Samantha Lienhard
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Writing For
MonsterVine
KeenGamerLatest Reviews
My Memory of Us
If there’s one aspect of the story I’m conflicted about, it’s the robots. Making the Nazis emotionless machines runs the risk of implying that humans would never do these things. On the other hand, the idea of two children tricking evil robots contributes to the sense that this is a...
The Gardens Between
Every two or three islands are clustered together, and when you complete a cluster, you get to see the specific memory those fragments came from. They’re brief and contain no dialogue, but the text-free narrative in The Gardens Between does a good job of showing Arina and Frendt’s friendship. The...
Lamplight City
The progression of the overarching narrative held my interest even more. Bill’s role is delightful just for how it factors into the gameplay—investigating every object in the room is much more entertaining when you get commentary from a sarcastic ghost—but it’s also critical to the story. Miles dealing with the...
However, since each story follows the next, your customer satisfaction bar freezes until you resolve the current chapter. The rest of the customers have fairly generic dialogue, with no interaction between them. And since your dragon’s growth–and therefore your exploration–is also gated by story progress, you’ll often find yourself with...
Semblance
Most of the puzzles are clever and really require you to think about the situation and the game’s mechanics. A few require quick timing and precision instead, but Semblance is at its best when it gives you a set of tools you need to manipulate in just the right way...
Vampyr
When viewed in that light, the story is an enjoyable mystery that brings together medicine and science, vampire politics and zealous hunters, and a city suffering from ancient evils. Aside from a rushed romance and a sudden shift near the end, the story is good and has intriguing twists and...
The puzzles themselves come in two basic forms: navigation and restoring the tower. Since there are certain places only the girl can go and other places only the golem can go, together with switches and levers to help the other character progress, most of the puzzles focus on getting each...
Forgotton Anne
Forgotton Anne is a bit heavy-handed with its themes at times, and its plot beats are sometimes abrupt, but those are easy flaws to overlook in such a charming story. In both its presentation and its storytelling, it really does feel like an animated film in video game form.
Harper’s role as an accidental hero adds an interesting twist in itself. He generally comes across as a regular guy caught up in events way beyond what he’s used to dealing with, despite one or two occasions where his emotional reactions to the situation didn’t feel strong enough. In contrast...
Earthlock
Character development was a major place where the original game struggled, but that isn’t true here. The optional conversations provide new insight into the characters and demonstrate their bonds with one another. They feel like a team, a group of characters I could care about. Between that, adjusted characterization, and...
The final two hours of The Longest Five Minutes feel like they are what the game was designed for. They bring in some genuinely interesting plot points that finally use the flashback structure to their advantage. Nevertheless, after the bland combat and generic storytelling along the way, my enjoyment of...
But what Candleman lacks in difficulty, it makes up for in beauty. The dark levels at the start are a far cry from the dazzling environments that await you later on, and each new development made me eager to see what would come next. The story is simple and presented...
