Finally, my reviews might be a bit shorter on the average this
year. I spent fewer words on the games that didn't rate as highly.
With luck, I will be back to longer reviews next year..
All right, without further dilly-dally, let's see the list of
scores and then the reviews in the order I played the games.
My first glance down the list of entrants and the order in which
I would play them (thanks, Comp04.z5) was pretty exciting, for three
reasons. 1 - I recognized a lot of the author's names, and expected
to like many of the games. 2 - Earth and Sky 3! I was looking
forward to that! and 3 - The first seven games on my list were TADS
and Inform games, meaning they would be easy for me to get running.
That makes it much easier for me.
You begin Square Circle locked in a jail cell and will be set
free if you can solve an apparent paradox: your task is to draw a
square circle. I thought I had to perform this task while in the
cell, so I spent a bit of time looking for something to draw *on.*
There were two things in the room that might have worked, but didn't
for some reason. I finally checked the hints and found that I could
leave the room.
So, I spent a bit too much time up front reading and
experimenting, believing that once I had performed the task I was
done. After all, the note I found in the cell seemed to say that was
all there was to do. That turned out to be wrong, although the other
tasks were also in the same idea: you've got to escape *further*, is
all. This could have been better clued, and might have prompted me
to seek help sooner so I could fit the whole game into two hours (I
didn't, by the way). There was a problem or two with the hints:
"Where did the pen go when you dropped it?" didn't make
sense at the time, and it didn't make sense when I solved the
puzzle, either. Also, if the hints were supposed to be
context-sensitive (i.e. sensing when I had already performed an
action), they failed. It took me a quick peek at the walkthrough to
get jump-started again. Once outside the prison, the hints were much
more helpful.
In addition to that, once I knew what I wanted to do to draw my
square circle, I had quite a bit of trouble figuring out the syntax
needed to do it. I tried different equivalent things, and the game
pretended to understand, but they were not understood as solutions.
I did get it eventually, but it should have and could have been
smoother.
Now, I've only talked about puzzles so far, but there really is
some kind of story floating around behind the surface here. You see,
the PC doesn't know *why* he was put in prison. There are some hints
of the backstory when the game opens, and at a few points throughout
your explorations, but if it all got wrapped up at the end I didn't
get to see it. It seems like it might have been wrapped up quite
satisfactorily, which would have been a big plus (as opposed to
remaining vague and hinty-like). Anyways, I wanted to see what
happened, and I had grown a bit fond of the protagonist, but the
gameplay issues got in my way especially at the end.
Writing/story (0 to 10): Pretty good writing, very few typos, and
the story looked interesting (and like it might be going somewhere).
88
Appeal/likeability (0 to 10): Good. A lot to like. But then, a
lot of rather bland stuff too, so 6.
Bugginess/mechanics (0 to 10): I would have liked to see a little
more friendliness on some of the syntax problems. Overall good
though. 8
Entertainment/fun: Not bad. There were hints, after all, though
the hints were flawed. I did like most of the puzzle-y bits, but why
were acorns more satisfying than a ham sandwich? 8
Special: Didn't finish in two hours. Knock off one final point
from the end (4 points). [EDIT: no more -4 for not finishing. The
penalty has been declined.]
Composite score: (8+6+8+8)/4 = 7.50 (8)
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Escape From Auriga
Florin Tomescu, Z-code
Note: this game was disqualified for violating author rule 1:
do not base your game upon works currently under copyright without
the copyright holder's permission. But I already played it and
scored it, so here you are.
"You awaken suddenly" are the first three words of the
game, thus starting my list of "wake-up"
games: games where you are put into the action by waking up. There
were several of them this year, and to add to the confusion, several
of them have you waking up on a spaceship.
Writing/story: Mostly okay, but there are definitely weak spots.
