Reviews by Eloquence

3 stars
Mediocre sci-fi adventure with exceptional visuals

Trüberbrook is a 2019 point and click adventure game set in a fictional eponymous small town in late 1960s Germany. You play as Hans Tannhauser, an American quantum physics student with German ancestry, who has won a vacation to Trüberbrook (without entering any contest!).

During the first night in his hostel, Tannhauser’s notes on quantum physics are stolen. As he starts tracking down the thief, the evidence points to an abandoned mine, and he soon pairs up with a visiting paleoanthropologist named Gretchen Lemke who is also seeking to explore it. What is the connection between the mine and Hans’ work in quantum physics?

What stands out the most about Trüberbrook is its unique visual style. All backgrounds are based on digitized miniatures, enhanced by in-game lighting and shadow effects. The 3D character models aren’t photorealistic; they look more like clay figures, which works well enough in this setting.


Trüberbrook’s unique aesthetic is the result of the digitization of painstakingly hand-crafted miniatures (Credit: btf. Fair use.)

The gameplay is classic point-and-click adventure fare (walk around, pick up stuff, talk to other characters, combine items), with a simplified inventory system. For example, if you have a screwdriver in your inventory, and you want to unscrew a TV set, you click on the TV set, and the screwdriver becomes available as a possible interaction.

This reduces the “combine everything with everything” aspect of many adventure games, but it would have been nice to at least be able to explore your inventory (it’s only optionally displayed as an icon bar, without descriptions).

The game’s lovingly created visuals can’t help Trüberbrook to overcome mediocrity in most other areas: storytelling, character development and puzzle design. To name an example in each category:

  • Storytelling: In an early chapter, Hans must escape from a medical facility. But the game never fully resolves why he was kept there in the first place.

  • Character development: While Trüberbrook has its share of quirky characters, the game’s protagonist is almost entirely without personality, and the motivations of its villain are poorly explained.

  • Puzzle design: In one puzzle, you obtain an important item by ordering a beer at the hostel reception. But the option to order a drink only becomes available after you exhaust all other (unrelated) dialog options.

There are exceptions, of course—the game has a few truly delightful, clever and funny moments. With more time spent on everything other than its visuals, it could have been a great game. As it is, if you find the visuals and setting appealing, you may wish to pick it up on sale and keep a walkthrough handy to keep frustrations to a minimum.


3 stars
You say mind uploading and I say AI, let's call the whole thing off

I was 16 years old when The Terminal Experiment by Robert Sawyer was published in 1995. This was the time when the Internet was starting to break into the mainstream, and everyone was trying their hands at predicting its impact. In Newsweek that year, Clifford Stoll famously wrote:

The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

How does a Nebula-winning sci-fi novel from 1995 about mind uploading, artificial intelligence, and morality hold up in 2021? In the case of The Terminal Experiment: not too well.

Sawyer’s vision of the 2000s and 2010s is, unavoidably, a mix of correct predictions (e-readers are commonplace), false extrapolations (CompuServe seems as important as the Internet) and unlucky guesses (instead of buying a newspaper, print it on demand!). But more than its future past, the book’s story will challenge any reader’s suspension of disbelief.

Soul search

The protagonist, Peter Hobson, is a Canadian biomedical engineer who has devised highly sensitive brain scanning equipment (a “superEEG”) to determine the exact moment of a person’s death. But the superEEG picks up something else: a pattern of brain activity—an electrical field—that leaves the human body after its death.

Has Hobson found evidence for life after death, and if so, what’s the nature of this afterlife? If given a choice between physical immortality or the hereafter, which should we prefer? It’s a timely question in Hobson’s world, as a California firm called “Life Unlimited” has begun marketing nanotech life extension techniques that promise practical immortality for all intents and purposes.

Luckily, Hobson’s best friend Sarkar Muhammed is an AI expert who has also tried his hand at mind uploading using Hobson’s brain scanning equipment. It’s still an experimental technique, of course, but Hobson volunteers to have three copies (simulations or “sims”) of his mind created:

  • an unmodified copy (the control);

  • a mind that perceives itself to be immortal but still human;

  • a mind that perceives itself to be a disembodied spirit, with no worldly concerns.

