Animalia

The story opens with an emergency meeting of forest animals. (Oh, how cute! Are we doing "The Wind in the Willows"?) Apparently, humans are about to invade the forest in search of the human child the animals sacrificed to the Forest God last night. (Wait, what? Is going to be like "Children of the Corn" meets "Animal Farm"?) So now the council is going to ... send in a replica of the child with four small animals controlling it from inside. It's more like "Watership Down" meets "Voltron" by way of "Calvin & Hobbes".

We begin by choosing which four animals will be piloting this replica. Each animal has its strengths and weaknesses, dictating how well we might be able to carry out some of our subterfuge. Each animal has its own personality, too, and they play off each other in different ways ... most interestingly, the final "good" ending we're working towards changes depending on which two animals we choose to interact with each other during a lull in the action. (Note that this "good" ending isn't necessarily actually good.)

The possibilities aren't literally endless, but they certainly feel that way. And I can say that after having run through at least twenty iterations that I have yet to see everything.

A minor annoyance is the "click this random piece of text to continue" thing that seems rather popular with Twine games. I don't quite understand why a "Next" button in a standard corner won't do; I know it only takes a split-second to hunt down the highlighted link each time, but it's still a bit more annoying than just pushing a button.

Some of the situations are downright cartoonish, and the dialogue can occasionally be hilariously stilted; however, I am convinced that much of this is a deliberate, stylistic choice meant to accentuate the humour. I think it works pretty well.

It feels like we're getting a smorgasbord breakfast here: any amount of cold cuts and cheeses you can load onto a single piece of flatbread, and then a vanilla latte. You might want seconds for satisfaction, and then a return tomorrow morning to see what you missed.