Also some spelling errors. 6
Appeal/likeability: A couple of turn-offs, and not a whole lot to
appeal. Aliens, sure, but icky ones. 4
Bugginess/mechanics: There are definitely a lot of problems in
this category, though most of them are more annoyances than outright
bugs. 4
Entertainment/fun: Actually, kind of fun. Sure there were
problems, but it's not all bad. I used to play Doom, and this kind
of felt like it, what with the med kit and switching weapons to use
up ammo and such. No hints, but there is a walkthrough that tells me
how to get max points. 6
Composite score: (6+4+4+6)/4 = 5.00 (5)
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Sting of the Wasp
Jason Devlin, Z-code
[This review first appeared in the Comp edition of SPAG.]
Overall: Me gusta mucho. A lot of fun to play, good
characterization, great story, with room for improvement in certain
areas.
I think "Sting of the Wasp" (hereafter SotW) is the
only "Interactive Damage Control" that I've played. It
certainly seemed like an unusual premise: you've been caught in a
compromised position, and someone took a picture. You've got to find
out who and destroy the evidence before anyone has a chance to tell
your husband.
The game begins with a warning about the strong language and
sexual references. I am almost universally in favor of these types
of warnings, and I much appreciate being told about things like that
ahead of time. The warning also says "Despite the first scene,
this is not a pornographic game." That originally gave me a
good deal of pause, but I decided to try it out anyway. It turns out
to be mostly true: the game is not pornographic, but the first scene
*is* -- or at least it's rated R. But none of that part is
interactive, so those who are uncomfortable with such things can
close their eyes until that first room description rolls around.
The player character, Julia, is not the nicest person in the
world -- we know from the first scene that she's having an affair --
but her personality is very distinct, and it is shown very well
throughout the game. This description of her clothes says an awful
lot about her:
>x clothes
Nothing but the best for you. Pumps from Prada, skirt by Yves
Saint Laurent, a gorgeous silk blouse from the much-coveted Vera
Wang collection which is currently hanging about your shoulders,
exposing your three thousand dollar chest.
The setting is the country club that the PC and her husband
belong to. There are suspects everywhere -- apparently none of these
people particularly care about the PC. Everyone is competing for
status, snidely putting the PC down and trying to make each other
look bad. Interaction with the NPCs is pretty thorough -- they even
react (usually by making catty comments) to weird things you do as
the PC, like search the bushes, or try to walk east when there is no
exit that way. It's too bad the game doesn't recognize "talk to
<person>", because that seems very intuitive and makes
sense, especially given the special note in the help menu --
"talk to <person> about <topic>" *is*
implemented.
The hint menu has an attitude, which I like. The first hint I saw
was an excellent one, which really gave me an idea of what I needed
to do without making me feel like I had been told what to do.
Unfortunately, not all of the hints were quite that helpful. For
instance, a simple "Have you talked to Rodrigo" (names
have been changed) doesn't do me much good if I don't remember who
Rodrigo is, or know where he can be found. A different hint might
tell me he's on the polo field (places have been changed), but if
the only reference to the polo field I can find is a location titled
"Outside Stable (next to the Polo Field)" with no mention
of how to get there, then I'm still kind of lost. Especially since
the game is pretty consistent about listing the exits in all the
other rooms.
Speaking of listing the exits... that brings me to the part of
the review where I talk about the stuff that doesn't work so well in
the game. There's one location that just flat-out lists the
directions to other rooms wrong. It wasn't too hard to figure out,
though. Worse was trying to figure out what to do when all of the
hints said "don't continue until you've..." and I didn't
qualify for any of them. A few misleading responses threw me off,
like when I tried to take an object that I thought would come in
handy (and indeed, was required to solve a certain puzzle): it said
nah, let <someone else> take care of that. I didn't know I had
to search for it before I could take it. I had just assumed if it
was there that I would find it.
