer. I have 9 pages of notes - the facts and diagrams are of course saved in "photographic memory", but I wrote some things down so I could refer to them while in the game without having to access it (and sometimes it's not available, so you have to either remember or take notes). Also a few photos I took with my phone, heh.

The game is pretty inexpensive on Steam and goes on sale periodically (at the moment it's $17.49). As I mentioned in one of my updates, there is a really excellent hint guide on the steamcommunity.com site, which gently nudges you in the direction you should be thinking in order to solve the puzzles, rather than providing answers. You can pet the dog! You can drink espresso (after solving a certain puzzle...)! If you like puzzle games of this sort, I recommend this game!

I really did intend to post yesterday, but I didn't get to it. Well, it's Thursday!

What I recently finished reading:

The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison, the third book in the Cemeteries of Amalo sub-series of The Goblin Emperor books. I had gone into it with mixed feelings; not that I strongly cared about

spoiler

the Thara Celehar/Iäna Pel-Thenhior ship, but I had heard that the way it was sunk was awkward and issueficcy and felt like "I was going to write this relationship in but it felt pointless after all the fanfiction", and - yeah, it was

but I enjoyed it, overall. I liked the low-ish stakes plot, and the DRAGONS, and the fairly mild author's message of what makes a person a person, and the importance of basic rights and the rule of law, which, let's face it, is a relevant message these days.

Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky, stand-alone SF. Again, a lot of people whose reviews I follow didn't like it, but I did; Tchaikovsky is hit and miss for me, but this was a hit. A biologist who is also a political dissident on an extremely authoritarian Earth is exiled as prison labor on a planet with native life that is very weird and apparently hostile. This is basically another exploration of Tchaikovsky's Theme, which is at core, I think, "How can we see the Other as a Person? How do we overcome the instinct to be closed and tribal, and instead practice empathy, leading to discussion and exchange?" There are echos of the Children of Time series, in particular Children of Ruin (the second book), I think. There is also the strong contrast between a culture which gives lip service to the importance of individuality, but demands conformity, and a culture which emphasizes the communal and the good of the community. And of course, the importance of resistance, of holding to one's core beliefs even in the face of a terrible horrible authoritarian government.

I mostly enjoyed the style except for a few references which seemed a little too grounded in 21st century reality for this future in which humans are mining multiple far-flung planets. The structure and pacing worked well for me. Warning for a terrible horrible authoritarian government that doesn't give a shit about human lives other than their own, and body horror, and an ending which may strike some people as not entirely happy, but which satisfied me. sovay, it's very different from Elder Race but if these themes appeal I think you'll like it.

"Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy" by Martha Wells, a Murderbot short story, in which Murderbot doesn't explicitly appear, but ART | Perihelion has recently met it for the first time. It's from Iris's point of view, on a mission with the rest of the crew, and really the mission is just a framing device McGuffin for "Peri has changed because it met someone?!?", and I agree with runpunkrun's take that there are way too many words devoted to them walking around on this mission which turns out to be not really relevant, compared to the actual point of the story. Still, it's nice to have a bit about Murderbot from not Murderbot's POV.

What I'm reading now:

Just started on the seventh and last Shardlake book by CJ Sansom, Tombland.

What I recently finished watching:

Murderbot! I enjoyed it! I (mostly) appreciate, or at least understand, the changes they made in adaptation. (Not sure why it's not enough for Pin-Lee to be Space Lawyer, but also must be Badass Fighter? And the Arada/Pin-Lee/Ratthi thing didn't seem to have any reason for being and just felt a bit cringe.) I really loved the ending, and Gurathin's whole general arc, and SANCTUARY MOOOOON, and Mensah is chef's kiss perfect.

Speaking of Sanctuary Moon, Murderbot vidded it! Okay, it was really pollyrepeat, but: RADIOACTIVE by Murderbot [vid]!!!

What I'm watching now:

Arcane, because B watched the first episode during the winter, riding the stationary bike, and decided I might like to watch it with him, so moved on to something else so we could watch it together. Not very far into it yet.

What I recently listened to:

The third episode of S3 of The Strange Case of Starship Iris, which, I really liked this one!