As a sequel, “Shanidar” jumps into its story without much introduction. I've never needed a *dramatis personae* list at the front of a piece so much - and there is one, that I missed! If you haven't played yet, be sure to click the Cast of Characters link on the title page, and perhaps screenshot it for reference. I'd recommend funneling all readers through this cast list.
In my own play I counted nineteen named characters, and it's difficult to make sense of the story without keeping track of which ones are Neanderthals and which are Cro-Magnon (also one is a dog and one is a doll); which are part of the separate tribes and which are members of the mixed-culture family traveling together; and the relationships between individuals. The characters are often referred to by name in a way that assumes the reader will know the above details; and text can be dense with lists of persons Having missed the cast list, I kept careful notes on the characters while reading, and still found myself occasionally lost.
There's a fascinating choice architecture here - although the text says the reader is Haizea, the actual choices presented put the reader in more of an editorial role, deciding which characters to cut to next. And the choices often omit context, in a way that pushes us to follow our curiosity. For example, here's the choices we're given to begin the story:
- Haizea leads Eneko, Esti and Oihana through the forest.
- Alasne and Xuxa awaken.
- Uda returns to the Neanderthal camp.
The opening text does explain who the four characters in the first option are, but it says nothing about the other three! And note, it feels like all three of these things happen, no matter what we choose - it's just a question of where to point our camera. If I follow *Uda returns to the Neanderthal camp* we get get a brief intro to the injured Uda and learn that his goal is to find his son, Eneko. In another game, we might expect to guide Uda for at least a few turns. But instead, our choices are:
- The mammoth hunters return to their camp.
- Eneko drops the doll.
- Alasne and Xuxa go into the forest.
So we're forced to cut away, but might naturally follow Eneko since we now know how he's connected to Uda. Also, notice that Alasne and Xuxa's adventure has proceeded without us! Hypothesis: There are multiple stories advancing in “real time” and we're jumping back and forth between them. That's neat! Let's follow *Eneko drops the doll* back to a brief passage that ends in these choices:
- Your group is being followed.
- Alasne and Xuxa awaken.
Hypothesis refuted! The first choice looks like it will stay with the current thread, and the second seems to take Alasne and Xuxa back in time. Now I feel more like I'm navigating a maze of vignettes, which I might not encounter chronologically. In fact, it turns out there are cycles in this graph, and you can return to moments that you've seen before. This gets even weirder in the second act when second-person language becomes much more prominent (because Haizea is more present) creating this split sense that I *should* be guiding the characters towards something, but also that I shouldn't worry too much about directing the story. (I also realize this is a funny thing to complain about, since my entry last year was very loose about tying choices back to characters. But I suspect it's more difficult to do this well with a large cast.)
All told, I struggled a lot with the first act. I'm not sure exactly how to fix this. I kind of wished for a more constrained prologue before the whole cast was introduced.
That said, by the second act I was enjoying the story quite a bit more. With the characters a bit more established and the stakes clearer as well, it was easier to sit back and experience something that reminds me of the IMAX films at the local science center. It's rare to get this much of an ensemble cast in IF, and it lends a different kind of satisfaction to see the group reach their destination after various misadventures. While there are details that seemed odd to me (The Magnon elder gives a fairly competent description of evolution?) overall the story is well-constructed, the setting and characters memorable, and the presentation very polished. There are lots of illustrations that add personality to the work. I mostly wanted to turn the sound off, but that's a personal preference. And to its credit, this feels very different from most IF I've played, so that's neat. Thank you for sharing Cecilia!