I had a few troubles finding the syntax required for certain
actions, but eventually (with the help of the hints) I made my way
through the puzzles. And oh, what fun puzzles they were! If I have a
choice between knowing what needs to be done but struggling with the
syntax, and wandering around trying to figure out what I'm supposed
to be doing, I'll take the former every day of the week. Still, I
ran into trouble again when I needed to use the phone and the hints
said "See 'Xavier won't let me use the phone!'", but I
couldn't find any such hint. I thought I was in an unwinnable state,
having missed my opportunity to use the phone, but it turned out I
was wrong. The game was pretty forgiving, right up until the
endgame, and I had plenty of warning that it wasn't going to be
forgiving. I'm not sure how many times it would have taken me to
solve that on my own, but I had the hints, and that took care of it
nicely.
But what about the story? you ask. It wasn't just all running
around solving puzzles, giving x to y and unlock doors, was it?
Well, maybe, but it didn't feel like that because of the characters.
You see, in order to get what she wants, Julia (the PC) has to find
out some secrets of the other people at the country club and exploit
them. The parts that I started guessing ahead of time (like the two
people I suspected were "an item") were very satisfying to
confirm! Then I suspected that someone else was after someone else
-- the whole thing was a cross between a soap opera, a detective
story, and some type of show where you're the criminal and you have
to cover your tracks. I can't think of what that would be. Anyways,
I liked it.
Oh, and SotW doesn't get full marks for writing/story because of
some punctuation issues. Not a big deal, just something to clean up.
I did give it full marks for entertainment/puzzles, because it was
just that much fun to play through and figure out. Extra-fun, in
fact.
Writing/story: 8
Appeal/likeability: 6
Bugginess/mechanics: 9
Entertainment/fun: 10
Composite score: (8+6+9+10)/4 = 8.25 (8)
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Stack Overflow
Timofei Shatrov, Z-code
I generally see it as a bad sign when the walkthrough contains a
line like: "(now the timing is important. If you return back
too early you would be shot with 30% chance.)" Random chance of
death, woo.
Anyway, you start this game apparently on your way to work, when
something wonky happens (the text does include the words "you
woke up" but that's not where you start). Next you're in a
small room with a puzzle to solve, and then something wonky happens,
putting you... back in the same room. Or is it? One more puzzle and
you're finally in the game proper: on an alien space station. I
didn't know what my goal was at that point, but I was fully prepared
for more wonky things to happen. They didn't, though: it was
"standard" puzzley IF from there, although the puzzles
were obscure and the writing was tepid.
Tepid, tepid... can writing be tepid? Halfhearted,
unenthusiastic, apatheic: yes, it was like that. Here's an example
from the very first part of the space station:
Space Station Level 0
You happen to be aboard a space station of some sort. The interior
reminds you of all those dumb sci-fi movies you've seen.
For God's sake, man, what does it *look* like? Examining things
in detail gets us nowhere, most of the time. Here's another room
description, where it seems at first glance there is something very
interesting to look at. Investigation will prove that theory wrong:
Long Passageway
You're inside the giant tube serving as an east-west passage. It
ends abruptly at the west side with a red and yellow striped gate,
which is blocked by the metal bars.
>x gate
You can't see any such thing.
>x bars
You can't see any such thing.
>x red
You can't see any such thing.
>x yellow
You can't see any such thing.
>x stripe
You can't see any such thing.
>x striped
You can't see any such thing.
>x block
You can't see any such thing.
>w
You can't, since the emergency gate is in the way.
>x emergency
You can't see any such thing.
Still, I don't want to be too harsh with criticism on this topic:
there are enough odd phrases and flat-out wrong word choices that I
have to believe English is not the author's native language. In
which case, this game will pretty well illustrate why every IF
author who is writing in a language other than his own native
language should find a native speaker to proofread for him.
Enough about writing. The hint system is tragically, tragically
flawed. I couldn't figure out how some of the comments were supposed
to help me when it was the *syntax* I was struggling with. The
game's responses are no help either: at one point I was told an
object was (and I quote) "fixed in place." Fixed in place
means it cannot be moved. When later I discovered that I could (and
indeed, *needed* to) push the object to a different location, I was
mighty disappointed.
