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| Downloading these games was like
opening presents on Christmas morning. I've been waiting for the chance to vote in a fall
comp, and my day has finally come. One important thing I have learned
this year is that there is a good reason why beta-testers should not
vote for games they tested. They're too good. Example: I like to ask
NPCs lots of questions, and if I beta-test a game, and give a list of
topics to the author, and the author adds all of them, then my entire
list is fulfilled. Now, every last thing I could think to ask the NPCs
is already in the game. It's almost as if the game has been tailored
to my preferences, so of course I would score it highly. And, of
course, beta-testers get the chance to see all of the good stuff. It
doesn't help that the two games I tested were two of the best!
Last year, it was offices, this year, bedrooms. Eleven (yes, 11) games, by my count, begin in a bedroom. The PC's bedroom, usually. This gets old. There is also a lot of transportation to magical worlds, but that doesn't wear on me as quickly. It seems normal for the format. So, I'm using the WABE scoring system, and I've had to make a few changes. The biggest change is a -2 instead of a -4 for not being able to finish: the penalty was just too harsh. I've also used half-points, which makes me wonder why I bothered cutting the scale down to five in the first place. Ah, well, fine-tuning is needed. I round off to the nearest integer, and .5 rounds to 1. The breakdown ends up something like this: 9-10 are truly fun and/or impressive games, 8 is a lot of fun, 7 is a decent, competent game, 6 is an okay game with some problems, 5 is a weak attempt, 4 is a bad but playable game, and 3 is unplayable. This is an improvement over last year, where the scores were much more compressed. Final note: I notice that I generalize more in these reviews than I did last year, and don't mention so many specific bugs and grammar problems. Just thought I'd mention it. And now for the list:
For those who like this sort of thing, I also have a table showing the scores in each category for all 30 games at a glance. Games are reviewed here in the order that I played them -- er, mostly. I had to skip a few and come back to them for technical reasons. Random order generation thanks to Comp03.z5, by Lucian P. Smith. The RecruitMike Sousa, TADS2Thanks to a few technical difficulties with other games, this came
up as my first game of the Comp. So, yay! A game I can actually play!
The idea is rather interesting: the game centers around a company that
is testing a "real life interactive gaming simulacra" -- in
other words, they have built a life-size gaming environment for
adventurers. You play the part of a hired tester: someone to go
through the environment and see how well it's put together. This is
slightly odd, because in reality I was sitting at my computer, but the
PC was walking through the real-life environment, and well, it’ll
hurt your brain if you think about it too hard. It's a pretty small environment to explore, with only one
"puzzle" of each type (which they have coded into different
colored rooms), but it's just the right size for the IF Comp. The real
beauty is in all the extras. Sweet, sweet extras. For instance, what
appears to be the entire text of the 2002 XYZZY Award Ceremony is
"hidden" in the game (one of the NPCs is watching it on TV),
and you can stick around and see the whole thing if you want. That’s
fantastic. There's also a golden retriever named Genie who is quite
attentive. The randomly-selected names for the PC (based on your
gender choice, should you care to provide one) are names of people in
the IF community -- probably taken from the XYZZY transcript. But my
name was in there, and therefore I think it was way cool. The puzzles themselves are a mixed bag: the orange room is quite
good, as puzzles go, and so is the "meta-puzzle" of figuring
out what your goal is, which makes the red room a breeze. The green
room hardly counts as a puzzle (but that's intended) and the purple
room is, well, almost fiendish but not really. It's one of those that
turned out to be simpler than it appeared (which, again, was
intended). With the puzzles being such a major part of the game, it's
hard to say too much about them, but they seem to do exactly what was
intended of them. :) Vague enough for you? The text of the game was actually written by more than one person,
although it wasn't obvious to me when the changeovers occurred, which
is a good thing. The style differences did help to make the world feel
more textured, with different flavors of writing that seemed to match
the different-colored rooms. There were just a few punctuation and
spelling mistakes, and I had a difficult time getting the layout of
the "end of the hallway" correct in my head, but that was
through no fault of the game. Overall, I liked it quite a lot. The Recruit is mostly interesting,
a touch whimsical, and a tiny bit nonsensical. I liked Fred, I loved
the dog, and I laughed at several funny lines in the text. And I
always like to see plenty of in-game extras like "credits,"
"about," good hints, and the wonderful "amusing"
things to try after winning. This game is a great game for the Comp. Writing/story: There is a basic story, which does its job in
holding the game together; the writing is fine; and there are a few
errors, making this a 3. Appeal/likeability: Certainly nothing to dislike, but nothing to
thrill you either. A good solid 3. Bugginess/mechanics: One or two missing synonyms, a single bug that
I saw, and quite a lot of things handled well by the parser. 4. Entertainment/fun: There was some fun involved, especially solving the
light puzzle, but overall it was just the fun of playing a game, and
nothing special. Puzzles are fine, but not especially innovative, and
hints are available, but not awfully adaptive. A bit of in-game humor,
but mostly it's just there. Okay, the "green chair" song
makes up for quite a bit of lost time -- we'll bump it up to a 3.5.
[Did I mention I changed some things in my scoring system? I've
decided to allow for half-points.] Composite score: (3+3+4+3.5)/2 = 6.75 (7) -- A fine way of passing some time, with puzzles that will be most satisfying if you solve them yourself. Sweet DreamsPapillon, WindowsMy experience with this game can best be described as a series of,
well, unconventional problems. The underlying, most fundamental
problem is that this game is not a text adventure. My definition of
“interactive fiction” is a pretty broad one, but this game does
not fall into it. It’s a graphic adventure game, in which you
control your character with arrow keys and mouse clicks. I considered
throwing it right out, maybe giving it a 1 in the process, but I
thought I’d go ahead and play it to see how it went. I promptly ran
into some problems of a more technical nature. Technical problem #1: Missing text. I thought I needed to do
something to the window the game appeared in, because the characters’
speech bubbles were getting cut off, and I couldn’t read all the
text. I know this isn’t a text adventure, but by golly, I wanted to
read every word of what little text there was. Eventually I gave up on
that. I hated not being able to see all of what was said, but I just
couldn’t find a way around it. Technical problem #2: Missing mouse. I had no mouse cursor on the
screen. Trying to use the keyboard for movement instead proved
difficult to control or buggy, or both. So, with no mouse, I was
forced to give up. Technical problem #3: Finally, I got a mouse cursor and managed to
move my character around (although the walking around part is a bit
buggy, as the author mentions, and here buggy means frustrating). But
I had only moved about on the upstairs level (the game takes place in
a girls’ dorm) when I was suddenly transported to the basement,
where the Bad Guy outlined his Evil Plan. With nothing else to do in
the basement, I went up to the main floor. The basement closed behind
me and I couldn’t open the door to get back down. But there was
nothing left in the rest of the house, since the action was supposed
to be in the basement! This was a bug that led to an unwinnable state,
bad in any game. Speaking of things that are bad in any game, Sweet Dreams has its
share of unimplemented objects, flat NPCs, unreasonable restrictions
on object interactions, and requiring the player to take the same
action several times before producing results. And unlike other games
with technical difficulties, the puzzles are probably the best aspect
of the game. You play Amy, a teenage boarding school student, who is out in the
halls after hours when she discovers Something is Afoot. Amy then goes
on a short, odd quest to save her friend. Well done, Amy. The plot is
simple, the setting is nice enough, and the puzzles are pretty
straightforward. I still would rather have hints than no hints,
though, especially for the optional puzzles that I missed on the first
go-round. One of the puzzles would have been difficult to implement or
solve in a more conventional work of IF (you know, the kind that use
text to describe things) -- here I refer to the color-coded bridge.
But the others could easily have been words rather than pictures. I would have nothing at all against this game if it were a real
text adventure, although it might be a bit bland. If I were to play
graphical adventures as part of this hobby, I might even like this one
-- it looks like an impressive feat of programming (to me, anyway).
But I’m not. I’m in this for the text, and Sweet Dreams doesn’t
satisfy. Without a parser, where am I to try XYZZY? Writing/story: There’s so little writing, and the dialogue that
exists is not earth-shattering. The story is fine, but the lack of
text makes this a 2. Appeal/likeability: Is Amy supposed to be an emerging lesbian? The
fact that the game was graphics instead of text is a serious
disadvantage, making this category a 1. Bugginess/mechanics: Well, there was a serious bug, and there’s
no parser at all. There’s a lot you can’t do, and even examining
things doesn’t always work. Still, you can play through to the end
if you try hard enough. 2. Entertainment/fun: It comes close to mild entertainment, but doesn’t
quite make it. It’s cute, sure, but there’s no humor or cleverness
that I could find, and no hints. 2. Composite score: (2+1+2+2)/2 = 3.5 (4) Sophie's AdventureDavid Whyld, ADRIFTOkay, I got the ADRIFT thing going for me. This game starts off
wonderfully enough: you play Sophie, a young girl in a normal-seeming
house (which eerily reminds me of the house in Harry Hol's entry in
IntroComp 2003). Then, dwarves come by and explain that you are the
Chosen (tm) and must come with them to Save Their World. This is
excellent. The game begins in such an intense, funny way that I was
almost reminded of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The difference is Adams keeps up the pace, where Sophie's Adventure
drops you off in a vast, plain landscape with a single dwarf and says,
"Get to it -- I haven't got all day," though not in so many
words. Actually, the problem was that I didn't have all day. The
purported goal was to get to a certain tower. Well, I managed to do
that, finally, with some interesting puzzles in a small medieval-type
town, but the game wasn't over. In fact, that's when the oddness
really started. The glitches started too -- I arrived at the tower
with Randle the dwarf in tow, only to be informed that Randle and
three other dwarves had already showed up at the tower. There were
also nouns that weren't implemented, and tons of possible actions not
accounted for. Speaking of actions not accounted for, the game seems to have an
odd way of getting NPCs to do things. In order to have your dwarf
companion attack, you must first try to do it. But the command
"kill man" gives a response in which you turn to your dwarf
companion and incite him to violence! That wasn't what I said to do.
