Subsurface Circular comes from Mike Bithell of Thomas Was Alone. Dialogue is often my favorite part of a role-playing game; it's where good writing shows through and where interaction can have consequences beyond the mechanical. So when Subsurface Circular strips everything down to conversations on a train, I'm intrigued. The socially-conscious, speculative science-fiction makes for a really interesting setting, much better-written than that of Thomas Was Alone. But like Thomas Was Alone it squanders some potential. Because the game is short, most of the dialogue sets up for the only interaction that has any consequence. The creators seem to have felt that didn't justify it being a game, so there are laughably easy informational and point-and-click-like puzzles. That final interaction is a jarringly abrupt raising of stakes, and it probably didn't need to be.