Planetfall criticism (*spoilers*)

[gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk (Gareth Rees)]

PLANETFALL REVIEW *** major spoilers ***
-----------------

This has to be the worst Infocom game I've played yet - but on the other hand
it was Steve Meretsky's first game (written in 1983) and he was clearly 
learning his trade (and future developments suggested that he needs a 
collaborator to write his best games).

Although the game has a consistent atmosphere and a couple of excellent
set-piece scenes (in particular the first Bio-Room puzzle), the scenes 
occur very late in the game and the early sections are distinctly
lacking in those elements which turn a game into a story and which provide
motivation for the player.  The lack of motivation is further exacerbated 
because Meretsky substitutes tedium and confusion for inventive puzzles.

I ought to point out that my dislike of Planetfall arises from a difference 
of taste, rather than from any objective judgement, but I have a strong
feeling that adventure games should be more than mere sliding-block
puzzles, that they should combine inventive and fun puzzle-solving with 
plot, character and storytelling.  Requiring the player to exercise 
drudgery rather than thought in the solution of the game seems to me 
to be a waste of an opportunity.

OK, you want evidence?  Spoilers follow, please exercise care if you
haven't played the game and don't want solutions to puzzles given away.

Planetfall creates confusion by

(1) a large number of red herrings.  A number of these are extremely
    elaborate: for example there is a helicopter whose control panel
    is locked; an information tape reveals that the key to the panel is
    in the transportation storage room; but this room is dark and
    you cannot find objects in it; however there is a lamp in the radiation
    room but you cannot enter the radiation room and survive unless you
    are wearing a radiation suit; however there is no radiation suit and all
    of these rooms and objects are irrelevent to the game.

    Yes, very clever.  But there's also a prologue section with five
    locations and two characters all of which is irrelevent (the best
    strategy is to type WAIT eight times, at which point the game starts);
    there's a nuclear reactor with stairs (dark) and a lift (to which you
    do not have the access card); a can of spam and eggs for which
    there is no can-opener; a broken robot which you cannot repair 
    (although it is hinted that you can); locked cupboards which cannot
    be opened; a good number of useless objects (megafuses, scrubbing
    brush, towel, id card, oil can, etc); and so on.

(2) providing a large number of portable objects (around 40).

(3) rendering all books, signs etc in an initially cute but ultimately
    infuriating phoentic spelling:

    "Xis stuneeng vuu uf xee Kalamontee Valee kuvurz oovur foortee skwaar 
    miilz uf xat faamus tuurist spot" (etc)

and it creates tedium by

(4) imposing a small limit on the amount that can be carried (about 6
    objects, depending on weight), forcing the player to go back and forth
    a lot transporting objects around - and the prescence of the red
    herring objects makes it very unclear which objects are likely to be 
    needed at which point.

(5) making the transportation systems available to the player operate
    by access card (so that you have to type 'SLIDE THE UPPER ELEVATOR
    ACCESS CARD THROUGH THE SLOT. PRESS THE UP BUTTON' every time you want 
    to use the upper elevator (oh! for a macro facility).  A more
    considerate game would, assuming you has solved the elevator problem 
    at least once before, allow you to enter the elevator and type 'UP'
    whereupon the game would say: '(I assume you mean: press the up
    button) (sliding the upper elevator access card through the slot first)'
    The elevator gratuitously takes five turns to reach its destination.

(6) having two large sections of the game which are separated by about 
    40 moves with corresponding annoyance if you have left important 
    objects behind in the other section.

(7) requiring the player to sleep very frequently (every 50 moves between
    locations or so), and to eat and drink twice every day or else die of 
    thirst and hunger (this is not only tedious, it's ridiculously 
    unrealistic) and requiring the player to travel to particular locations 
    (quite far from the action) in order to eat and sleep.

(8) including a puzzle which, though easy to understand, can take up to 150
    turns to solve.  This is the comunications room puzzle, which requires 
    the player to observe a coloured light in the communications room, 
    travel to another room to get the chemical indicated by the light, 
    return to the communications room and pour the chemical into the funnel - 
    possibly as many as five times.

(9) failing to include a variety of puzzle types.  Almost all the puzzles are
    of the experimentation type: they present the player with an array of
    coloured buttons or similar controls, and require the player to 
    experiment with the controls to find out what they do.  This makes the
    game rather bland for my taste.

Comments, anyone?

-- 
Gareth Rees <gdr11@phx.cam.ac.uk>