Similarly, throughout a large part of the game, when I came across a
dead body I tried "x body" or "search body" only
to be rebuffed. But later, there's one particular body that the
walkthrough (yes, I was using the walkthrough by now because I only
had about twenty minutes left and knew I wouldn't finish), anyway: the
walkthrough says "x body." I can accept that this is the one
body in the entire game that can be searched, but I wasn't prepared
for the actual response to the command. In the response, the dwarf
says, "Why don't you search it," and then the text describes
how I search it! Couldn't you at least let me type "search
body" and pretend that I have some control over the PC? Whew, sorry, got a bit carried away about that. It's not a bad
game. It's a large game, with lots of weird actions in the walkthrough
(including "get all," for which all I get are snarky
messages from the parser). It actually looks like a fun, massive world
to explore and adventure in, with talkable NPCs (in town, anyway), and
quite a number of different ways to solve problems. I would probably
enjoy spending a lot of time getting to know the rest of this game, if
I accepted the lack of synonyms and verbs. The first part, anyway, is
the most complete, and since that's what I saw, that's what gets
judged. Writing/story: I like it. I'm impressed by the size of the world,
even if it was only as big as I saw. I found about one spelling error,
amazing for the amount of text I read. But the quality of the text
faltered the closer I got to my two-hour limit. The room descriptions
themselves were going on as strong and well-written as ever, but you
got things like "Also here is the Torrow Crystal" tagged on
to the end. Um, the Torrow Crystal is the very thing that will allow
me to save the tower and my trapped dwarven friends! You'd think I
would be excited, or there would at least be an interesting
description of it the first time I saw it. Anyway, the game is still
strong in this category: 4. Appeal/likeability: Nothing to excite hugely. I started off liking
it a lot, but it faded fast, especially after the whole episode with
Shamuel. 3. Bugginess/mechanics: Plenty of missing synonyms, a few bugs, some
problems getting things across to the parser, and a very strange
tendency to have names (of NPCs and items) showing up in the text
before I found them out for myself. For instance, you walk into a
store for the first time ever (and you know it's the first time
because you're a little girl from another world) only to get this:
"Mr. Jones, the storekeeper, is here." And I don't think
everyone in the world was wearing nametags. A very sure 3 for
bugginess. Entertainment/fun: Quite a few funny bits to start out, especially in
descriptions and other text. There were no hints, but there was a
walkthrough. And the puzzles that I saw were mostly good. I made it
quite a ways without hints, after all. Plus, there was help available
from NPCs in-game, which makes up for the lack of hints somewhat. 4. Special: Because I didn't finish the game in the two-hour judging
limit, -2 points. [Yes, this used to be -4, but that turned out to be
too harsh. This now has the effect of knocking down the final score by
one full point, instead of two, which was craziness.] BalutharChris Molloy Wischer, Z-codeBaluthar is a strangely emotional and moving cave crawl. Okay, maybe it's not quite a cave crawl, but you do go adventuring in tunnels and darkness. The key here is that the player stays immersed in the game, even through the puzzles, and the tension only builds as the game progresses. You start in the bed of your small hut in the forest, and your son's nearby bed is empty. Apparently, he's been gone for about a week, but today is the day you rouse yourself from apathy and self-pity to find out what happened to him. Thus begins the adventure. The references throughout the beginning section about the nearby village, the alien invaders, and the missing wife are quite effective in setting up the world, giving the PC a reason for his apathy, and immersing the player in the role of the character. The description of the hut ends with this paragraph:
There is history here, and intense but dormant emotion. The taste of the air, the "limp" bead curtain, the classifying of events as before or after the Curse: these say a lot about the PC and his state of mind, better than a dozen "x me" responses could. So the participation is high to begin with. More impressive was the way the sense of immersion holds up as the PC travels underground, and solves a few puzzles. It helps that the "puzzles" don't come across as such: they are reasonable obstacles, and the PC is driven to piece things together so that he can find his son. They are also rather creepy. The darkness and strange happenings in the caves help you stay involved, too. I think that horror and suspense are the best two feelings for a game to have if player-involvement is the goal, if this game, Anchorhead, and last year's The Temple are any indication. Anyhow, I liked Baluthar. As for regular things people worry about when playing IF games, this one passes many hurdles well. There are hints, most things you want to do are understood, there are only a few missing synonyms, and I think it would have been good if "take all" was disabled, at least in the Forest location. There are also a number of times that a default response is given when a customized response might have been better, but when I think back on the way the game preserved the atmosphere it had going, I can't complain about default responses. The stuff that is customized is just so good, I'm greedy for more :) as in the following example: As your eyes are assaulted by the unsettling exhibition, your ears detect nothing but the constant sounds of the beetles: the murmuring drone of wings, the whisper of legs, and the occasional crunch as you move your feet. Mmm. Good stuff. Now to the numbers. Writing/story: Not bad, not bad at all. I found one spot where two
words were transposed. The story was pretty neat. 4. Appeal/likeability: Ahhh! Here's the best part of the game. I don't
know how, or why, or what I was thinking that made me so susceptible
to this game, but I was really into it, even if it was a tad short. 4. Bugginess/mechanics: A few too many defaults, as I mentioned, but
no obvious bugs or problems. "Put under" was understood. 4. Entertainment/fun: Oddly, the game was more moving than it was
entertaining. The puzzles seemed fine, the provided hints were gentle,
and genuinely helpful. They suggested things to do that helped me
figure out what else to try, without telling me outright what to do.
It seemed short, but actually the time just went by fast. 3. Composite score: (4+4+4+3)/2 = 7.5 (8) -- Solidly implemented. The Erudition ChamberDaniel Freas, TADS2What's "erudition" mean? Sophistication, intellect,
learning, scholarship, education. Okay, I can dig that. There's a thin curtain of story drawn across this puzzle game.
Actually, the story has some sizeable chunks of text attached to it,
and it's pretty believable. Basically, you are a young wizard being
tested. To determine which House you will study in, you are presented
with four puzzles that can each be solved in four different ways. The
different methods of solving puzzles are associated with four
different schools of thought: the Warrior, who uses brawn to solve
problems; the Alchemist, who changes his situation to suit him; the
Artisan, who manipulates the machinery of the world; and the Seer, who
uses wisdom and insight to make her way. As you progress through the
puzzles, the manner in which you choose to overcome obstacles will
show which of the four philosophies suit you best. Replay is
apparently encouraged by the author, and the solution file has all
four solutions to each of the four problems. Your "score" is
just a count of how many of the four puzzles were solved in which
manner. This is a wonderful idea for a game, and The Erudition Chamber does
it as well as could be hoped -- which is to say, fantastically.
Surprisingly, there is not much overlap between the different methods
of solving the four problems, and it's hard to argue with the author's
classification of each solution into its philosophy. Most importantly,
it is a heck of a lot of fun to play through it several times: first,
I played to see which philosophy fit me best (Seer 2, Artisan 2,
though one of those Artisan points should have been Alchemist, see
below); then I played through to see what other solutions came to mind
(Artisan 4); then I went through actively looking for the Warrior and
Alchemist solutions to problems (ended up with Seer 4); and then I
turned to the hints for help for a few more playthroughs. The last
time I played through to get one point in each different approach. And
it was fun! It's a bit of meta-game thinking, but it's all part of the
fun that The Erudition Chamber was built for. My only complaint was the final puzzle had a bit of specific
wording needed to get the Alchemist solution (I tried it the
first time, but couldn't get the syntax right, so ended up going with
the Artisan method). Anyhow, this is a game worth playing. It's short to play through
once, and even playing through multiple times took far less than two
hours. It's an ambitious and successful attempt to explore how you
solve puzzles and what the other options might be. Heck, it could be
that this philosophy-classification system becomes the standard for
talking about different types of puzzles: "Yeah, this game is
mostly full of Artisan type puzzles, but there are a few where you'll
need the Warrior approach." Writing/story: I like it. There was one typo in the first room
description -- chisled -- and one more later on, but the set-up for
the puzzle game is a good one. The writing is generally solid. This is
either a 4 or a very high 3. Thus the need for half-points is
demonstrated once again: 3.5. Appeal/likeability: Hm, not a lot. I mean, it was FUN, but that's a
different category. I didn't feel awfully immersed in the character or
anything, but it wasn't bad either. A good 3. Bugginess/mechanics: One major problem, but really a lot of things
were taken into account here. Extra effort in coding was noticeable.
4. Entertainment/fun: This is where The Erudition Chamber shines! What
fun! And all sorts of ways to solve puzzles! And it keeps track! And
they were all solvable by hand one way or another without hints, and
there were still hints so that you could solve them however you
wanted! 5. Composite score: (3.5+3+4+5)/2 = 7.75 (8) GourmetAaraon A. Reed, Z-codeAny game that bills itself as having "wily crustaceans" has a lot to live up to, but Gourmet does it with ease. The introductory text throws you directly into the world of culinary management (and I really can't sum up the point of the game any better than this first paragraph of the intro does): Well, this is it. Two years of chef school, five of apprenticeship, a lifetime of good taste and now, a week after the grand opening of your first five-star restaurant, an anonymous tipster has told you that Vera Davenport, the most important living culinary reviewer, has chosen this afternoon to critique your establishment. You make a quick mental readiness check and decide that, all in all, things couldn't be worse. This is an excellent premise for a game. This is what IF is all about: you are given a setting, a character, and a problem, and somehow you must use your wits and anything you can find handy to navigate the obstacles successfully. Bliss. Well, maybe not bliss -- Gourmet is rough in one or two spots, and figuring out how to use the pneumatic food delivery system is no mean feat. Everything that can go wrong does, and they are just the sort of problems you would expect in this situation. You're short-handed, the restaurant isn't at its tidiest, you have a minor medical emergency, and the lobster that Mrs. Davenport has ordered for her meal is -- gasp! -- missing from its tank! While I wouldn't tackle this one without hints, solving the puzzles and getting everything just so is a fun ride. It would make a good movie, along the lines of Home Alone or perhaps a more grown-up Disney flick. Things that might seem key in other games are given a casual air here: it keeps track of your score, but the maximum number of points is made unimportant. Searching through the piles of papers for information is put aside for a later date. But things like your chef's hat and the quality of the vegetables that go into the soup are treated as monumental. This serves two purposes: first, it draws a distinct line between a traditional collect-the-treasures game, and second, it gives Gourmet its own charming personality. In its efforts to make the actual cooking simple, the game shows some flaws. For instance, there are several types of tealeaves in the cupboard, but the game prevents you from taking any down directly. Instead, it prompts you to find the teacup, which you can then use to just "serve tea" as the do-it-all-for-me verb. The few instances of this sort of thing are not nearly enough to spoil the mood. Unfortunately, we also get a few unfinished bits such as "In table four is a teacup," which appear to be a result of the way the different tables are implemented. You "approach" them, which seems to be implemented as entering a container, so that all the tables are containers. That's a fine way to do it, but it makes overriding the default descriptions and "initial" descriptions pretty important. Still, while Gourmet could use a few touch-ups, it's great fun overall. The hints were available only on a website, which caused me some headaches, but the idea is such a fantastic one, and the writing so effective, I forgive the puzzle difficulties. Writing/story: In looking over my scoring system, I see that a 5 is only to be given for "no mistakes" in the text, but screw that. This game deserves a 5 in this category if ever a game did. In fact, it could be the example of a 5 game that gets high marks even with a few typos. The writing draws me in, it is very high-quality, and the story is interesting and compelling. What more is there to ask for? Appeal/likeability: Pretty good. The bloody fingertip was risky, but it worked. I really liked it, and while the game wasn't emotional or moving, I was pretty involved in the character and really wanted my restaurant to survive! 