The friends’ scientific inquiry is disrupted when one of the sims appears to commit a grisly murder. Hobson and Muhammed find themselves in a race with the police to find out what happened, and which of the sims (if any) is responsible. Can the two plucky Canadians solve the mystery and prevent further killings?

Philosophy first

I’ll spare you any spoilers, but honestly, it would be hard to spoil the book—the major plot points are fairly predictable, and I say that as someone who is probably more oblivious to such things than the average reader.

The Terminal Experiment puts its philosophical premise above everything else (plot, characters, worldbuilding). Even its protagonist, Peter Hobson, is named for Hobson’s Choice, which relates to the book’s central premise. (In case you didn’t guess that, the book helpfully tells you so, repeatedly.)

The conversations Hobson and Muhammed have with the three copies of Hobson’s mind are the most engaging part of The Terminal Experiment. I found Spirit in particular (the copy that imagines itself to be in a kind of afterlife) to be the book’s most interesting character.

Because it explores some interesting philosophical questions, Sawyer’s book is not without merits, but if you had it in your backlog for a while, I wouldn’t recommend it for anything other than a lazy afternoon or a long plane trip.


4 stars
A thriller about a "hitman with a heart", engaging despite the tropes

As a constant reader of Stephen King’s many works, I continue to be impressed by his ability to put a fresh spin on familiar tropes. Billy Summers is the hitman with a heart who only kills “bad guys”, and who is hired for “one last job” that quickly goes off the rails.

Summers is an Iraq vet, who has since turned his sniper skills towards more profitable ends while maintaining a personal moral code. For his last job, he has to blend in with the locals in Red Bluff, a small town east of the Mississippi, awaiting the extradition of his mark from out of state, for a hit at the local court house. That could be months away, but the job promises a payday to make it worth it.

The details make the story work. Summers cultivates a “dumb self” towards his employers, slowing his speech and pretending to have a reading level barely sufficient for Archie comics while secretly stashing away a book by Émile Zola. In Red Bluff, he gets to know his neighbors and the people in his office building, owing to his ability to become quick friends with almost anybody.

The cover story for Summers’ stay is that he is a writer working on a novel, which is an excuse for him to actually write the story of his own life. This “book within the book” focuses on Summers’ childhood and his time in Iraq. (Billy Summers only includes short excerpts of Summers’ biography, and the timelines of both books eventually meet.)

Of course, the story doesn’t end after Summers takes his shot. A series of confrontations follows, and a young woman enters the story, who plays a crucial role towards the end. While the book doesn’t break any new ground, Stephen King incorporates both world events and references to his own works into the story to keep things interesting.

If you’re looking for a recent King novel that heavily tilts towards the supernatural, I would recommend Later (2021), The Institute (2019), or The Outsider (2018) instead. But if a more conventional thriller with King’s touch sounds interesting, you’re unlikely to be disappointed by Billy Summers.


4 stars
An engrossing family mystery with underdeveloped player choices

When they are 11 years old, tragedy strikes the lives of twins Tyler and Alyson Ronan. Their mother Mary-Ann threatens Tyler with a shotgun after Alyson cut his hair short. Tyler stabs their mother with a pair of scissors, and she falls into the lake near their house and drowns. That, at least, is what the twins tell the police.

Tyler is admitted to a residential treatment facility, and doesn’t see his sister for the next 10 years. During that time, Tyler, who identified as a boy from a young age, completes his transition as a trans man. At age 21, Tyler and Alyson finally reunite to sell their mother’s old house—and to unravel their family story.

Mystery in beautiful environments

In three episodes, Tell Me Why by Dontnod Entertainment (Life is Strange) puts the player in control of both Alyson and Tyler as they explore their childhood home, question old family friends, and relive the past. Was their mother unable to accept Tyler as a trans child, or did she suffer a mental breakdown for other reasons?

The game is set in a fictional small town in Alaska, giving it a backdrop of snowy mountains, forests, and the lake near the family home. Indoor environments, too, are rendered in rich detail, from the Ronan residence to the local police station and the town’s grocery store.

Alyson surveying her old childhood home
Even indoor environments like the Ronan residence are rendered in exquisite detail, with beautiful lighting and gorgeous views of the outside scenery. (Credit: Dontnod Entertainment. Fair use.)