Sigh. Anyway, I pulled out the walkthrough and used it. I got to
a spot where the walkthrough didn't work, so I assumed I had done
something differently earlier in the game, and I started over from
the very top with the walkthrough. This worked, and convinced me
that I never would have gotten through it on my own. There were
actions I wouldn't have guessed (to get the keycard). Also, I was
confused when I waited by the elevator and no one showed up.
Apparently you have to summon them, and then leave. So somehow they
know you're leaving? In which case, why don't they come after you?
Writing/story: The world is under-described, and I get the
feeling that the author was bored with his own setting. If you don't
care what it looks like, then I'm not going to get a good sense of
the setting. 4
Appeal/likeability: Fair. I like aliens, even if they were mostly
just hinted at rather than actually implemented. I can't say I
*disliked* it. 6
Bugginess/mechanics: Sigh. Unfortunately this game had a lot of
problems. It tries hard though. Well, it sorta tries. 4
Entertainment/fun: Pretty darn low. I had to use the walkthrough
since there were no real hints. I totally don't understand the
machine with which I made a Klein bottle -- there were no clues
about how it worked or what it did; it just seemed to create things
out of other things pretty much at random. At least there was a
walkthrough. 4
Composite score: (4+6+4+4)/4 = 4.50 (5)
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PTBAD 3: A Mystery
Xorax, TADS2
PTBAD 3 starts with a few typos, some misused commas, and a few
bits of nonsense. It didn't get any better.
It didn't take long to figure out that this game was totally
surreal and also very silly. It reminded me a bit of the scene in
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when Arthur and Ford first come
aboard the Heart of Gold, but it wasn't nearly as funny or
fast-paced. Trying to actually get anything done is like pulling
teeth. And there are *lots* of misspelled words.
I wandered about for a bit, seeming to make a bit of process, and
then I was stuck. I couldn't find any hints, or any walkthrough, or,
in fact, any help of any sort. I called in my backup (Jen) to help
me out so I could try to finish the game, since I didn't want to
spend the rest of my two hours bothering. She found a door. I found
a door, too, but she also found a way to get back to the door after
getting the key, which eluded me.
So, I made it to a maze of sorts, and then, "the end."
Kind of. There was no real end; it just said it was the end, and I
didn't trust the game nearly enough to believe that. Overall: a
poorly implemented silly idea with no real end. And the rabbit is
dead.
Writing/story: Bad. Typos, punctuation errors, misspelled words,
and poor writing. Also, no story. 2
Appeal/likeability: Not a lot. It did make me think for just a
fraction of a second, though. 4
Bugginess/mechanics: Actually, so little was done with this, it's
surprising that I can even mark this category down as low as I do.
But I can, because there were *so* many things that the game didn't
know and it should have. Bad. 4
Entertainment/fun: A tiny sliver of entertainment. I could not
find the end, but rather than mark the game down in this category
for not being a game, I will assume that it is a game, but one I
couldn't finish.
Special: couldn't finish, -4. [EDIT: no more -4 for not
finishing.]
Composite score: (2+4+4+2)/4 = 3.00 (3)
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The Orion Agenda
Ryan Weisenberger, Z-code
More aliens! I must admit I am liking the alien theme this year.
I like aliens. However, this is all making me want to go back and
play the revised version of Cerulean Stowaway. Anyway, let's play it
on its own merits.
I was encouraged to see the ORLibrary in use. That should mean
attention paid to syntax troubles and helping out the player with
the technical bits. The game began (like so many of the others) with
a sort of dream, just waking up, and the PC can't remember how he
got there. It took me a while to realize I had moved into some kind
of flashback. That's always tricky in IF, and there certainly were
ways to "break" it in The Orion Agenda.