4. Bugginess/mechanics: This would be the game's weak point. Lots of missing items, or things not implemented well enough, but then, there was a lot of stuff taken into account, too. A few spots where the spacing/formatting of text was messed up. 3. Entertainment/fun: High. Actually, the lobster could have been a bit more entertaining, but it was pretty good as it was. Mostly good puzzles, some funny bits, and the game was fun enough that I was driven to the website to get the hints so I could play it out. This could have been a 5 if a few wrinkles were smoothed out, but it still earns a 4.5. Composite score: (5+4+3+4.5)/2 = 8.25 (8) Cerulean StowawayRoger Descheneaux, TADS2Game-stopping bug at 7 out of 161 points and 30 minutes. I am torn. Apparently it has something to do with my interpreter, not the game, but this time it's a case of the interpreter being too modern for the game instead of vice versa. Finally, I decided to download the "new" version and play through as best as I could, and I will now review and score it. First, let me say that there are several reasons to include a walkthrough in a competition game, and Cerulean Stowaway demonstrates the first, oh, five or so. I'm sure there are reasons not to include a walkthrough in a Comp game; however, when an author does so, she takes a risk. In this case the author lost, because my experience with this game would have been much improved with a walkthrough. The hint system (if one can call it that) is not good enough to stand on its own. It's a good attempt, but its two main drawbacks are it doesn't prepare you for what puzzles are to come, and using it detracts from your score, which you can work around, but it just makes it that much more annoying. The setting is Earth, initially, and you are trying to stow away aboard the spaceship of the beneficent alien race (whose fan club you run). However, when you arrive at the mother ship, you find that things are Not As They Seem (tm). It's up to you to stop the slaughter and save the human race (ta-da!). It's a fun little set-up, and the game has a nice prologue where you are on your own on Earth, trying to get into the ship. However, at the moment of discovery, there is nothing in the text to suggest the PC is shocked, surprised, dismayed, or anything of the sort. In fact, it doesn't say a thing about it. You are confronted with *dead bodies,* and the game just leaves you, the player, to come to your own conclusions and supply your own emotion. On the one hand, that's okay, but on the other, it's not what I want out of a work of interactive fiction. Supply me some of the fiction. The intro text does such a great job of establishing the PC's character and driving force, that I want to see it fulfilled with the discovery of betrayal. Because of the bug, and fiddling with inventory while waiting in the hold of the ship (and more bugs there), I spent an hour of my judging time just to get to the alien ship, with 7 out of 161 points. Then, I was on the alien ship at last: with no clear objective in mind. Sure, there are dead bodies. Now what? Empty corridors, voices blocking one end, a single alien watching television at the other end, gave me no indication of my task. Am I to escape, to warn the people of Earth? Shall I blow up the ship, taking myself with them? Somehow turn the aliens against one another? Clearly, I needed to handle this problem once and for all. Eventually, by going through the hints, I was able to discover that my task was to kill off the aliens one at a time, in various convoluted ways. Hm. Not the best plan, I suppose, but it could suffice. Unfortunately, the location-based hints explain the individual steps needed to accomplish that location's goal, and nothing else. How helpful is "Find an alien, and get it to chase you here." How do I encounter one without first getting killed? How do I make it chase me? And that was just one of the steps. Another required "opening" an item found in the room. But you can't open it directly; you need some sort of tool. What tool? Nothing I had seemed likely. Where can that tool be found? Anyhow, I never got to a winning ending before the two hours was up. I am grateful that there was a generous amount of text in the losing ending, making me feel a bit better. Still, I would have liked to have seen how this one ended when you "won." I'll wait for my patience to rebuild, perhaps, and give it another go. Or maybe I'll just wait for the walkthrough to come out. Writing/story: Good: 4. Appeal/likeability: Nothing wrong with it, per se. There's a cool alien-y feel, and weirdness with robots. But the total break of player vs. PC when the Discoveries are going on drops this to a 3. Bugginess/mechanics: 2. Fatal error with workaround, some obvious stuff not implemented, and repeated (and repeated) frustration with the parser. This defines a 2. Entertainment/fun: I was thoroughly enjoying the first part of the game, and it was a ton of fun for a while, but then we got to the spacecraft: crash and burn. The puzzles on the ship are a pain, the hints aren't good enough for me, and worst of all: no walkthrough. 3. Special: -2 for being unfinishable. Composite score: (4+3+2+3-2)/2 = 5.0 (5) The Fat Lardo And The Rubber DuckySomebody, Z-codeOkay, let me pause to point something out. Up until this point, most of the games I have played were pretty good: I have three scores of 8, one 7, one 6 that would have been a 7 if it wasn't so long, and one 4 that was not really IF. The Comp looks like a pretty good one, right? But I'm seeing posts on rec.games.int-fiction bemoaning how bad the games are this year, and how some of them are offensive, and throughout, I just don't understand where they're coming from. Until I loaded up Fat Lardo. Heh, thought I, this is the one people are complaining about. So I played it with an eye for its flaws, looking at what it does and doesn't do. My assessment? Crude, stupid, asinine, but darn funny at times. There's a surprising amount of actions that are taken into account -- at least, the responses have been customized, even if they don't get you anywhere. And there's just something entertaining about a rubber ducky that says "Dude, where's my car?" (Let me say at this point that if you didn't hear the rubber ducky say that, or worse, if you didn't even know the rubber ducky could talk, then there is the possibility that you have not seen all this game has to offer.) Can I call it a game, though, really? Nah, but it still amuses. The premise is simple: the game has two characters in it, as described by the title, and you play one of them (hint: not the ducky). Sure, it's offensive, and the strong language tossed in at the start without warning is against my general guidelines on these things, but it's not that bad. I only regret the ultimate lack of closure to the game. If there's a way to end it without quitting, I never found it. The author speaks directly to the player/PC at times, which I usually find funny, and this game is no different except when the tone is insulting and offensive, which happens quite a bit. The "about" text (which isn't accessed by "about," just so you know) includes this gem: "What's the objective of this game?" I hear you say (well, I don't actually - it would be quite disturbing if I could, wouldn't it?). I would much prefer a game where the author's tone was consistently funny in this way, instead of going back and forth between humorous, and gratuitously abusive and vulgar, but hey, it's not my game. And speaking of objectives, there seems to be no real point to this one-room "adventure" except perhaps to explore rubber duckiness in all its glory. Once that pales, there's not much left for you to do. Writing/story: The writing is passable, since this is not the place to mark down for vulgarities, but there was no story or plot. Only a few typos, and no outright mistakes. The grammar is unconventional, but not flawed, if you see the difference. 2. Appeal/likeability: 1. Vulgar, obscene at times, and insulting. Not a 0, though. After all, I like South Park, and I can almost see a kindred spirit in Fat Lardo. Bugginess/mechanics: Well, this is an interesting one, because it doesn't seem to actually try to do much. Nevertheless, there is clear effort in covering lots of actions, even if you can't go anywhere, so this balances out to a 3 based on its restrictiveness. And I did find quite a few actions where the default responses were still in place, so it could have been more complete. Entertainment/fun: I found parts mildly entertaining. I've spent worse half-hours in my life. It would have been better if I'd had a soda or something, but that's hardly the game's fault. So it gets a 3: alternating from fun and entertaining to tedious and disgusting. The response to "pray" is worth it, and the duck talks, after all! Composite score: (2+1+3+3)/2 = 4.5 (5) little girl in the big worldPeter Wendrich, Windows or JavaFrom the game of Too Many Words In Its Title Capitalized, to the game with none at all. This one can be played in Windows, or as a Java program, which I guess is neat. The readme.txt file gets off to a bad start with several typos, including "3th" instead of 3rd, which makes me wonder about the author's native language (it's not English, so I feel better about that). Not that typos are such a bad thing, mind you -- I'm in the mood for Comp, and this one promises a touch of sweetness that I'm sorely lacking after the last game (Fat Lardo). The "little girl" of the title is named Alice, and you play her companion. Who you are, exactly, is some of the mystery of the game (all right, the only mystery), but I don't think it's spoilery to say that I was reminded of A Bear's Night Out. There are several things you can't do directly, so you have Alice do them. This is nice, and even nicer is that the game is set up to pass on most of those actions to Alice without you having to say so. Your tasks are simple: getting Alice out of bed and ready for her day. I'm afraid that's all there is. The readme hinted at side quests, but they never materialized. The dollhouse with missing dolls stays that way, and the rusty key is never used -- in fact, the game doesn't recognize the words "lock" or "unlock." Thankfully, though, the abbreviation "x" for "examine" was recognized. I must admit, for the home-made systems I've seen, this one seems to have a pretty nice parser. Hm, I seem to be complaining about technical issues, so let me praise some of the non-technical issues. This game has a great feel to it: innocent, fresh, full of possibilities. The hint system is called the "magic-helping-claw (tm) hint system!" Hee hee! If the game thinks you are having difficulty, it might spontaneously try to help you with comments in brackets. The response the first time you type "hint" begins with "Dear player," which is endearing (no pun intended). In a word, this game has a loveable attitude that I haven't seen yet in this Comp. I like it. I was all set to really like the game, too, until I got to the end. That's it? I thought. Unfortunately, yes. I was hoping to go on a quest, explore the attic, find out where the missing dolls had got off to (maybe they were being held prisoner?), that sort of thing, but all that happened was we got up, got dressed, and left the building. Oh, well. It is kind of neat how the score is kept with three different categories: naughty-points, entertainment points, and education points. I ended with none of the entertainment points, so I'm not sure how they're earned, but it's an interesting system nonetheless. Anyhow, to sum up: I wanted to like it, I did like the attitude and the feel of the game, but there just wasn't much of a game to it. More puzzles please! Writing/story: Serviceable, but lots of errors. This isn't quite a 2, but not as good as a 3, so 2.5 it is. Appeal/likeability: I'm seriously: I was all set to like this game, but it just couldn't excite me one way or the other. 3. Bugginess/mechanics: It was better than I thought it would be. There was still quite a bit of frustration with the parser, and a number of things that should have been implemented that weren't. 2. Entertainment/fun: Sigh. It was fun figuring out about me. It started off okay and ended up not fun. No humor, and only a few puzzles that didn't even seem like such. 2. Composite (2.5+3+2+2)/2 = 4.75 (5) -- It occurs to me: why am I bothering with half-points? Wouldn't it make more sense to just have a scale from 1-10, and then divide by four? The trouble I had last year with the 1-10 scales was that it's too fine a gradation, but now 1-5 seems inadequate. Hm. More thought is required. Shadows On The MirrorChrysoula Tzavelas, TADS3A major part of this game is figuring out who you are, why you're stuck in this car, who the driver of the car is, why you don't want to see your grandfather, and so on. It's tricky; there's a lot to it, and it can't all be explained, even when you play through it several times. But what I have seen of the story and background is pretty intense. There's some supernatural stuff going on, and the PC is in the thick of it, and you get to be cool, and the driver of the car is cool, and there's just a lot of cool parts. But... there is a problem. It's kind of like the third quarter of a really close (American) football game. Sure, the score is tied at 24, but that's what it was at the half, and you're not down to the wire yet, because it's still the third quarter. Or maybe it's like the second to last chapter in a short novel -- all the really good stuff has already happened, and all of the explanations are saved for the last chapter, so even though you're in a great story, it isn't happening now. It's already happened, or it's going to, but everything that happens in Shadows is subtle and under the surface. That said, what you get of the story is definitely worth playing the game to see. I was initially put off by having to repeat actions to get the whole effect, but it's mentioned in one of the "hint" or "about" menus, so I guess I should have known. There are some pretty good liner notes, which is always nice. Hints and a walkthrough are included, so I can't complain too much about the puzzles, such as they are. In this game, "puzzles" are either an action you have to take, or a milestone you can reach in the conversation. In this sort of situation, getting to a "losing" ending and having to replay loses a piece of the game's appeal, but there's nothing to do for it but restart and try again. Shadows makes it worth the trouble. Writing/story: 5. Appeal/likeability: Happy sigh. Likeability is high, but there is a slight disconnect because of the vast difference between player knowledge and PC knowledge. Cool song lyrics. 4. Bugginess/mechanics: You don't actually get to do an awful lot, but there's lots to talk about. I had very few problems with what was there, and T3 makes me happy, but with so little room to go wrong, it's hard to give this highest marks. And there were one or two verbs that should have been implemented : focus, for instance. 