Ergon/Logos is a) quick, and b) so cool you must play it at once. If "play" is the right word: It is, when you come down to it, a surreal, poetic hypertext implemented as an action game, if "game" is the word, too.
Hypertext fiction is not intended to be action-driven, of course, which is one reason why this is so weird and original a thing.
Text scrolls by, and then there's a branch; you mouseover the branch you want to follow. The product is the sort of just-out-of-the-reach-of-comprehensibility prose that Braid, say, offers; yet Ergon/Logos seems a cogent commentary, somehow, on the tropes of the action game while implementing none of them. Visually stark, and with slightly disturbing music that seems like minimalist jazz.
It's also an entry into the current Experimental Gameplay Project challenge, the theme of which is "bare minimum". Interestingly, Pedercini's previous EGP game was "not official," while this one is; perhaps they were impressed enough with Kosmosis to invite him in.
Possible spoilers, but possibly not:
I found on several occasions that I was unable to get the game to choose the path I wanted. Is it just my machine being crotchety, or does the game sometimes ignore your input?
I thought so too at the
I thought so too at the beginning but now I think it's more likely that you were too late to choose so the game chose for you. There's another possibility for what happened to you: The paths are directional, so maybe you were trying to choose a path that ended at that intersection when you can only choose paths that start at a given itersection.
Very neat. I liked the
Very neat. I liked the relentless pace - that you have no time to think about your action and yet the consequences of your choice (or lack of it) are clear. And the music is nicely disturbing too.
I must agree. It picks a
I must agree. It picks a theme and nails it perfectly. Its length is good too probably, but after playing it a dozen times to explore all possibilities I'm still left craving for more!