"Orionions?" Please, say it ain't so. Maybe it's
pronounced "orry-unyuns" -- Ore-Ida has branced out from
potatoes into onions.
The writing was moving along just fine, with just a very
occasional missing word or punctuation problem, and I was enjoying
the extra responses to actions, the "where is," the
"look up," and the interaction with the NPC.
Then I died, rather suddenly. Pfft. [Mild spoilers ahoy; ye may
wish to skip to the next paragraph if this
bothers ye.] This was *after* I offered the disguise to my partner
and she said "that wouldn't help." But the lack of
disguises was why we were killed! And she was supposed to be the
expert on these people! It was not obvious at first that we each had
our own kit, and our own disguise.
Anyway, I did a bit of "learn by
dying" which confused me because I was in a hole later on,
wasn't I? So how could I die before getting there?
The story is interesting, to a point, but the game really turns
on its puzzles. There are gadgets to play with, a native culture to
try to understand, and some neat areas to explore (though more
things in the village should be implemented). For all its story,
this is a very puzzley game, and most of the puzzles fit into the
game world nicely. However, one major problem is a lack of direction
once you are in the village. My first thought was to wait in my hut
until something else happened, but it didn't take long to realize I
was actually supposed to bust myself out of the place somehow. But I
wasn't really motivated to do an exhaustive, detailed search of the
village, in part because there were so many things not very well
implemented.
I had a few problems fiddling with gadgets at times, which was
frustrating because it was necessary (otherwise I would have chucked
the thing early on):
>wear it
(first taking the electronic translator)
I put on the electronic translator.
>turn it on
I need to turn the knob to turn it on.
>turn knob
What setting should I set the knob to?
[edit: Gee, I don't know. I wonder what my options are?]
>x settings
I cannot see any such thing.
So. As I say, the puzzles were mostly sensible, though they
weren't necessarily easy. I found I especially despise hints that
are no good: it said "scan the items," but that wasn't the
correct action, and nothing I could think of to try worked or gave
me helpful feedback at all. Also, my partner sometimes said "I
don't think that would help" when the action would *obviously*
help, which is misleading and should be fixed. Worst of all was when
the hint told me specifically to use the syntax "X" and it
didn't work. Apparently that command only worked in one location,
and in any other location you got the default doesn't-work type
response.
Ooh, Jess is getting gripey. One last gripe: Do you have any idea
how easy it is to mistype xzxxe? That's not exactly kind.
I was really hoping to see an AMUSING section at the end of this,
since I had some extra time to play with and I really wanted to like
the game better, but there wasn't any. At least I finished.
Overall, The Orion Agenda has a nice sci-fi story on both ends
and lots of puzzles in the middle, though you may have to do some
work in figuring out how to phrase your commands at times. Perhaps a
nice revision after the comp would make it an excellent game.
Writing/story: All right, this is kind of good. There were only a
few odd phrases in the text, and overall very few errors. And I do
like the story. 8
Appeal/likeability: Kind low. I like aliens and all, but wasn't
this an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation? (Or is "Bejourn"
from DS9?) Plus, the first person thing only distanced me from the
action. 4
Bugginess/mechanics: Medium. There was a lot of good stuff, but
there was a whole lot unimplemented too. And the instructing the NPC
thing was spotty. 6
Entertainment/fun: So-so, medium-low. But there were hints,
right? Yes, although not perfect hints, since they told me the wrong
thing at times. And how about telling us about these alternate
endings, help with getting Rebecca in the end, etc? 6
Composite score: (8+4+6+6)/4 = 6.00 (6)
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Gamlet
Tomasz Pudlo, Z-code
Note: yes, the name of the author looks familiar, but I don't
recall any specific newsgroup wars or anything. So basically I am
reviewing this "blind." Sometimes I feel really out of the
loop. Dear the Cabal, have ye received my application yet?