4. Entertainment/fun: It is some fun to play, though not a huge amount. The satisfaction and ease of puzzle-solving both leave something to be desired. But there are hints, and a walkthrough, so 3. Composite score: (5+4+4+3)/2 = 8.0 (8) No RoomBen Heaton, Z-codeI guess Fat Lardo filled the slot of the requisite one-room game, and No Room is a step further in that direction: it has no rooms at all. You exist in Darkness, which is an object but not technically a room in Inform. This is a nice conceit for a game, once, and No Room further elevates itself above Fat Lardo by having a small variety of objects to play with, a puzzle to solve, and a way to win the game. In fact, it's not too hard to figure out what your objective is, since it's pitch black and you can't see to go anywhere or do much of anything. How is it possible to create light? First you have to figure out what you're holding, and you can't use your eyes to do it. It's pretty clever, and the puzzle itself is pretty neat too, even if I couldn't have done it without hints. Okay, I probably could have if I had spent long enough trying different things, but without knowing how much there was to the game, I was reluctant to waste much time when I knew the hints were there. There are still a few problems, even in such a small game. First, I'd like some way of checking on the current arrangement of all the items, but the descriptions never change. And second, it's possible to get into an unwinnable state (so it seems to me), and while it's pretty obvious that that's what you've done, it still seems odd. Maybe I'm getting spoiled. Anyway, it does give you 1 point for solving the game, so it avoids the no-score bug. Yay. I feel like my reviews are getting shorter, but there really isn't a whole lot to say about this one. I would think if the author put his mind to it, he could create a pretty good "normal" game. There are some pretty good amusing things to do, and several actions are given customized responses that make sense in the context of the darkness. And you can win the game without getting the one point, which is an interesting touch. Still, there's not as much detail as I might ask for in a setting like this. In a single-room or no-room game, there's no reason not to implement every last thing separately, or at least with separate descriptions. Writing/story: I have to call this no story. The writing is fine and I didn't notice any errors. That leaves us with a 2. Appeal/likeability: Nothing to get excited about. No connection, and seemingly no PC. I felt more connected with the game's author in the XYZZY text than with anything else. 2. Bugginess/mechanics: Mostly well-coded, but like some other games, it doesn't try to be very much, either. Extra verbs and responses thrown in there. If this was longer, it would be a 5, but I think this game has a difficulty rating (to use a diving term) of 4. And it did it very well, so 4 it is. Entertainment/fun: Enh. The premise is vaguely similar to that of Lardo, but not as funny. But there is a puzzle, and it does count as a game, with hints and everything. But it's a light puzzle. Kind of. I will give an extra half-point for the Amusing section, which is a step in the right direction: 2.5. Composite score: (2+2+4+2.5)/2 = 5.25 (5) Temple of KaosPeter Gambles, TADS2This is a bit surreal, and the setting and character are intentionally vague, so I can't give you a good two-line description of what's going on. You're in a temple, and you have some tasks, and you don't know what they are. My first thought is, "What the heck is Shiftgrethor?" But then I find out (yay HTML), so my second thought is, "Oh." A lot of the text (like, room descriptions) is in poetry form, which isn't the clearest form of communication, but it works for me. It makes just figuring out what's in the room a challenge, so, like, bonus puzzles. The puzzles were a bit obscure, probably in no small part thanks to the obscurity of the room and item descriptions, but fun enough to play through. The hints weren't enough for me, so I went to the walkthrough in the first section. The different chapters make it easy to put the walkthrough away and try the second section on my own, but I still turn to the hints. The hints are pretty vague: something about defying traditional IF conventions and "there are clues in the rhyme." If there are, I'm not seeing them. Eventually I needed the walkthrough again. Trying to apply the hints was something of its own puzzle: more bonus! I kept finding out that actions I thought I'd already taken were, in fact, the actions that I needed to take. Since part of the objective is figuring out what you need to do, this made the game pretty frustrating at times. This isn't made easier by trying to interpret the poetic results of my actions, but you can usually make the assumption that if you got poetry as part of the response, the action was successful. Consider this example:
So, am I sitting on it? Or is it too risky currently? That kind of thing. So, I ran into a few typos, nothing major: stubornly, ehcoes. I think the word is "pellucid," not "perlucid," but it could just be that my dictionary isn't big enough. I can't figure out what "gul" is supposed to be. The game is trying to evoke a sense of mystery, wonder, and supernatural power, but it doesn't do it consistently. I get interrupted by things like, "I don't know the work 'think'" and such. Overall, it's a nice enough game. I may talk a lot about some of the fiddly bits, but that's just because I am not making much sense of the story line. It's too vague, intentionally so, and I always like more to go on than a game that ends with "who were you, who are you?" Writing/story: The poetry works for me. The right words are used, and I got to look some stuff up in the dictionary. 4. Appeal/likeability: There are moments that make me say "ooh," but in the end, I am unmoved. 3. Bugginess/mechanics: A few bugs, several bits that could have been made nicer for the player, some missing synonyms, but for the most part competently coded. 3. Entertainment/fun: I am torn between a 3 and a 4, so: 3.5. Composite score: (4+3+3+3.5)/2 = 6.75 (7) SardoriaAnssi Raisanen, ALANYou play a young boy in a medieval-magical setting, with a message enemies in the nearby woods ready to attack the keep at nightfall, but due to the unconventional way you tried to get someone's attention, you've been thrown into the wine cellar for the time being. Your first task is to escape, and your second task (presumably) is to alert the King. I like how using your wits to avoid the bad guys leads you naturally through where you need to go. A few of the solutions to puzzles seem nonsensical and are impossible to guess (especially the tiles), and the hints don't take you all the way to the answers. In fact, at times the hints gave me a "gentle nudge" towards the part I had already figured out, but no nudges as to what actions I might need to take. But there is a walkthrough: a saving grace. After overcoming a few of these obstacles, including the hint of a maze, you meet a wizard who knows about the enemies and helps you on your way. This is a neat scene with an NPC in an otherwise lonely game. We don't get much sense of the PC's personality, but the NPC is much more alive. The other thing I should mention about the puzzles is that it's possible to make headway without having the full plan of what you're going to do in mind. The game helps you out with some of that. If you do have a plan in mind, you better hope it's the one that the game implements. I'll make an example with part of the first puzzle. Sticklers for spoiler-avoidance should skip ahead to the next paragraph. The set-up: you're stuck in the wine cellar. Once you can open the door, all you have to do is "open door" and the game text describes how you hide behind the door and wait for the cook to come through. It simplifies the syntax and actions for the player, but it also feels dummied down a bit. It would be more satisfying if somehow the player could type those sorts of things on his own, and the parser was forgiving enough to accommodate even, say, me. In the end, you can save the day if your skills are up to the job, and everyone is happy. A mundane story, perhaps, but it fits the bill as a setting for a puzzle-y adventure game, with a splash of magic thrown in for flavor. The actual ending borders on abrupt, and is certainly anticlimactic. I never found out the wizard's name, and I'm not sure if I got to keep the jeweled egg I found. The game just ends. Writing/story: The writing is perfectly okay. Pretty plain-Jane room descriptions, with only a few mistakes in the text (missing comma and full-stop, typo "lenghts"). The story is fine, but not fantastic, and that brings us around to a 3. Appeal/likeability: Nothing exciting, a bit lacking on the PC-player connection. The world seems generic, if likeable. It's jarring to find out that this fantasy adventure takes place in the month of "October." 3. Bugginess: Missing synonyms, including some that seem obvious. The red potion seems to have no effect on anything except the one thing that makes the puzzle work. Still, I was impressed by some of the things that were included. 3.5. Entertainment/fun: No score meant I never had any idea how far along in the game I was, so I tended to hit the hints early. But there are hints, and a walkthrough. Then again, I had a lot of trouble with getting out of the kitchen. Why should I think I can reach a pot-lid if I can't reach the pot? Overall, it was fun enough to play, but I couldn't call it a ton of fun. 3. Composite score: (3+3+3.5+3)/2 = 6.25 (6) DelvynSantoonie Corporation, TADS2I started up this game with a bit of trepidation. The fabled Santoonie Corporation has entered a game into the IF Competition. I'm afraid I have to agree with Mr. Tilli's assessment in the accompanying .html file, which acts as a readme: the premise and goals of the Santoonie corporation are opposed to the "proper techniques" in constructing a successful Comp entry, at least for this judge. You play an elf, dropped into rural South Carolina several years back (the game isn't clear). In any case, you've made South Carolina your home. It's not like this is a neat "explore our world from an alien's perspective" game. There's no apology made for the fact that this is a bona fide Dungeons & Dragons elf -- directly from the author's pencil-and-paper roleplaying experience. Unfortunately, the author is stuck in the past, and it's an AD&D elf (1st edition). I mean, come on, we're up to 3.5 already! Get with the program. Because of this, the game refers to the elf's "infravision," an outdated term for what is now known as "darkvision." But elves don't even get darkvision any more, they get low-light vision! C'mon, man! Anyway... You, Delvyn, are given a task by the woman you live with -- adopted mother or intimate lover, the game does not make the nature of your relationship clear, but she does cook you breakfast. She tells you something is wrong in the Miller house, and you must put an end to it. So now we have an excuse to go looking around. You get the feeling that this sort of thing happens all the time with Delvyn -- after all, adventuring is part of his nature. I would like, if I may, to reference at this point a little list I put together entitled "Tips for First Time Comp Entrants." One of the first things I realized when I went looking around the farm and surrounding environs is that most of the locations in the game are superfluous. Rule #9: Do not include lots of empty locations. They serve no purpose, and they distract from the objective. Condense, streamline, and condense some more until you come out with a tighter map, and leave it at that. The Miller house itself is better: a front and back of the house, and six rooms inside. Even then some of the rooms are "blank." And then comes... the pit. Getting down into the pit at all is easy, but getting back out proved to be impossible for me. It is possible to get this message: "You peer down further into the darkness and pleasantly spot another landing only about eight feet down." Now, ignoring the fact that "pleasantly" is misused, here, you would think that this means it's possible to get farther down into the pit. But I was bested. I tried for an hour to get down to that other landing. Never let it be said that I did not give this game its fair chance. There are no hints, and no walkthrough, and no way I could find to get up or down off of that first landing (though I could pick it up). So that's as far as I got: 10 out of 100 points. Writing/story: The story might be okay, but it's impossible to tell. I haven't even mentioned the spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and punctuation problems. Here's why: I keep lists of that kind of thing, and going through the .html file just about exploded my brain, so I had to stop. Here's a typical room description from the game:
For purportedly being produced by a team of people, this editing job sucks. But there is an attempt at atmosphere, in personifying the windows, so, it's not all bad. 2. Appeal/likeability: I like the elf thing. I was liking the pancakes and the wide variety of clothing options. I do not like the smoking thing, or what results from it. Plus, some general ickiness with what types of things the PC is willing to eat. To sum up, I thought I might like it, and I turned out wrong. 3. Bugginess/mechanics: Bugs, several. Lots, in fact. I could not finish because of some obscure, bizarre syntax or verb that eluded me. Some things are takeable that probably shouldn't be. 2. Entertainment: It's not entertainment. Sorry. No hints, no walkthrough, nothing to bail out this poor judge, and no humor or redeeming bits in any of the text I saw. 1. Special: -2 for being unfinishable. Composite score: (2+3+2+1-2)/2 = 3.0 (3) Curse of ManorlandJames King, AGTNeat thing that works: "creep mode" turns you sneaky, "walk mode" turns you back to normal. I like this. Neat thing that doesn't work: author's commentary throughout the game. I was looking forward to reading authorial commentary, but there wasn't very much of it at all, and it popped up at odd moments, and it was difficult to distinguish from the normal game text. Oh, and the verb to turn it on is "commentery on," which just irks me. But it's a great idea, and I would love to see this sort of thing in more games. I was in a wonderful mood to like this game, especially after reading the charming instructions. Lots of text, and the author lays it all out for you to read: his history with IF, the idea for the game, the James King Ratings Association official rating, how to play, how to score points, bonus content, known bugs, and an odd bit about the "real time environment." (It seems in this game having wild swings in the weather from turn to turn and a PC who twiddles her thumbs is a good thing.) You might say, known bugs? It's never good to release a game with bugs in it! That's bad! But I think it's a good thing to tell a player, for two reasons. I understand that this is the Comp, that there is a deadline for games, and you can't just keep polishing and polishing until all the bugs go away (unless you start very early -- people who do that tend to do well in the Comp, by the way). There will be bugs, and I would rather know ahead of time what they are, so that I don't mind them as much when I see them. Can't use the syntax "knock on door?" Only "knock door" will do? Okay, now it seems like a feature. That's the first reason. The second is that at least I know that the author is aware of problems in their game. So, the introduction and instructions had me all set to enjoy a magical adventure, playing an 11-year-old girl who is transported to a far-off fantasy kingdom. Unfortunately, the game itself didn't live up to my expectations, which is saying something considering the mood I was in. The first puzzle can be discussed as an example without real spoilerage, so here you are: You start in your bedroom, and you must find a way out. Unlike Paper Moon, whose bedroom has a door and a plausible reason why you can't use it, Curse of ManorLand's bedroom doesn't admit to even having a door. I thought of the window, but the game specifically says the window is closed, and "You can't open the window." I'm not sure why, but I'd guess that Mum has it sealed shut to keep me in. "Break window" gets a "don't know how" response and a message that my score has gone up, when it hadn't, so violence isn't the answer. There are hints, based on your location, but the only hint for this puzzle (which makes your score go down, by the way) merely suggests that the door is not the only way out. No kidding: there's no door. We have a closed, unopenable, unbreakable window. To spare you the suspense, in case you haven't played it yet, the exit is indeed made via the window, but the action doesn't make sense and is pretty unguessable. I'm focusing on this one puzzle because it's such a good example of what happens throughout the game. There are random score-change messages, sometimes actually changing your score; there are parser messages that I can't make sense of and don't tell me the result of my action; and there are necessary objects which don't appear in room descriptions. Every so often, the PC must stop and nap, but it doesn't affect anything in the game, and none of the NPCs in the game take any notice of it, or nap themselves. The weather changes rapidly from sunny to rainy to freezing cold (this is part of the "real time environment" mentioned earlier), and when it's cold, any action you try to take (including meta-commands) is interrupted more often than not by a message about how cold it is. But you can't do anything about your condition, so it's just pointless frustration for the player. Also, the sun keeps going from about to set, to having set, to about to set, and back. On two turns, I got the following messages in succession: "The sun has now set and darkness befalls you," and then "The rain lets up and the sun pokes through." And finally, before I finish this horribly critical and complaining paragraph, let me just say that it's not nice to lie to the player about what the maximum score is in a game. Making fun of it is one thing, but to say it's 35 when it's really 200 is misleading, which makes me think I'm farther along than I really am, so I spend the time trying to solve puzzles myself. End result: I didn't finish in the given two hours. One of the things the game does well is a simple, economical map. You can easily see where you need to go because there isn't a huge, sprawling map like you might have seen in some other games. And I sort of liked the PC. With some effort, this game could be made into the fun, magical adventure I thought it was going to be. Writing/story: There is a story. The writing could use some help, and it would be difficult to find many sentences besides default messages without an error of some sort. A 2 would be too kind, but a 1 too harsh: so, 1.5. Appeal/likeability: Nothing to like or dislike. The magical kingdom didn't really feel special: there was a dwarf, but he may as well have been a human. When the fantasy world has things like red sweaters for sale, and an electric fan in a hotel, it's hard to be very moved by it. Oh, and there was some oddness with "you" vs. "I" in the beginning of the game, which prevented any sense of immersion from the start. Call it a 3. Bugginess/mechanics: Some of this is discussed above. There are lots of obvious things not implemented, and non-intuitive syntax required throughout. Some fatal flaws in game design were not technically bugs, but they felt like it. This is the definition of a 2. Entertainment/fun: I must discount the hints: they were no good, and never helped in any situation where I wanted them. No humor, no fun, although there was an attempt at puzzles. 