Grimm's web games thread

[SpiderQueenPC]

For a while, I've been playing and writing brief reviews of various web games. It was just for fun and I wasn't sharing them anywhere, but Andy said it'd make a good thread, and yknow what? He's right, so here it is. Feel free to recommend any web games to me! If I don't already have them on The List™, I'll add them.

I have a handful of these lined up, but anyone who knows me even a little knows what I have to post first.

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corru.observer by corru.works
[corru.observer]
10/10 - Highly recommended!

Where do I even start? (<-said with enthusiasm)

I'll say this right off the bat: this is the best one I've found and it's hardly a contest- not because the others are all bad, but because c.ob is just that good.

In c.ob, you explore the decaying memories of an alien who died under mysterious circumstances to find out what happened to her. The mystery itself is multi-layered and gripping, the worldbuilding is remarkably rich, the characters are lovable, and the story has a surprisingly wide emotional range despite the shadow of death it resides in.

Unlike other web games, which are built entirely on point-and-click exploration, c.ob experiments with different kinds of gameplay frequently. There's turn-based combat, bullet hells, and more. And of course, I have to mention the gorgeous dithered CMYK art style.

In short, there's a lot here, but it's all cohesive and it all just works.

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Next time on Grimm's web games thread: Terminal 00

 

[SpiderQueenPC]

ok I gotta be careful with this one or COS is gonna spread to deskGen.net.

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Terminal 00 by Angus Nicneven
[angusnicneven.com]
??/10 - Do not gaze into the abyss. Abandon hope all who enter here.

Where do I even start? (<-said with dread)

T00 is the single most esoteric and audience-hostile work of fiction I have ever encountered. It is a truly vast, grating labrynth full of dead ends, red herrings, puzzles you cannot ever hope to solve, and a previously unheard of number of decisions made exclusively for the purpose of disrespecting the player's time, all dotted with occasional moments of staggering beauty and profundity.

(You might have noticed I didn't provide a synopsis. That's because after several dozen hours spent exploring the site, I'm still not sure what's going on. It definitely HAS a story, I just couldn't tell you what it is.)

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Next time on Grimm's web games thread: God is Home

 

[SpiderQueenPC]

epic Squirrel Stapler reference??

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God is Home by girl//scum
[godishome.neocities.org]
9/10 - Recommended

This one, while still being a fictional story, is fully grounded in reality. It explores religious trauma, religious OCD, and to a small extent, how those things interact with queerness & therianthropy. It is intense, earnest, heartwrenching, and tremendously effecting the in the way that only real, "mundane" horrors can be.

It's the smallest in scope of the web games I've played so far, but that fact doesn't hurt it. It says as much as it needs to to express its point.

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Next time on Grimm's web games thread: Wired Sounds for Wired People

 

[SpiderQueenPC]

Lowest score I've given but the name goes hard.

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Wired Sounds For Wired People - Fauxx
[fauxx.neocities.org]
3/10 - Might be worth a brief look if you really like the color pink and flashing lights

(It should be noted that, like Terminal 00, this is (was? it appears to have been taken down since I initially wrote this) also a personal site for the creator's work. And like T00, I am not judging that part of it or any of the creator's other work- only the part of it that is a web game.)

Wired Sounds has a very consistent aesthetic that is distinctive and novel, but once the novelty wears off, it's got little else to offer, as it lacks any apparent story or lore. And unfortunately, this doesn't take too long. The aesthetic is too specific, and thus wears its own novelty out fairly quickly.

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Next time on Grimm's web games thread: heaven_online