I Think The Waves Are Watching Me

Here's a game that could be described as "Werewolf Deluxe". We're trapped on an island surrounded by mysterious standing waves. There's a large crowd of other characters scattered over the various island locations (I didn't count, and I'm not sure I saw all of them anyway) of whom one is a serial killer; each murder is accompanied by a lightning strike (so if you see a lightning strike, you know the people you can see must be innocent) and each character has three random traits. Over the course of the game, you have to learn the traits of the killer, and learn enough about the characters around you to match the right character to the killer's profile.

The characters aren't given much of anything in the way of characterisation. They're all cyphers, and given the nature of the game, it is probably unreasonable to expect all of them to be drawn out in three dimensions. Their traits range from what should be obvious at first glance and what should require more than a brief interaction to suss out. These, too, are essentially meaningless cyphers, and do not affect NPC behaviour. The whole game is well and truly a game more than it is a story about these people -- they exist solely for the purpose of the puzzle. The location descriptions show more character, though.

The only question is, was this fun? Well, keeping track of all the characters was a bit of a headache, but one I'm quite willing to accept as a fundamental part of the game. I guess I just happen to like puzzles of this sort, though I suspect I might be in the minority here. I would have really liked it if a complete list of all the NPCs was provided.

Identifying the murderer seems to end the game with questions still left unanswered. I wonder if perhaps there might be something else I'm missing, some other goal I should be working toward. I guess I should be trying to figure out why this utterly unnatural state of affairs exists in the first place, but I haven't the foggiest notion of how to even begin.

If this were breakfast, it would be an unusually large waffle, with butter and jam to spread on it -- syrup would have been too easy, obviously. There's a slightly fishy aftertaste in the black coffee, and that's a complete mystery to me.