2. Special: -2 for being unfinishable. Composite score: (1.5+3+2+2-2)/2 = 3.25 (3) The Adventures of the President of the United StatesMikko Vuorinen, ALANYou get to play the President of the United States, out for a worldwide jaunt. This is a small, silly game that doesn't even begin to take itself seriously. When you leave the White House, you are in the United States, and you can see "Canada to the north and Mexico to the south." A few steps and you're on the other side of the world! Air Force One's got nothing on this guy. The distance/location abstraction works against the game, too. Apparently, because each room description sums up a nation, the author has left out the traditional "you can see" lists that describe what items are available for interaction. This leads to trouble. Consider the room description for Finland:
What objects do you think you can interact with? The game doesn't recognize "Finland," "products," "Sweden," or "gulf," but "examine lakes" is required so you can get where you need to go. This is a pain. So, you're the President, and you spend next to no time in the United States. It's not clear what your actual goal is, but there's a barrier, so you must overcome it somehow. The actions and puzzles that you overcome to win the game are just as silly and illogical as the premise, but they do make for a few good scenes. I mean, I got to buy a sombrero -- how often does that happen? The amount of sombrero-buying in the realm of Interactive Fiction was just reaching dangerously low levels, so it's a good thing A.P.U.S. came along. Still, I could have hoped for a cleaner, better-constructed game. I would like some chance of knowing what word to use without needing the walkthrough; I would appreciate warning before the game throws strong language at me; and ideally, there would not be a strange disambiguation with an important NPC at the penultimate moment of the game. More nouns being implemented, more things to examine, more Finland, probably. Writing/story: Oh, I didn't mention the writing. What's wrong with me today? There are a few oddities, mostly having to do with verb tenses. The story is the next-best-thing to not being there, and the writing comes off as a bit brusque. 2. Appeal/likeability: Well, there *is* a sombrero. If it had a purpose, though, I couldn't find it. An odd and abrupt ending makes this a 3. Bugginess/mechanics: 2. Talk about frustration trying to get my intent across to the parser! Entertainment/fun: Puzzles are so-so; only one had a complex solution. No hints at all, but there is a walkthrough. The game also suffers from the "you must be aware of a problem before you can enter the location where the thing that solves it is" problem. But still, fun to play: 3. Composite score: (2+3+2+3)/2 = 5.0 (5) A Paper MoonAndrew Krywaniuk, Z-codeYou start off the game in your small bedroom over your parents' garage. Weirdness begins to happen. Twenty minutes later, you're in a dark, twisty passage with an adventurer's torch in another world, looking for four Lost Treasures... in your underwear. It may sound strange, but it's actually pretty funny. You spend a large portion of the game wearing nothing but underwear, and it works. Happy sigh. Somehow, Paper Moon manages to feel like a full-size adventure, with lots of different tasks to accomplish, while being the perfect size game for the Comp. It also manages to start with a generic "other world," toss in a television, a wandering NPC who takes things from you, Bobby the barkeep, electric sockets in cave walls, a light puzzle, a rope, fire, liquids, and (best of all!) origami, and spin the whole thing into a mess of fun. You can tell right off that the game is not to be taken seriously when the response to "use toilet" is "You know how on TV shows like Star Trek, the characters never seem to need to use the bathroom? It's like that in adventure games too." Actually, there was that one time when Dr. McCoy was in charge of the ship, he needed to take a break... Well, I guess that was a book, not the show. What was the name of that one? It's on the tip of my brain. Drat! Anyway, the puzzles are somewhat difficult at times, exactly as much as they should be. The hint system is good: it goes from nudging to bumping, although it never quite gives it all away. That's what the walkthrough is for. However, the obscurity of the hints is intentional, and it's really more of a feature in Paper Moon. There are two walkthroughs, with two different goals/endings, and neither one tells you how to get 100% of the points that can be scored. So, part of the fun is assimilating info from each and winning the game with all the points. Even using the walkthrough for hints on what to do next is gentle: I did that once or twice and got just the amount of help I needed so I could try again. Tons of odd actions that you want to try are taken into account, even if they don't work like you had hoped at first. For instance -- oh, wait. Spoiler alert: the rest of the paragraph describes an attempt to do something which doesn't work, but still gives you points, so if you are a stickler for spoilers, you may skip ahead to the next paragraph. Now, the example: you are one side of a chasm, trying to say the password to the gatekeeper on the other side, but it's really noisy. So, you "fold paper into megaphone," hoping against hope that your origami skills will give you a tool to make yourself heard. And it works! I mean, you fold a makeshift megaphone, but... You get this: "The makeshift bullhorn amplifies your voice, but not by very much. Gary yells back: 'Sorry... I still can't hear you, but props for trying.'" And your score goes up. This is great! You have an idea, you can easily make the game understand, and it works! Even without solving the puzzle, this is humorous and fun. I guess it's not surprising for a game of this size and scope to have a few programming quirks. A few look like mere oversights: not returning true from a "before" statement, so we end up with two responses; printing the results of a routine that runs its own thing, so we get an odd "0" in the text. There are some more complicated issues, probably arising from including things like torches and flammable items into the game: at the moment where you need the heat from the torch, it will work regardless of whether the torch is lit or not. Similarly, with so much text, the occasional typo or punctuation problem doesn't bother me too much. Same goes for line-formatting. It's amazing how forgiving I can be when there are such funny lines in a game. The line, "It appears to be a nine iron," cracks me up even now. *Several* messages have been spiced up, from dull to distinctive, and these are almost always funny in addition to being interesting:
and:
Puzzles are *very* satisfying to solve, even with lots of hints. There is a flaw in the walkthrough, though: you can't follow it word-for-word towards the end. Also, some points are awarded for not using any hints, which has the same effect as Curse's lowering of score for using hints, but is much, much friendlier. After all, in Paper Moon, you wouldn't realize what those last five points or so were for until you actually managed to solve it without hints. This is a game I highly recommend for a somewhat tongue-in-cheek, satisfying and entertaining game. Writing/story: Not the strong suit of the game. Occasional technical errors, basic plot, serviceable prose, everything works just fine. 3. Appeal/likeability: Hmm... at first I was turned off by the grungy underwear, but I eventually came around thanks to some distracting qualities. Some of it was likeable, I suppose, but not hugely: 3. Bugginess/mechanics: Oh, once in a while there were missing synonyms, and a few light bugs, but if you think about it, this game had an awful lot to code. There are different containers for liquids and lots of tricky stuff. I am impressed that I had as little difficulty with the game as I did. 4. Entertainment/fun: Humorous, entertaining, good puzzles, hints AND two walkthroughs, and in general a good time is guaranteed for all. 5. Composite score: (3+3+4+5)/2 = 7.5 (8) Slouching Towards BedlamStar Foster and Daniel Ravipinto, Z-codeThe title recalls the W.B. Yeats poem, "The Second Coming," in which the question is posed: "What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" It is, possibly, the most suggestive and fitting title of any game in this Comp. You play... well, the game starts in some sort of office, where you are listening to a voice on a phonograph talk about chaos, and a secret, and moments of madness. Almost immediately, the game has an eerie tinge to it, resulting from two things: first, if you've seen enough movies, you suspect that it is your voice on the phonograph -- moments of madness, indeed. Second, the text studiously avoids saying "you." You're examining objects, exploring the contents of the office, but the descriptions of things and even descriptions of actions are ghostly, passive: the desk you want to look in is not "your desk," the response to "open drawer" begins with "The large central drawer opens..." Even default responses have been changed, so that trying to take an object you already hold gives "One cannot take what one already has." It all evokes a mystery, and the discovery that the office is in an insane asylum in 1855 only adds to the creepy, disturbing atmosphere. But this is not a scary game: there are no monsters chasing you, no weapons to wield in self-defense. The act of exploration is so natural, after the first scene, that you don't realize for some time that the *PC* is also exploring. There is a subtle lack of familiar references, which you might expect after identifying yourself as Dr. Xavier, who is superintendent of the asylum. Instead, the PC is just as new to all this as you are, which aligns your purposes seamlessly, making the player and the PC one. You are given a powerful tool to aid in comprehension, described in the phonographic diary: the Triage unit. It is a mechanical information assimilator, and it follows you around on wheels. It can identify objects and give you an idea of how things are used. It's also useful for other problems you encounter during the course of the discoveries, and is just about the ideal thing to have along in a text adventure. In the course of exploring the asylum and the town, some odd things start to happen. We start to get into spoiler region here, but you can find a pattern to the odd things, and between that and the odd things you find as you explore, the mystery slowly begins to take a clearer shape. Eventually, gradually, it coalesces until the situation is clear. However, what you will do about it is not clear. There are several options, with five different outcomes, none of which could rightly be called winning or losing. If ever there was a game where not having a score was justified, this is it. As for the other aspects of a game people generally talk about: wonderful. I didn't see a single confirmable error in the text. The actions needed to "solve the puzzles" were logical and intuitive, and figuring out how one of the various machines worked in the game was very satisfying. There are hints: good, extensive, thorough and gentle hints. The pacing is superb: the pieces of the story come at just the right moments, the understanding comes gradually and not too slowly. The size of the game is next to perfect for the Comp, exactly filling up two hours in reaching one or two endings and reading the appendices. There are moments that made me completely forget about the real world, and focus entirely on what was happening in the game. In short: you must play this game. Writing/story: I've talked about the story, now let me mention the writing. In most works of IF, the text the author writes has a very important job. It must make clear to the player the situation, and describe the scene, objects, and actions so that the player can tell what's going on. If it doesn't fulfill this job, nothing else can. Sometimes authors let that job slip a little in the name of art, or perhaps literature. In Bedlam, the words are beautiful, haunting, and evocative, while still performing their task of communication. It is an astounding feat. 5. Appeal/likeability: Who better than an IF player, a lover of words, to fully appreciate a story where words themselves have such importance? I was completely immersed in the character, and to a slightly lesser degree in the setting (which makes sense, given the story). The whole thing is fascinating and compelling. 5. Bugginess/mechanics: If any area strays from highest marks, it is this one. While the words were often clear to me, I had a moment or two of difficulty in communicating to them what it was I wanted. Still, there is not much room for improvement, and extensive effort is obvious. 4. Entertainment/puzzles: Gradual and complete hints available. The game is chock-full of the satisfaction one finds in solving conventional puzzles: putting pieces together, unraveling the mystery, knowing where to go with the key you find, testing the machines to see what results so that you will know how to use them. Somehow, amazingly, it is fun to play. 5. Composite score: (5+5+4+5)/2 = 9.5 (10) Adoo's Stinky StoryB. Perry, Z-codeThe newbie.txt file that came with the game says "Welcome to Adam's Stinky Story." What's up with that? And once again, we are starting in the PC's bedroom. Luckily, there's a door. In fact, the game has an odd habit of listing all visible doors in the room description, which strikes me as odd. So, anyway, the point is to build a stink bomb so that no one wants to buy your parents' house, so that you can visit there when you get out of college. Okay; I've seen worse set-ups for games. It's a good thing the introductory text tells you what you're trying to do, because it would be hard to figure out, otherwise. There are some smaller goals that are obvious as you walk around your parents' house: rooms you can't get into yet, items that an NPC prevents you from taking, but it's hard to see how it all ties together. The "help" message in the game says to read "readme.txt," but there is none: just newbie.txt and walkthru.txt. That sort of thing pops up again throughout, a general sense of not-paying-attention to detail. There is a music CD object, which gives no hint whatsoever as to which CD it actually *is.* The description reads: "It's a CD from your father's collection. This one is one of his favorites, although you've never quite been sure why." Is it Barry Manilow? Alanis Morissette? The Indigo Girls? It could be anything, just be specific! You're not only missing a chance for humor, you're missing the chance to add a bit of character and depth to this otherwise flat world. I feel like it's not a real CD, just a piece of game code shaped like a CD. This game also has the fatal flaw of a sack object combined with a single item that won't go in the sack object. That leads to all sorts of problems, because it interrupts any attempt to pick up other things, which normally just puts stuff you're holding into the sack object seamlessly. Still, even for being a bit rough around the edges, there are redeeming qualities to be found in Adoo's Stinky Story. It's fun to think that a medieval recipe can be translated to modern times, and there are a lot of quirky, interesting objects to pick up and carry around. Plus, several of the messages are pretty funny, like this one when you encounter the family computer:
