What a great start the god of random things gave me: a Christian tale. God is always planning good things for this atheist of yours.

Lost Sheep by Ben Pennington
When I saw the title in the list I immediately thought “Lost Pig parody?” But then came the ABOUT section. And then I found it to be part of The Bible Retold series. And then the author's email is celestianpower at something. And then I'm scared. And then I thought to myself I really had to try liking this game, because everything in me will try to dislike it, I'm sure. But then I played it.

Spoiler-not-free review follows this nice picture.
Picture
A nice sulfur rich pool in Terra Nostra, Azores, Portugal.
Lost Sheep is an IF take on the Parable of the Lost Sheep, but it doesn't dwell into the realms of evangelism or religion or theology - or anything at all, to be honest. In fact, skip the about section, and you're left with a very basic story about a shepherd who looses a sheep and goes after it. Then he chases the sheep until it can't run anymore. Then he picks it up. Then it's over.

A short game. A linear game. Not a story, a task maybe. The prose is bare and neutral, with a few typos, but nothing to mention it from. No implementation problems because there's almost nothing to implement. The puzzles feel natural, but the solutions don't. The AMUSING suggestions give you some mildly funny situations, at best, but mainly pieces of prose just as neutral as the rest.

In short, Lost Sheep is neither a rotten or a tasty soup, it's a plain glass of water.



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