I just now finished the game and here are my thoughts:
Books are just words, right? Movies are just single frames played really fast, right? AGS games are just a bunch of rooms and objects, characters, and whatever tied together by some code, right?
We all know how each works, especially AGS, but sometimes....and only sometimes in a very long while...somebody manages to combine the words in a book, the frames of a movie, or the structure of AGS in just the right way to create magic...
The magic where the reader/viewer/player starts to forget the interface of words/images/game and makes the jump from their everyday reality into the world that the author has created for them...
This game falls solidly into the category of such magic...
The story, characters, gameplay, mystery, intrigue of this game just grabbed me instantly by the short and curlies and propelled me forwards. There was never a moment when I lost interest in knowing what the story was going to throw my way next...
And the puzzles: OMG BRILLIANT!!! Foreshadowing and logic used perfectly in almost every case!!!
All this being said: The game does need just a bit more polishing before it could be a sellable commercial release, but not that much: There are a lot of missing interactions (easily solved in a day or two) and one puzzle in particular needs just an extra nudge...
SPOILER ALERT:
Yeah...it's the Oasis movie in the movie title game...Just a nudge more and it wouldn't have had to resort to hints, but Shadow1000 was right when he mentioned that the puzzle broke the rules of the word game you were supposed to be playing. There is no way to know that the character will say the FULL name of the movie when you select the Oasis option...I understand that this is a big part of the puzzle instead of just making it a simple word game...But this needs a bit more foreshadowing somehow...I know that it's on the poster but the game teaches the player that observing the posters will add them to the list they can choose from...Maybe another case earlier on in the puzzle where the full title was not included in the list but the character said the full title when it was selected as a foreshadowing hint? I dunno...
The only other thing that broke my immersion a bit was:
SPOILER ALERT:
The floating lantern in the mines. I know it's a lot of work and very fiddly to get just right but if the character walkcycle could be tweaked just right to make it look like she was carrying the lantern seamlessly then this segment of the game would be very atmospheric and mysterious instead of looking (sorry) just a little bit silly...
I feel that if just a few issues were tweaked then you already have a potential commercial release on your hands right then...I would already pay $5 or so to play this game, but I would probably dish out $8 or more if just a little more polishing was done...
I am going to use this write-up to comment on the game and also put it up for pick of the month...
And also I think we will be seeing the game at the AGS Awards next year...
MAGIC!!!