That greatly amuses me. Eventually, with enough hints and the help of the walkthrough, it is possible to make the stink bomb and prevent your parents from their dreams of retirement -- I mean, from selling the house -- and all is right with the world. Overall, this game would really benefit from a thorough revision, and the puzzles and objectives aren't what need to be cleaned up. Writing/story: Nothing special about the writing, storyline is fine if not wonderful, and few mistakes in the text. 3. Appeal/likeability: There is a dog, but she is "unimpressed" by the doggy treats I offer her. That leaves nothing much to excite emotion one way or the other. 3. Bugginess/mechanics: Lots of actions are recognized, even if the responses are sometimes bland. A lot of really minor problems, like getting on the bed and then hearing "You jump on the spot, fruitlessly," the sorts of things which would be really impressive if they were fixed, but are mildly disappointing when they're not. That leaves us with a 3. Entertainment/fun: Adoo's Stinky Story swings from short fun bits to tedious stretches of walking through a nearly-empty house. The puzzles are fine, there are hints that do a pretty good job, and there is an occasional moment of humor. 3. Composite score: (3+3+3+3)/2 = 6.0 (6) BioDavid Linder, TADS 2Every game needs an excuse -- a reason for you, the PC, to be where you are when almost nobody else is there. In Bio's case, it's this: you are the janitor at a remote science station, and all the scientists are gone to some sort of social event. Compare this to a well-known other game (name withheld to protect the innocent), in which you play a *scientist* at a remote science station, and you're not sure why you're the only one there. So, in Bio, you don't play a smart or particularly competent person, yet it falls to you to figure out what's going on and stop the Bad Guys' evil plan. If nothing else, it has the advantage of surprise. The game doesn't exactly get off to a good start. Once again, you start in your own bedroom, but not only does Bio's bedroom lack a door, it doesn't seem to have the dresser that is explicitly mentioned in the room description. Unfortunately, this is a critical flaw, because the dresser contains the only item that makes it possible to play the rest of the game. I struggled with guess-the-noun for a few moments, tried "take all," and then went to the walkthrough, since there are no hints. This is another one where it was a very good idea to include a walkthrough. I got one of those TADS errors in brackets, at one point, and there is a fatal bug if you put the bandage on too early, and then get hurt, because you will bleed to death even though you're already wearing the bandage, and you can't take it off. Something important is in the shower in the bathroom, but when I cleaned the shower stall (after all, I am a janitor; it's in my nature to clean the bathroom), I got "The shower stall is a bit cleaner now" with no indication that a rather large object was in it. There are a lot of problems like that throughout: little actions that should be taken into account, allowed for, and given special responses, but in this game they are not. I must say, it still has a huge advantage over games written in less robust languages. In those, you can't even get the parser to understand what you want to do. At least in Bio, written in TADS2, I can make the attempt to do things. "Lie on bed" actually works, even if "sleep" doesn't. Still, the potential for greatness is in all the little things, the attention to detail. While I'm on it, a fully-fleshed out setting is important too: in Bio, you come to a crossroads and are told that "various other rooms" are to the south. This is where the PC lives and works -- surely he knows what rooms they are, but he's not telling. Actually, this could have been a really neat touch if you could examine those various other rooms, but you can't, and naturally "look south" is not understood. Anyhow, the point of the game is to foil the Bad Guys, and this I was able to do, thanks to the walkthrough. Why they spoke English when they were alone, I'll never know, but I'm grateful. It's actually not a bad story, and saving the day is always a fun adventure. I would have liked a little more characterization of the PC: we learn about him in the intro text, but then any response to his situation is left to the imagination of the reader. We're discovering dead bodies and evil plots, but not a hint of personality shows up in the PC after the first scene. Bio has a good idea at its heart, that isn't given its due implementation here. With some effort, this could be spruced up, added to, and tidied all over to make a pretty good adventure. Oh, and add some hints. Writing/story: The writing is on the mechanical side, but I've seen much worse. The story is okay, too, but there are a lot of mistakes throughout. Consider the PC's thought at the beginning of the game: "Well, the good thing about all the scientists leaving is that YOU have the whole place to MYself." (Emphasis mine.) Also, toupe should be taupe. 2. Appeal/likeability: There's nothing to pull this one way or the other, except for a few moments of crudeness that stuck in my mind. Still, it's not a 2, so 2.5. Bugginess/mechanics: Whew, there's a lot of stuff I could mention here. Missing nouns, verbs, and a game-ending bug. 2. Entertainment/fun: It wasn't that much fun to play, in its current incarnation. No hints, and the walkthrough was broken (i.e., wrong) in three different places. This is a really close call, and I don't like splitting so many votes, but it's not a 2, and not bad enough for a 1, so 1.5. Composite score: (2+2.5+2+1.5)/2 = 4.0 (4) Amnesiacrazydwarf, TADS 2As Zarf says: "Failing to mention exits is bad." Still, I am intrigued by the phrase "making up a game on the spot." Today, I am a sucker for authors speaking directly to the player. The "about" text is a huge chunk, and I do love huge chunks of text, even if it's not related to the game at all. I am amused. Punctuation problems will be par for the course; they do not dissuade me. Youth does indeed win something from this voter. Unfortunately, that was all before actually playing the game. My magnanimous mood paled quickly when the "spirit guide" accompanying me not only acted the buffoon, but also didn't have any good information that I could find. This after I was encouraged to ask the spirit guide "whatever I want." Most of what I asked wasn't even recognized, and the rest got the response "I don't know much about that." Then, the multitude of misspelled words started to grate on my nerves. Still, there are moments of amusement. "The narrator kindly tells you that it is quite obvious that you will need this [flashlight] some other time and you really shouldn't be mad because he gave you some points." The amount of confusion at the sewing guild almost seems intentional: The sewing guild has "sewers," that will "sow" something if you give it to them. Three different words, three different meanings, and the effect is funny (though, I fear, not intentional). There's something honest and straightforward about some of the messages: the game is aware of when it's not making sense, but laughs it off and asks you to laugh it off too. This works sometimes, and sometimes (when the spelling errors are particularly bad), it doesn't, but overall I am pleased by the effect. You must have a certain object to get into the vault, but the game tells you what it is even though it doesn't make any sense, and when you have it and enter the vault, you get "Ah good the vault says to you, (don't ask me how it talks) I can let you in because you got that <object>." This is amusing. Keep in mind, too, that this sort of gag only works because the game is short, and purposefully on the silly side, and the sun was just right in the sky and I had caffeine in my system. It's probably not the sort of thing you would want to play for hours and hours, and it works also because it is consistent. I would feel thrown off by some of these things in an otherwise serious game. You enter the mountain, and this is the room description:
(It isn't, actually, a maze. Come to think of it, have there been any mazes in this Comp? Sardoria kind of had one, but not really.) The setting is almost an afterthought, and you are certainly given no reason to be there. You're on some sort of island, which has both a mountain and a volcano and lots of beach, and apparently you want to get the gold (the Golden Peanut, actually) and get off the island. Easy enough, but much more enjoyable with a walkthrough. It's a bit of fun, at times, there are actually puzzles to solve, although there is a horrible-seeming bug with the sewing guild. It only seems horrible, because it turns out you don't need to solve that puzzle in order to win. There's something peculiar about a game that you can win with 100,190 points out of a possible 100. Writing/story: There are *so* many mistakes. I know it's part of the "charm," but there is also no real story. This is the definition of a 1. Appeal/likeability: It's strange, but there's really nothing to like or dislike about the game. I was bouncing back and forth from disgusted to amused, so it balances out to a 3. Bugginess/mechanics: On the weak side. Missing nouns, synonyms, weird stuff going on in town (bad bug with workaround), and repeated frustration with the parser. I for one would appreciate the exits being listed at least in some form in the room description. 2. Entertainment/fun: Actually, there is some entertainment to be had. And there are some funny bits. And there was a walkthrough, so I can't mark it down too far. No hints. It doesn't quite live up to a 3, so it's 2.5. Composite score: (1+3+2+2.5)/2 = 4.25 (4) ScavengerQuintin Stone, TADS 2(Disclaimer: I was a beta-tester for this game.) This is the first time I've tried writing a review for a game I beta-tested. So just bear with me, and we'll try to make it through this. Scavenger takes place in the future of our Earth, where nuclear war has turned much of the surface into wasteland, with patches of radiation still present. You play a "scavenger," something of a treasure seeker: a hardened man who makes his living by finding things of value and making a profit wherever he can. You've just found a clue to what may be your lucky break: the "big score." You've got the coordinates, now all you need is to equip yourself, get out there, and find whatever-it-is. The text, especially in room and object descriptions, manages to be eloquent without being poetic, and the mood conveyed is grim, but not depressing. Some of the action takes place outdoors, at night, and unlike some games where as long as you've got a lantern, it may as well be daylight, in Scavenger you get a sense of darkness, of being restricted to only seeing one thing at a time, without it affecting gameplay at all. The feel is there, and that makes all the difference. There are multiple ways of solving most of the puzzles in Scavenger; in fact, at the beginning of the game you have a choice of several items to buy, and you can successfully win the game with any of them. I think you can score all 70 points with any of them, although in no case are all 70 points needed to win the game. And there are multiple endings. Still, Scavenger retains a "classic" feel, in that you are sneaking around, overcoming obstacles, trying to find the treasure. In addition to that, there's something of a mystery to uncover, should you care to: what happened to the people in the underground base where you're exploring. The base is not currently empty, though: a band of raiders has taken over the upper levels, and this adds not only to the gameplay by adding some interesting obstacles, but it also adds to the mood of the base. Rather than a lonely, isolated facility, the structure you explore is populated, and you have the constant pressure of discovery from the raiders to worry about. But of all the NPCs, Iona is my favorite. In the ruined town nearby the base, you can meet a little girl who is initially terrified of you. But if you can get her to trust you, Iona adds an innocence to balance the harshness of the world, and the severity of the raiders. This game just about has everything: the accompany readme file talks about the world of the game, there is a good menu-based hint system, and there's a walkthrough included (although the walkthrough doesn't give you all 70 points). There is extra coding effort, lots of it, both to make the player's life a little easier (like in navigating the doors once you figure out how), and to allow for lots of variation in the way actions can be worded. There is the odd spot or two of possible room for improvement, like opening the ladder automatically when the command is "climb ladder," or the blank response to "hide in alcove," but for the most part, this is a feat of programming. I really like that there's a nice hefty chunk of text to read after you win the game. Summing up: a modern, futuristic take on the classic adventure game genre. Writing/story: I didn't even mention the story! It's really awesome. It appeals muchly to the sci-fi part of me. And I see only a single punctuation oddity, and the writing is generally excellent. 