It was pretty clear from the start that this was some kind of
not-quite-serious take-off of Hamlet, but it wasn't until I got a
few rounds into the game that I realized it was also a Jewish
version of Hamlet. I was a bit thrown at first by some of the vulgar
bits in the beginning, but the manner and style of the prose didn't
fit with that. It seemed to be aiming for a Shakespearean feel
without the flowery bits that we don't really use any more -- but
tossing this in next to the vulgar bits was weird. Clearly we need
an example here:
>ask father about uncle
His eyes and features remain impassive, but you hear contempt
twist his voice.
- Although begotten by the same father, born of the same mother
and reared in the same faith, your uncle and I have as much in
common as Abel and Cain. He lives by night - your father goes on -
indulging in carnal pursuits a righteous man would shudder at. It
is said his lasciviousness extends to goats... of both sexes. - An
effectful pause.
I think of this game as divided into two parts -- one, in the
house, which I played and had fun with, especially with the puzzles
in the study. The second part was, well, not-house, and everything
took an odd turn that I couldn't follow and used hints/walkthrough
for (well, it was near the end of my two hours, too). If all of the
game had been as engaging and interesting as the first part, or
heck, if it stopped after you figured out how to get "out"
of the house, it would have been quite a good game. As it was... it
was well-made, but somehow unsatisfying by the end of it.
The centerpiece of the game, in my mind, was the study. Here's a
room full of objects, furniture, and thick atmosphere, and even now
I can get a sense of what it was like to be in the study. Items that
the PC is not interested in are dealt with nicely, and items that
the PC is interested in are implemented in detail.
I had some trouble with syntax at times, especially when I
thought I knew what I needed to do but none of my phrasings were
working. Also, I needed a few hints to solve certain puzzles, though
I was pleased to see I was mostly on the right track. In fact, the
wrong action sometimes gave me a very good idea of what needed to be
done, even if they got what I was trying to do wrong:
>burn myself with poker
With a match? No, you'd need something more substantial.
See, I *was* using something more substantial than a match, but
this comment still led me to the next action I needed to do.
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to type Enkryptykon
correctly when you're in a hurry? (This sounds like a familiar
complaint. I hope it's not the recurring theme in this year's
games!)
Anyway, overall I admired the game's quality, and I enjoyed the
first part but didn't like the last part. I'm not sure what I was
supposed to get out of all that.
Writing/story: Pretty darn good, I think. A very rare typo. The
ending detracts from the overall story. 9
Appeal/likeability: Medium? I need to refresh my memory on this
category again. There is fencing!! (Okay, pictures of men in fencing
stances, but still!) 7
Bugginess/mechanics: Pretty high score (low bugginess). I
couldn't brand myself though, which definitely should have at least
had a response. 8 -- more could have been done.
Entertainment/fun: Actually, pretty entertaining with some neat
puzzles. And there were hints and a walkthrough, so I made it to the
end, although I had trouble with some spots. Puzzles generally good,
I think, especially in the study. 8
Composite score: (9+7+8+8)/4 = 8.00 (8)
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Trading Punches
Sidney Merk, Hugo
I only had the Hugo engine on my machine because of the recent
release of Necrotic Drift. So, I was able to play yet another
alien-culture exploration game, though Trading Punches has quite a
bit of hefty story to go with it.
The very start of the game is a sort of flashback, and the first
thing I noticed was all the stuff I *couldn't* do. Not a good way to
start a game. If I can see my father, I expect to be able to get a
description of what he looks like, even if he is implemented in
another location. I don't think "jibes" means
"teases," which is how it is used here. And why is an
ancient and seemingly rare "artifact" (which may be one of
the only working ones in existence) of "little value"?
Anyway, the next thing that happened was that I left the game
running for an hour and came back to a black window. Apparently this
terp doesn't like idling, so it shut down the game and wouldn't let
me pick up where I left off. Damn you, Hugo interpreter! [Later I
was to find that the time-out was closer to twenty minutes. This
caused me all sorts of lost time, which I had to count against the game,
in replaying parts to catch up to where I was before. Also
frustrating.]