With choices on top

The gameplay follows the pattern established in the Life is Strange games: you walk around, talk to people, look at and for objects, and sometimes complete (typically very easy) mini-games or puzzles. Occasionally, you make choices that will influence your relationship with other characters for the rest of the game.

There’s a supernatural element to story and gameplay, as well. Without spoiling anything, suffice it to say that Tyler and Alyson share a deep bond that may help them in their quest to learn the truth.

I almost immediately fell in love with the game’s characters and was captivated by the story and graphics. On the other hand, I found the choice mechanic and its relationship with the story underdeveloped.

After important choices, the game indicates whether the bond between Tyler and Alyson has increased or not. But it’s rarely clear how this relates to the progression of the story, or why the player would want to weaken the bond between the two, who clearly love each other. The choices felt layered on top of the story, not like an integral part of the game.

The Verdict

Tell Me Why is not a masterpiece, but it is a beautiful narrative adventure, and I enjoyed the time I spent with it. The developers deserve kudos for a good faith (and, it seemed to me, largely successful) effort at representation of trans and queer characters and of indigenous (Tlingit) culture.

I played the game in Proton on Linux without issues (aside from a tiny bit of stuttering during cut scenes, which may be due the limitations of my hardware). It takes about 5-10 hours to complete, more if you want to explore all sides of the story and find all collectibles hidden in the game’s different environments.

The first chapter is free and gives you a good feel for the game. I paid the full price of $20; you may be able to get it at a steep discount if you wait a few months (in June 2021, the full game was given away for free to celebrate Pride Month).


5 stars
A beautiful, short and free game set in the world of Life is Strange

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit by Dontnod Entertainment is a free promo game—its purpose is to get players interested in Life is Strange 2 (reviews). But it’s a standalone game that only has a small hook into the franchise at the very end.

You play as Chris Eriksen, a young kid living in a town in Oregon with his father Charles. It becomes clear quickly that Charles is an alcoholic whose behavior sometimes becomes abusive.

Chris, meanwhile, has his own fantasy world to escape into. He dons a cape and becomes Captain Spirit, a hero with telekinetic powers. Captain Spirit fights alongside an Avengers-style team against a team of supervillains led by a mysterious figure called Mantroid.


Chris in his Captain Spirit gear. (Credit: Dontnod Entertainment. Fair use.)

As you explore the house and the snowy outdoors, you can play out Chris’ fantasies, complete some chores for his dad, and learn more about his family, including his mom.

The game is rendered in beautiful 3D graphics; the outdoors environments are especially gorgeous. You walk around and look at objects or talk to people (mostly of the imaginary variety); occasionally the game switches to mini-game sequences, such as aiming snowballs at a beer can pyramid.

Captain Spirit offers only a brief window into Chris’ life, projecting a short narrative arc. In 1-2 hours of playtime, it manages to be engaging and charming while tackling difficult subjects. I would recommend the free download without reservations to anyone who enjoys exploratory games like Firewatch (reviews) or Gone Home (reviews). I played it on Linux using Proton without issues.


4 stars
At the brink, a branching exhortation to listen to trees

What is the meaning of life? In much of our philosophy, humans are the only ones qualified to answer the question. But why not seek the answer in life itself, in its grandeur of, as Darwin put it, “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful”? In The Overstory, Richard Powers narrows it down to trees.

Through several narratives interwoven like a forest canopy, the novel implores us to slow down, to look, to listen, and to appreciate nature for what it is, not what it can be used for.

Powers knows that a novel about trees still needs humans to hold the reader’s attention. He brings to life the cast of characters like a skillful painter creating a vibrant landscape with a few brush strokes. As if they were the trees the book is about, he writes about his characters’ roots, their ancestry, their relationships with nature.

There’s Nicholas Hoel, descendant of a long line of farmers originally from Norway. Nick decides to become an artist; the family’s remarkable chestnut tree (a rare survivor of the chestnut blight that wiped out millions of trees in North America) inspires in him a fascination with nature that later turns to devotion.


The world tree Yggdrasil from Norse cosmology as depicted by Danish artist Lorenz Frølich. (Public domain.)