5. Appeal/likeability: I really liked the game. Iona goes a long way toward that, but there's just good stuff throughout. And the moment of panic I felt after two turns wearing the helmet! This game really drew me in. 5. Bugginess/mechanics: Some extra stuff thrown in (like "ask NPC to do something"), good inventory management, just that one spot where all I got was a blank line. Still, the amount of things taken into account here earn this a 5. Entertainment/fun: There is a classic feel to many of the puzzles, but I'm not sure whether this is a feature for me personally. It is pretty entertaining to play, mostly good puzzles, and there are some great hints. Still, I would prefer a walkthrough that gives all the points; that's just how I am. 4. Composite score: (5+5+5+4)/2 = 9.5 (10) -- Clearly, one of the best three games of the Comp. Internal DocumentsTom Lechner, Z-codeThe first thing I like about this game is the extra verbs listed in the "info" text. The game uses such verbs as click, dial, drag, exits, fax, follow, health, rewrite, what, who. This is always a good sign, and I like knowing about them up front. It says, "Also you can type 'hint' if you want to cheat, so you can move on to the next competition entry." I like this: it's thoughtful :-). The thick introductory text also has me inclined to like this game. I ponder as I digest it: perhaps my boss doesn't really want me to succeed? You play a low-ranking government worker, an odd choice for the assignment of investigating rumors that your boss, the Governor, has been accepting bribes from a certain John B. Holden. There is a bar in town, where you can buy beer and a sandwich, even though it isn't necessary for the game at all. This is a nice touch, and in general, the game has a friendly tone that keeps you from taking any of this too seriously. First you must break into Mr. Holden's estate, since he's certainly not going to let you in. After this, Mr. Holden pretends to comply with your investigation, but really he's trying to destroy the evidence while you wander around the huge, empty mansion by yourself. This is somewhat tricky. The house is huge, and there's no immediate reason *not* to go exploring, but it is ultimately futile. Mr. Holden himself is the thing you should pay attention to, and it's difficult to figure out what actions to take without the walkthrough. You end up trapped under the house, in something uncomfortably like a maze, and must put an end to the election fraud, send the evidence of wrong-doing to the proper authorities, and survive a cave-in before finding your way out of the basement. It's fun enough, and I especially like the use of more modern technology than one usually finds in a text adventure. Still, the verbs needed to use a computer are not intuitive, and this can cause some difficulty, because I don't even know when I see a computer if I can interact with it at all, much less expect complicated verbs to work. The maximum possible score that shows up throughout the game looks like a randomly generated 9-digit number, which is pretty amusing, but not very helpful. Luckily, there are hints, which give away a little bit at a time, and a walkthrough which did not give me any trouble. At the end of the game, you find out the real maximum score. Now, you might remember me complaining about Curse of Manorland's misrepresentation of what the real maximum was, but things are different here. First, the changing numbers in Internal Documents make it pretty clear that what you're seeing when you type "score" is NOT the real possible maximum. Second, they're way too high. Being told I have scored "11 out of a possible 1980019747" is funny because it's so off, but being told I have "25 out of 35" (in Curse of Manorland) is believable, and it makes me think I'm close to the end. If anything, even if you believed the 1.9 billion points, you would think you had a long way to go, not that you were almost done. Anyhow, this is a nice enough game, as long as you don't try to hard to explore the house on your own. It's too big, and it will only frustrate you. It could probably be tightened up, but at least it gives you something interesting to look at while Mr. Holden wanders around. Somehow the rooms seem large, and even the basement has a certain feel to it, like the manor house has a life of its own. This comes close to excusing having so many blank rooms (but note quite). There are a few mistakes in the text, but nothing to hyperventilate over. It's "Dobermans," not "dobermen," but I don't let that bother me. Writing/story: The story is fine, the writing works. 3. Appeal/likeability: I'm drawing a big blank here. There are dogs, but they are enemies. I'll have to go with nothing to excite much either way: 3. Bugginess/mechanics: Some problems look like bugs, and there were a few problems with the parser, like with the computer. Part of the reason for my problems is that the info text had my expectations up. 3. Entertainment/fun: It was a game. There are hints and a walkthrough both. And, well, that's about it. 2. Composite score: (3+3+3+2)/2 = 5.5 (6) CaffeiNationMichael Loegering, Z-codeAs with last year's game, coffee quest II, I approve of the goal of finding caffeine in order to continue with your work day. I work in a cubicle. I have often needed some kind of caffeine boost between those awful hours of 10 and 11 a.m. In CaffeiNation, you play an office worker in a cubicle who is in desperate need of coffee, but no immediate means of getting any. Oh, you've got lots of choices: there's the coffee dispenser machine, but you don't have enough change; there's the coffee pot in the break room, but you don't have any grounds; but best of all, there's a coffee shop across the street (called CaffeiNation) with the Ultimate Coffee: no less will do to satisfy your need. You don't have the money or the ability to leave the building in view of your boss, though, so any way you look at it, you're stuck. Thus the quest begins. This game has dozens of possible paths, tasks that can be done but don't have to be, and lots of different things you can spend your money on to tide you over while you work towards CaffeiNation. This is a punchy, practical game where anything goes if it gets the job done, and the whole city block is rife with possibilities. There's a ton of this game that I never saw. Still, the walkthrough is a bit confusing, even if it gets the job done. When I look at a walkthrough, I want to find out what I need to do, but this one seems to be presenting me with alternatives. I don't want choices. Worse, some of the choices have multiple steps, and those steps are listed on the same level as the other choices, which is rather bewildering. (Example: Problem X has four things listed under it: (1) Solution A. (2) Solution B, step 1. (3) Solution B, step 2. (4) Solution C.) The setting seems very real, but we are reminded several times that we are playing a text adventure when things don't work like we want, just because they weren't anticipated. At one point, I had "a window" in my inventory that I could not refer to by any name that came to mind. The foreknowledge required in some of the puzzle solutions means either save & restore, or read the walkthrough ahead of time. But it's a very admirable attempt at a thoroughly-implemented world, and the quirks of the game are more endearing than anything. My favorite mistake was the final moment of the game: you finally have the ultimate coffee in hand, and so, of course, you "drink it!" In response, you get all the closing text, plus the line, "There's nothing suitable to drink here." Whoops :-). Writing/story: The writing tends to be elevated, and it does come off as a cut above what I'm used to seeing. There are a few typos, mostly in the form of one too many words in the sentence, but the story is good too, so this becomes a 4. Appeal/likeability: I find myself tempted to play through again and try to get a better score. There are a lot of moments in the game where the potential for ruining the appeal was high, but the game plays it straight all the way through. For some reason, I like the cat. That's not too hard to understand, I guess: I like cats. Plus, there's the whole caffeine motivation. 4. Bugginess/mechanics: Well... okay, there's a lot of extra stuff in here. There are a number of quirks, though, and several moments where I struggled to get my intent across to the parser. But a notable lack of missing nouns or synonyms. A 4 would be too kind, so we mark it a 3.5. After all, it has its fair share of line-spacing problems, and those always bug me. Oh, and writelist.h is your friend. Entertainment/fun: The puzzles were good, if too difficult for me. There were no hints, since the notepad never gave me anything but a few (too gentle) nudges that I had already guessed at. The walkthrough is broken. There is some humor, I think, but this is not a comedy. I made it to the end, but I don't like the feeling that I missed out on a ton of stuff (this was my complaint about I-0, too). So I have to give it a 3. Composite score: (4+4+3.5+3)/2 = 7.25 (7) DomicileJohn Evans, Z-codeYou have received a letter, informing you that a distant relative has recently passed away, and you are the heir to his place of residence. I feel like I've played this game before. At least this game doesn't start in your bedroom. Instead, you start west of the house that your great-uncle has left behind, complete with mailbox. Anyway, one of the "known bugs" is that the hints aren't done yet. This doesn't bode well for me, since there is no walkthrough. The other thing I notice right off is the line-space formatting problems, in odd places, too. Like the following exchange:
See how there are two lines between the response and the next prompt? Clearly, the author has changed *something,* but the response is the default! This is strange. Also strange are interesting, mystic-sounding objects that do nothing cool and have no interesting responses when you try to interact with them, like the pedestal inside the house. I don't know what happened to the sweet, Comp air, but I am wanting more than endless "You feel nothing expected"s! Not only does nothing work, but all the responses are default, which bores me. I am annoyed by messages which say "Please see the accompanying image file..." because I do not like accompanying image files. Text files are fine, but in an Inform game, I expect everything I could possibly want to know or see to be contained within words of text. Besides which, there *is* no accompanying image file. It's not too difficult to solve the prologue section and get transported to a magical world, with nymphs and fairies. All right, just one nymph that I saw, but definitely a place of magic. You see some strange designs, which imprint themselves in your mind, and it turns out that these designs are like spells. The verbs for using these spells aren't readily apparent, but the menu-based hints help out here. There's a general section on using magic, which is definitely needed, but it's not quite enough. The hints are definitely incomplete, and it doesn't help my confidence any to be faced with objects in the game that I cannot refer to. What would you expect to be able to call an item that is described with this: "A rusty fence forms a large grate..." Fence, or grate? Try neither. That may mean it's not important, but it's not a given. Also in this world are some strange objects scattered around, which for some reason comfort me. I mean, me the player, not the PC. The PC doesn't comment on the situation, nor does he/she seem to think anything is odd about the changes in the surrounding woods. The items are things like a pillow, a tiny chair, and a piece of cloth, but they are nice. The strange beings, on the other hand, are a bit disturbing. The land seems pretty extensive, but your main goal at this point is to get back into the house which you are now locked out of. This I was able to do, somewhere deep in the second hour of my time, but I found myself back in the original, mundane house, with a few extra rooms. Not a lot, mind you: the hints seemed to suggest that there would be lots of open rooms now that I could explore and use as portals to other worlds, but I had left a lot of my inventory in the field in the magical world (because of the annoying inventory restriction), and there were no new rooms. Scouring all of the hints led me to the conclusion that certain items you pick up in the magical world will open up corresponding rooms. But, without any of those items, I was stuck in Mundania. Some may call this an unfortunate game design choice, and I am one of them, but I can see the reasoning behind it as well. Um, wait, no I can't. Let the player back through to the magical world! Maybe there was some way back, but I couldn't find it before my two hours was up, and with broken hints and no walkthrough, that was the end of that story. It's a pretty puzzle-y game, with the story as a set-up but not much more. There are a few times when the descriptions given of the situation are not enough for me to understand what has happened; unfortunate in a game like this, one that depends on its puzzles. Also unfortunate (and rare in Inform) is a nasty disambiguation problem, if you try to refer to the house when the "house key" is present. I also got tired of things like this:
And this:
That pedestal sounds pretty neat. I'd love to have a better look at those designs ("scraped" is a great word, here), but I can't refer to them. Touching the pedestal yields nothing either. Eventually I gave up. I think I may have enjoyed seeing the rest of the game, especially if the story was further developed, or those strange house-carrying beings were explained more. The parts of the games that I did see could benefit from some touching up, with more nouns, more synonyms and descriptions, and more customized responses for actions. Then it would be a pretty neat game, I think. Writing/story: Good for the most part. Surprisingly few spelling/grammar issues; line space problems were more likely. The story seems weak, but that's probably because I only saw the introduction to it. 4. Appeal/likeability: There is a nymph, which is cool, plus magic stuff. For some reason, the tiny chair especially appealed to me, but consistency is definitely lacking. I couldn't say I "really liked" this game, so 3. Bugginess/mechanics: Climb tree doesn't work; you must use "up." Worse, "climb tree" gives "I don't think much is to be achieved by that," when you *must* climb the tree to get up it. Also, WAY too many items or parts of items not implemented. 2. Entertainment/fun: I wanted to have fun with it. Hints are incomplete and severely lacking in actual help factor, while there is no walkthrough at all. I couldn't finish. I'm not sure I ran into that many actual puzzles. Mostly it was, use "take all" and the hints to try and find out what objects there are to interact with, and what to do with them. It was rough just getting as far as I did. I would love to see a finished hint system and a nice, explanatory walkthrough for this game. That, or to have more than two hours to play it. 2. Special: -2 for being unfinishable. Composite score: (4+3+2+2-2)/2 = 4.5 (5) Episode in the Life of an ArtistPeter Eastman, TADS-2I suppose the old man with the chicken on his head, sitting next to me on the bus, should have given me a clue that this game was not as serious as I wanted it to be. Somehow that fact slipped by me the first go-round. You play a simple-minded factory worker who comes to work as normal one day, only to discover some odd changes going on. The PC is dim-witted in a loveable, Charlie Gordon sort of way, but he loves his job at the factory. I was really digging the character. Then, when the weird things started happening and the PC goes to investigate, parts of the story begin to get a tiny bit... silly. It starts with the PC's boss, Mr. Biggs. He verges on funny, which makes other parts seem silly, and then you find out that it's all about factory workers being replaced by machines. This is kind of anti-climactic. I was hoping for some really cool, sci-fi, alien-invasion type plot. Then again, if it had been alien-invasion, I probably would have been disappointed by the cliché. As it is, Artist is not disappointing, but it helps to understand what kind of game it is from the start. It's almost, but not quite, a comedy. More of a parody, with subtle commentary thrown in as an afterthought, and it works very well. The whole thing is in present, first-person tense, which I'm sure is part of the reason I liked the PC so much at the start. But I shouldn't have tried to read much into it: just take it all at face-value, enjoy what humor there is, and put it away with a smile when it's finished. Is it just me or are my reviews getting more abstract? It must be getting close to the voting deadline. A few bugs involved, mostly with not checking if short scenes have happened yet when the triggering action happens a second (or third) time. It also doesn't check your location, which leads to some odd speeches from characters who aren't there. The first-person doesn't hold one hundred percent: "You see a newspaper here" crops up, and "You stumble around in the dark for a while." Another time you are addressed by the PC: "Please help me," which just seems wrong. How did