I'm totally copy-pasting some of the things I just said about this game at Intuition's own forums, but give it look.
- I like the art. It's simple, distinguishable, and definitely reminds me of Bauhaus graphic design. I wonder if there's something behind that? Bauhaus' 1920's Germany was no stranger to mob mentality, after all: that led to the Nazi party gaining power, and that led to the shutting down of Bauhaus. A game about conflict set to a nigh-WW2 art style, hmm? Intentional or not, that's a cool connection that didn't occur to me until now.
- I really like that diplomacy via argument is achieved by literally reaching the middle ground -- argue too heavily or too lightly and neither party gets anything out of it. A pretty ingenious design, I'd say. I'm also glad that the sides switched quicker each time so it didn't get too tedious. (That said, I think the first phase would benefit from being 2 or 3 arguments shorter)
- I also like how this mechanic is subverted in the last section: the middle ground is now worthless. As a player, you can't tell at first if you're just doing it wrong, or if it really is impossible to succeed. Even with the emotionless graphics, I felt just as lost as my little gray guy. Thanks for not dragging this portion out, too - it could have become frustrating to fail too often, but it didn't.
- I don't like the flatness of the ambient noise. I feel like the scenario was portraying more energy and action than the sounds gave credit to. Also, I really would have liked a change in background sound over the course of the game's phases, even if slight. The white and black mobs could each have their own distinct tone or pattern and the game's sounds would inevitably rock back and forth; or the single overall tone could change the farther the player progresses, culminating in either an extremely flat or extremely chaotic sound when you're Gray. Instead, the sound just stays th same. And that's pretty drab with so much else going on.
Good stuff. What I think this game really achieves is that it says
something in a way that's open-ended yet not opaque. What's happening to the characters is very clear; the rest is just a matter of how you interpret that. I really appreciate that this game went out on a limb to accomplish that.