Hm, lots of complaining so far in this review. Okay, I'll skip
over some of what I was going to complain about and get to the part
where I actually talk about the game's strengths and weaknesses.
Trading Punches is a puzzle-y type game, with a good story behind
it (and a very complete-feeling universe behind *that*). You play
Gavenn Daroan, the elected leader of your... planet? Most of the
game is in flashbacks, as you relate incidents from your past to a
student. The time period also nicely covers some important events in
the history of your world, as an alien culture comes in contact with
yours. The end, though, is happening "now" and ties up
some of the loose ends of the story quite nicely (at least, the
parts of the end I saw looked like they might, and I assume the very
end would finish the job). The game ranges from an idyllic
countryside setting to a hot and windy desert to an undersea dungeon
crawl to a drinking party -- well, sort of. The environment changes
add a lot to the complex feel of the game world.
The puzzles are, for the most part, interesting and engaging. Or
at least, they would be engaging if I hadn't hit SO many snags with
syntax, commands not understood, and just plain inconveniences. I
had trouble with the walkthrough, since it doesn't explain what's
going on. There are certain points of the game where you cannot just
pick up the walkthrough and start following it, because some things
seem to be randomized. I.e., at one point the walkthrough says
"go back to X location," when it should say "go back
to whichever location you were at when Y happened." If you are
following the walkthrough from the beginning, you are at X when Y
happens, but if not, then you will get stuck. I got stuck.
I got stuck at the end, too, when I was following the walkthrough
word for word and it didn't work. How do you account for a
walkthrough which just plain doesn't work? I couldn't figure it out
on my own before time ran out, so I was forced to score the game
without seeing the ending.
Writing/story: Good. 8
Appeal/likeability: Nothing much to excite, though it was more
positive than negative. Aliens, yay; backstory, yay; not being able
to find everything out and tie up loose ends, boo. I can thank Sheri
S. Tepper for an eternal fondness for characters named Yarrel. 6
Bugginess/mechanics: Many, many problems: wording, syntax, etc.
This was often a pain but there was nothing fatal. 6
Entertainment/fun: I actually liked the drinking puzzle. But the
lack of hints and LACK OF A REAL WALKTHROUGH makes this category
pretty low, which is unfortunate. 4
Special: -4, didn't finish. [EDIT: no more -4 for not finishing.]
Composite score: (8+6+6+4)/4 = (6.00)
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All Things Devours
half sick of shadows, Z-code
Ironically, when a game warns me that it's not going to be fair,
I consider that fair warning. And All Things Devours (ATD) has such
a warning, so I settled in to have a good play. The very first thing
I ran into was a fatal programming error.
I was awful close to quitting and scoring it very very low right
then, since I didn't remember seeing any other way to go from the
first room except north. And since north led to a fatal programming
error, this game looked totally worthless. The hints and walkthrough
were online, and I was offline, so that was really no help. (All
appearances to the contrary, I really don't live online. That would
be my husband. I travel with my laptop a lot. I continue to think
that having the hints/walkthrough online is a mistake. I see
absolutely no advantage to doing that over including it with the
game. Separate file if you must, but it should be available.) I also
had a problem in that first hallway, where "x door" led to
"Which door do you mean, the door to the Saunders Lab or the
door to the Pooley Lab?" but "x door to pooley lab"
got me nowhere.
The text online with the hints suggested that I leave the game
"for a few days" before turning to the hints. That might
be fine advice the rest of the year, but not during Comp. I play
these games in order, and if I leave your game, I might not come
back to it to upgrade the score from 1. I set aside two hours for
ATD, and those were the two hours I wanted to spend, dammit, not
some other future two hours. And finally, the hints were not in an
easily-downloadable format, which was even worse than just having to
go to a website to get them, because I actually am not hooked to the
internet most of the time I'm playing interactive fiction. If I'm
hooked up, it's for something else. Playing is one of the few things
that can be done offline.