Mr. Biggs make it through the security door while I was holding his card? The ending is something of a hand-wave, but there's funny "outtakes" at the end, which are just what you'd think: bits of text showing scenes from the game where something went wrong, or somebody played a joke, or the lights didn't work. It's very clever. It's not the game I thought it was when I started. It's not the game I've been waiting for. But it's fun enough, and funny at moments (especially the extras), and it's a pleasant enough way of passing the time that still makes me think, at least a little bit. Writing/story: Maybe it was the title that had me off on the wrong foot. The title makes me think of, naturally enough, "A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man," and somehow I thought it was going to be like that. Then there was that first intro paragraph of the game, and I thought... well, it had potential. Unfortunately, it ends on something of a limp. And, spelling errors? Grammatical mistakes? Never heard of 'em. 4. Appeal/likeability: I *really* liked the first chapter, but it started to get a little silly, and ended up pretty much not how it started. All the eeriness and weirdness I wanted to see developed got subsumed in the lighthearted finish, which seemed to be inconsequential in the scheme of things. Still, 4. Bugginess/mechanics: A couple of timing bugs, some messages printed twice. Plus I had a devil of a time with the door at the very end, thanks to the wodget in my inventory which kept getting chosen for "hole." Still, a heck of a lot of stuff went very smoothly. I managed the shower and breakfast with no problems, and there weren't even hints to help me out. That's a 4. Entertainment/fun: A little weak in this category. There was some humor ("I wish I knew where my towel was."), but it seemed to detract rather than add, until the end at least. Still, it was mostly fun to play, so, 3. Composite score: (4+4+4+3)/2 = 7.5 (8) The Atomic HeartStefan Blixt, Z-codeSome of my reviews so far have said "Thank goodness there was a walkthrough, because otherwise I never would have been able to finish the game." Some other of my reviews have said "I couldn't finish, and there wasn't a walkthrough to help me out." This game tops them all: here I say, "Thank goodness there is a walkthrough, because this is a wonderful game with a terrific story, which IF is the perfect medium for, and I would have hated to miss out on it, so I'm really glad that there is a walkthrough, and not only that, but the walkthrough is a very valuable one because it tells me when I need to save the game, and it gives me the option of seeing several different endings, and reading lots of juicy bits of text, which I liked very much." Yes, I'll be the first to admit it: I am not up to the puzzle challenge level of this game, at least not without hints. It's not that it's so difficult, really; it's just that it's so unknowable. I can't tell at the beginning of the game where I'm supposed to get to, so how can I tell if it's even possible to get Gary to put his shoes on? I can't do it, so I assume it's not possible. This leads directly to my use of the walkthrough, which makes me a much happier person. The game is substantial enough that, while it may be solveable without hints, it certainly can't be done by me in anything close to two hours. And there aren't any hints. In a world where robots are common, you play a small, unassuming "nanny" robot, but one advantage you have is the new AU technology. You ("Mr. Luvya") help your family off to their activities, then settle in for a nice charge. But something odd happens: another robot breaks in and changes something in your system, freeing you of certain restrictions. It seems all the other robots are putting together some kind of resistance. One of the neat things about Atomic Heart is the "playback" idea. Even though you play the robot, all of this is really happening in a virtual reality unit, and when the robot meets its end, we cut to the scene where the person (usually a military or intelligence type person) is trying to figure out what happened, and there's a note about the particular robot that he just watched die (Mr. Luvya). It makes perfect sense, believe me. But the note changes, depending on how little Mr. Luvya bought the farm. And there are lots of ways for him to be destroyed; still, finding out how he died and how the humans interpreted that is what makes the difference. This is a very nice story, which manages to be a little touching even though it's told from the point of view of the robot. I think it would make a pretty good movie, but it's even better as IF. I can't imagine knocking my brains out trying to solve all the puzzles myself: between all the different cables and interfaces, the other robots in town, and the myriad ways to die, I'm sure I would get completely frustrated with it and lost all the impact of the story. So, yay elaborate walkthrough, if I didn't make that clear already. Writing/story: Quite enjoyable. I go for the sci-fi, but that's appeal more than it is writing. Hm. A few punctuation problems, and the text is bland, but luckily for the author, bland text works perfectly because the PC is a *robot.* 4. Appeal/likeability: I really liked it. 4. Bugginess/mechanics: This is weak at times, with some trouble between the cables and such. Extra effort is clear, though, and there are lots of new verbs. 3. Entertainment/fun: Hm... well, it was sorta fun, but I needed the walkthrough a lot. And there were no hints. As it was, maybe I didn't get all the fun out of it as I may have, but at least I kept the good impression of the story and stuff. This is squarely between 3 and 4, which, if my math is correct, is 3.5. Composite score: (4+4+3+3.5)/2 = 7.25 (7) -- Very high 7. With some polish it could easily be an 8. Hercules First LaborBob Brown, HTML basedUnlike last year's web-based Sun and Moon, this game is self-contained in a single page of HTML, so you don't need to be online to play it. This is a feature. The information file has Odd Capitalization, plus the it's/its error. But what can I do? It's late in the game, and I've just got to press on. The webpage is pretty neat-looking, with nifty commands-as-links, and it acts like a regular terp. Of course, the fact that the parser only recognizes the first three letters of any words you type can lead to some funny exchanges. For instance, if you wanted to examine the window, you could type "loosen winchester," since "loo" is short for "look," and here "win" means "window." Heh. You begin the game in bed -- not your bedroom, like so many other games this Comp, but a hotel room. Enh, same difference, says I. That makes 11 games which begin in the bedroom, and I'm not counting Domicile, which is all about a house (but I never saw a bedroom). May I please take this moment to point out that if the parser doesn't understand a command, the response "What?!" is singularly unhelpful for communicating that fact to the player. Looking around the hotel room, it's easy to assume that things can't be done. After all, if the cabinet can't be opened, and a suitcase can't be interacted with at all, why would you try more than one thing with the curtain? I tried "move curtain," got the What?! and assumed it was as unimportant as everything else. I was at the walkthrough in 10 minutes (a record?), because the single hint in the hotel room may as well be Greek for all the good it does me. (Greek -- Hercules, get it?) Anyhow, when you get to sleep, you are either transported to Mycenae or you are dreaming; you be the judge. People call you Hercules. You must dress nicely for the King before he grants you an audience, but he's the one asking *you* for a favor. The actions required are simple, too much so for my taste. You turn left, and here's a guy who will sell you a knife for one gold piece. You turn right, and here's a guy who gives you one gold piece. Journeying south to the next city was something of an adventure, just because the map is so kooky. I ended up drawing a map, with lots of curving lines and arrows, and that solved that. Still, it never feels quite right to go east from room A, get to room B, and go east to get back to A again. Cleonae, the next city, was too hard for me to map, though, because so many of the location names were either similar-sounding or just identical, and I didn't want to bother too much with it. The hints didn't help me very much, so I was pretty glad there was a walkthrough, and glad too that the walkthrough gave the optimal solutions. The game was exactly the right length, which is to say, if it had gone on any longer it would have become tedious. As it was, I solved it in 450 moves with the walkthrough and never looked back. Overall, it's an impressive (to me) job of programming, but the game is not ground-breaking. The parser is pretty restrictive, and the game is simplistic. Writing/story: Actually, the story is almost okay. Hercules, you know. Although I would have liked more background on the whole "how many labors are there" question. The writing could use some touching up, to put it gently. I never seem to enjoy minimalist descriptions. 2. Appeal: Just generally unappealing. Poor lion. 2. Bugginess/mechanics: Obvious stuff missing, impossible to refer to things that are right in front of you, things that should be openable aren't, and all sorts of problems. The two-word parser feels crippling, like I've only got the use of one eye, or something. 2. Entertainment/fun: Mildly amusing, if stark. A very weak attempt at hints, but there is a walkthrough. I could not in good faith call these "pretty good puzzles," though. 2. Composite score: (2+2+2+2)/2 = 4.0 (4) Rape, Pillage, Galore!Kristian Kirsfeldt, WindowsThis is hanging on to the ledge of Interactive Fiction by its fingernails. It only qualifies for two reasons: it is "fiction" because I have an overly liberal interpretation of the word, and it is "interactive" in that you get to choose between two words to type, and based on your input, the game prints out a paragraph of narrative from one of two categories. Sound bizarre? Wait till you see the actual "fiction." The readme file serves as a warning. If you think the paragraph in quotes in the readme file is odd, it's just a foretaste of the truly whacked. Here's a sample paragraph:
Yep, the whole thing is like that. Nothing but paragraphs and paragraphs of Sir Algebrah's exploits. The two words, by the way, are "slay" and "lay," and if appearances are to be believed, the former gets you a paragraph about the knight killing stuff, and the latter about his sexual exploits. Somehow, the dense text is entertaining. It's almost like the compulsion many people feel to look when driving past an auto collision: I am driven to read through the words, put them together into a narrative, and laugh at the outrageousness of it all. It's almost impressive -- where do they come up with this stuff? Sadly, by the end I suspect there is some sort of randomizer spitting this stuff out, because many of the phrases are exact copies from things I have read before. Then along comes a paragraph with only the name changed, and the exploit remains the same, and I am sure. Some of the typos are intentional, but there are unintentional ones as well: "pray" is used when clearly the intent is "prey," and "evlish" should be "elvish" (although in 3.5, it's elven). Some of the turns of phrase are outright hilarious. Here's one euphemism -- warning first, the following describes a somewhat adult scene: Sir Algebrah wants this one chick, but she runs from him, but then he finds her "plucking with her own hands the sacred fruit of relief." I would think this sort of thing would disgust me, but for some reason it is hilarious. Still, it may qualify as IF, but it isn't a game. And it isn't that much fun, either, though it does amuse for a few minutes. Enough. Writing/story: You could almost pretend to cobble a story together out of the random and spastic paragraphs. Some genuine errors. 2.5. Appeal/likeability: Some turn-offs; generally unappealing. There sure are a suspicious number of young virgins waiting to be freed. 2. Bugginess/mechanics: 1. No parser to speak of. It only understands two commands. Sweet Dreams was more interactive than this. Entertainment/fun: A moment or two of weird, guilty glee, but mostly no. And no puzzles, hints, or walkthrough, because there isn't anything to walk through. This would have easily been a 1 if not for those few amusing bits. 2. Composite score: (2.5+2+1+2)/2 = 3.75 (4) Risorgimento RepressoMichael Coyne, Z-code(Disclaimer: I was a beta-tester for this game.) Risorgimento Represso is a massive, beautiful, highly polished, well-executed experience. Oh, it's a traditional enough game, what with collecting objects and solving puzzles so you can go where you need to go, but I've never seen a game that did it so *well.* I find it difficult to be objective. If anything, you might call the story a weak point -- you play a university student, suddenly transported to a magical land, where you must find a way to be returned -- but there's so much richness and texture to the world of fantasy, with its wealth of characters and their own personal predicaments, it turns an ordinary beginning to an inventive and original fiction. The characters are one of the games strong points. Ninario, the wizard who summoned you, is a wealth of information and funny in his role as doddering old professor. Some NPCs don't appear directly in play, and you *still* have a sense of who they are: Emily the cheesemaker and Renaldo are pretty weighty characters, for all that you never get the chance to interact with them. It's amazing how many little things are accounted for in this game. You can look through doorways to see what's on the other side; you can gaze in certain directions to learn more about your surroundings; the game does a terrific job of knowing what you mean, or figuring out what necessary steps come before your command, especially with doors and the like. I am a fan of the hints, which are extensive and helpful, and the walkthrough, which allows you to get the maximum number of points. There are actual funny bits, there are a ton of references to IF stuff, there are cheeses. The game is wide open for exploration, and while some things need to be done before you can get to certain puzzles, for the most part you can work on any part. The hints seem to be adaptive, at least to the extent that they will let you know "You don't have the item you need to solve this puzzle; explore some more." The puzzles are tricky at times, and take a lot of experimentation. This is a game deserving of the time it takes to play it. It is on the large side, but I can't imagine trimming it down any. This is a very well-put-together, longish game that just hits all the right spots with me. Writing/story: The quality of the writing (and lack of mistakes) makes up for any weakness that I might claim in the story, but I think the story is a well-thought-out one. 5. Appeal/likeability: Ned wins me over. The only thing this game is missing is a cat, and come to think of it, the bunnies pretty much take care of that. Still, I can't give it full points here, but it goes beyond "I really liked it," so 4.5. Bugginess/mechanics: I can't find any problems. Simple as that. Oh, and all the little actions that are meticulously taken care of. I love how talkative the NPCs can be. 5. Entertainment/fun: For the most part the puzzles are very clever. A few times it's difficult to figure out what to do next, which is a danger in a game this size, but the wonderful hints make up for that. Risorgimento is just a heck of a lot of fun. I *like* the get-X-pints-using-Y-and-Z-containers puzzle, and I don't think I've seen it in IF. So, 5. Composite score: (5+4.5+5+5)/2 = 9.75 (10) | ||
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