#akheon

[cosmindart]

some old fakemons I made 6 years ago: Noledge (unown evo) and Akheon (ghost eeveelution)

[manonamora-if-reviews]

A Thing of Wretchedness by AKheon

============= Links

Play the game See other reviews of the game See other games by AKheon

============= Synopsis

A lonely farmstead… A troubling situation… No easy answers.

============= Other Info

A Thing of Wretchedness is an Inform 7 parser, submitted to the 2023 Edition of the IFComp. It ranked 53rd overall. The game makes references to Ascension of Limbs of the same author.

Status: Completed Genre: Horror

CW: Contains scenes some may find disturbing.

============= Playthrough

Played: 16-Dec-2023 Playtime: around 45min-ish (2 endings) Rating: 2/5 Thoughts: Unsatisfying ending(s)

============= Review

A Thing of Wretchedness is a horror "sandbox" parser, set in an empty farmstead in the middle of winter, away from any life, some time around the 70s(?). You play as an older woman, who having lost her husband recently(ish), deals with grief... and a wretched thing roaming the house. You want (need?) to get rid of this things, but how? The game includes an external walkthrough with general guidelines on achieving one of the 3 endings.

Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.

The start is pretty intriguing with a more mundane take on horror, by having an indescribable thing roaming around your house, not actively hurting you, but also not letting you feel at ease either - you can't bear to look at it. It is made pretty obvious there is some sort of relationship between you and the thing, in that it won't hurt you and you kind of take care of it. Exploring the different rooms and its items may help get an idea (nice details there!).

For some reason, after months - or maybe years - of being tortured by its presence, you want to get rid of it now. Your first idea would be to poison it, as the introduction explains, though you are not too keen on hurting the thing either... In this regard, the games gives you multiple paths to take care of the thing, with some options more violent than others. This is the sandbox aspect of the game.

Some endings, especially the one which supposedly gives the most context, rely on timing and RNG. You set up an action that requires the thing to do something, but it may take a while or the thing may end up doing something completely useless, or hurt you. This becomes frustrating pretty quickly, as resetting the action sometimes takes so loooong.

I was also a bit disappointed with the endings too, as they don't really answer anything at the end - the open-ended-ness leaving you with more questions than answers, especially if you don't get the ending that provides some information. I still have no idea what was that box about...