Or there’s Mimi Ma, engineer, ambitious firstborn daughter of a Chinese immigrant father and a mother from Virginia. Mimi finds peace and purpose in her schedule-packed life when it’s on hold—when she’s sitting under the trees near her office during lunch. Her love for nature is rooted in many childhood trips to national parks, and in the family’s mulberry tree that she and her sisters were not supposed to climb, her father’s “silk farm”.

The stories of Mimi, Nick, and the book’s many other characters eventually intersect, as they find themselves called upon to do whatever they can to challenge and confront humanity’s suicidal trajectory of growth without limits or reason.

The Overstory explores different approaches to the natural world: the scientist’s journey, the activist’s march, the programmer’s search, the artist’s ramble, the conservationist’s last stand. It does not judge our failure to act in a specific way, but our failure to notice nature and to listen.

At 502 pages (paperback edition), The Overstory is quite hefty, but I found myself breezing through it over a weekend. Like a forest, it warrants scrutiny both as a whole and in its parts, and I was quite moved by many of its intersecting stories.

My only significant criticism is that Powers repeats certain ideas and phrases—about what life wants and is, about its interdependence and brilliance—to the point of wearing them down: a bit too much tell and too little show. Still, The Overstory makes its point beautifully: it’s time to listen to nature.


5 stars
Powerful tales that don't hold back

After the somewhat underwhelming Heart-Shaped Box (review), I wasn’t sure what to expect of Joe Hill’s Strange Weather. It’s a collection of four novellas published in 2017, coming in at 432 pages total (paperback). It’s fair to call it a set of horror stories, but each one is very different:

  • Snapshot is a classic “haunted artifact” story that could easily have been written by Joe Hill’s father, Stephen King. The artifact in question is an instant camera which not only preserves memories, it also takes them away.

    The protagonist, an overweight and very clever kid, has a close encounter with the device’s owner. Just when you think the story is pretty much over, it goes to some very interesting places. 5/5.

  • Loaded is about the intersecting stories of several people whose lives are impacted, and in some cases erased, by guns.

    It’s the longest of the four pieces, but it moves at such a rapid clip that you’re unlikely to notice. This is a gut-wrenching, punishing, very American tale. 5/5.

  • Aloft is the story of Aubrey Griffin, a neurotic musician who is reluctantly participating in a skydiving trip to honor a deceased loved one. But instead of safe and sound on planet Earth, Aubrey finds himself in a strange place that seems to never want to let him go.

    It’s an imaginative, not especially scary adventure that offers some reprieve between the two violent tales that precede and follow it. It invests us in its colorful characters, but that investment never quite pays off. Aloft might have worked better as a full-length novel. 3.5/5.

  • Rain is a return to blood-splattering horror, in this case inflicted by the weather itself, in a scenario reminiscent of Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. Our protagonist, a young lesbian woman with the unlikely name Honeysuckle Speck, barely escapes the first wave of carnage.

    As she makes her way through a Colorado hellscape on a personal quest, she faces a wannabe vampire, members of a religious cult, a mad Russian, an MMA fighter, a bigoted neighbor, and other witnesses to the apocalypse. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is president, and he provides the deranged all-caps tweets you would expect from him.

    It’s horror, but it’s also tongue-in-cheek, and it works on both levels. 5/5.

For three of the four stories, I felt that the length was just about perfect, showing a remarkable mastery of the novella form. Hill also uses his talent for creating memorable characters, which was already evident in Heart-Shaped Box, to its fullest.

I recommend Strange Weather without reservations, but know what you’re signing up for. Loaded is the centerpiece novella, and it’s a brutal story about a very real subject (gun violence). This not a book you’ll want to pick up unless you’re in the right headspace for it.


4 stars
A short but immersive casual adventure

The world as we know it has ended long ago, and the ruins of San Francisco are crawling with orcs and goblins. Your are a novice necromancer, in pursuit of your brother, who has abandoned you and your family in search of fame and fortune. Perhaps you will find him somewhere in the Transamerica Pyramid, one of the few tall buildings that are still standing.

Knights of San Francisco is a choice-based adventure game for Android and iOS made by a single developer, Filip Hracek, and a single illustrator, Alec Webb. It is mostly text-based, and the gameplay is somewhat reminiscent of Choice of Games titles, but Knights also severs to showcase the game’s own engine, Egamebook.

You move through the game’s world by selecting destinations on a map. As you do so, you encounter allies, enemies, and items that may help you on your quest. During turn-based combat, you control only your own actions (your allies attack independently). You are given a surprisingly large set of choices, from feinting, to casting a spell, to kicking a weapon out of the way.


The game is mostly text-based, but the illustrations by Alec Webb help to establish the setting. (Credit: Raindead Games / Alec Webb. Fair use.)

After each choice, a dice roll determines success or failure; if you fail, you can drain your stamina or sanity points to re-roll. The game generates text that describes the result of each combatant’s actions.

There are no hitpoints or levels, and death can come quickly. Still, thanks to your allies, the necromancy skill, restorative items, and the re-roll option, most battles will not present much of a challenge. Just in case, the game lets you rewind bad decisions (I only had to do so once).

The story is told in short paragraphs, much of it through dialog with friendly characters which you can skip if you prefer to focus on combat. The writing is solid, and you do get to make a choices that will shape the story and its ending.

If you’re looking for a game that will give you hours of replay value, this isn’t it—a playthrough takes about 60-90 minutes, and there’s not much that changes on a second run. But it’s immersive, novel, and fun, and only costs $3. Whether or not you pick this one up, Raindead Games is worth keeping an eye on.


3 stars
A fast and violent story that won't scare you out of your wits

I read my first Stephen King book when I was a teenager, and I remain one of his constant readers decades later. He’s incredibly prolific, but he won’t live forever (unless he’s made some kind of special arrangement). Who will I turn to then in order to fill the King-shaped void in my life? Perhaps Joe Hill, AKA Joseph Hillström King.

King shortened his middle name to create his nom de plume so people wouldn’t do what I’m doing: pay attention to his work because of his father’s. By now that ship has sailed, and comparisons are inevitable the moment you look at Hill’s photo on a book jacket. Joe Hill has followed in his father’s footsteps as a horror author, but he’s also explored new territory as the writer of Locke & Key, a graphic novel adapted into a TV series.

Heart-Shaped Box (2007) was Hill’s debut novel. Named after the Nirvana song, it’s about the haunting of a washed-up rock star named Judas Coyne by a ghost he buys on the Internet. The book wastes little time with questions or preliminaries. Soon, Coyne and his hot, young goth girlfriend (the latest of many) are on the run for their lives, from an entity that seems capable of anything and impossible to defeat.

Each chapter is named after a famous rock song, and Hill’s story is loud, fast, violent, engaging and—not especially scary. Coyne is not a likable main character, nor is he easily scared; the stakes are mostly limited to the survival of him and the people around him; the ghost is creepy but all too familiar and human in its evil.

That doesn’t make Heart-Shaped Box a bad story; I enjoyed my time with it, and finished it in a few days. But as far as horror goes, it lacks the menacing quality of the best works of the genre; it never plants an idea in your head that comes back when you’re alone in the house and it’s after midnight. 3.5 stars, rounded down because I’m hoping Hill’s later works will pack more of a punch.


4 stars
A short and sweet story in a forest setting

Take A Hike! is a very short visual novel by Jane Titor about three teenagers with botanically inspired names (Olive, Sage, and Heather) and their experiences during a hike in the woods. All are part of an outdoor education class led by a young teacher named Miss Yarrow. After Sage separates from the group, Olive runs after her to ensure she doesn’t get lost, and the two are soon joined by Heather.

This is a kinetic visual novel, meaning that you don’t get to make any choices. Or, as the game’s description puts it: “Follow three stressed-out teens on a journey full of bickering, mosquitoes, and self-discovery.”

Screenshot from the game showing the characters Olive and Sage in front of a forest background; they are discussing Miss Yarrow
The game includes only small amounts of original art, but the sprite assets by DejiNyucu are used to good effect throughout. (Credit: Jane Titor / DejiNyucu. Fair use.)

It’s a romantic story that doesn’t quite go where you might think it will. The writing is good, with a couple of moments that had me laugh out loud (especially the scenes with Miss Yarrow, the true heroine of this game). Take A Hike! is only about 30 minutes long; it’s $3.50 at full price, but if you have bought the Bundle for Palestinian Aid, you already own it. I enjoyed the hike, and only regretted that I didn’t get to spend more time with these characters.