Whew. Okay, let me be done with all my complaining now, because
ATD truly is a remarkable piece of work. It's just unfortunate that
we had the trouble with the programming error and the online-hints
thing, because I almost missed what turned out to be the most fun in
the entire Comp.
You play a -- student? Academic researcher? Scientist? -- who has
created a prototype of a dangerous device and was promptly removed
from the project when the military took over. The intro text sums up
your mission quite well:
You're in.
The plan now is simple: go to your lab, plant the bomb, and run.
The prototype will be destroyed. The military will have no way to
continue the experiment. No- one will die.
The guard is out securing the grounds. The building is empty. You
have six minutes.
Just like that, you've got a clear job to do. You've got one
major puzzle to solve, though you can break it down into smaller
steps and solve them one at a time. ATD is most definitely a
learn-by-dying game, but I don't remember the last time I have been
*so* happy to learn something even at the cost of the PC's life --
this time through, anyway. To aid you in your mission, there is a
small collection of typical IF items -- light source, keys, crowbar
-- and a not-so-typical item, the prototype itself, which you must
employ to solve the game.
After I finished this one, with the help of the hints at the end,
I told Jen that she had to play it. I didn't tell her anything else
about it, and I'm glad I didn't. Figuring out what you have to do is
a major part of the fun, and figuring out how exactly to do it is
very satisfying.
Overall: a tremendous technical achievement and a ton of fun to
play, with one intricate knot of a puzzle.
Writing/story: Fine, no mistakes. The story is a bit on the bland
side but it does what it needs to do to showcase the fun parts of
the game. 8
Appeal/likeability: Nice. I love the sci-fi parts. And the whole
thing with time travel actually working is great. 8
Bugginess/mechanics: Good, but there were a few things I would
have like to have seen differently. This only scores as high as it
does because of the complications that must have been involved with
the time travel. There was one or two spots where a catastrophe
occurred and *then* I got the message about holding my breath, etc.
8
Entertainment/fun: SUPER FUN. I would give this a 10 straight off
if the hints, walkthrough, and afterword had been part of the game
instead of located somewhere else. As it is, I have to ponder for a
few minutes first. 10
Composite score: (8+8+8+10)/4 = 8.50 (9)
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Who Created That Monster?
N. B. Horvath, TADS2
The year is 2026. You are an investigative journalist in Iraq,
trying to get to the bottom of a mystery (see the title for a hint).
To do this, you've got to use any means at your disposal to worm
information out of the various embassies in Baghdad, even if it
means lying to, bribing, or threatening them.
I had to stop playing after five minutes and go get something to
eat, because the opening scene (set in a McDonald's) had me craving
chicken nuggets, and you can't ignore the cravings of a pregnant
woman. When I came back to the game, I must admit my first
impressions were not so favorable. I had little luck getting
information out of the NPCs, the map seemed a bit sprawling and
confusing, and there were just a ton of places where I knew I was
supposed to be doing something, but couldn't figure out what.
It turned out that the problem wasn't so much the game, as I had
thought, but my own failure to read the directions and pay attention
when the game said "your task is to find THIS." Oops. Once
I had that, things became a little bit smoother, and I was able
(with minimal use of the hints) to find my way around the city and
through the mystery.
Overall, it is cute enough to while away a bit of time, though it
doesn't have much in the way of Deeper Meaning or Literary
Excellence. It also served as a reminder to read the introductory
text carefully for clues as to what's going on.
Writing/story: Nothing really special here, but I didn't see a
lot of typos either. The story is not a bad one, and the setting
seems well constructed. 7
Appeal/likeability: Political commentary is always tricky, but
this one was handled nicely. There was a funny jab at the US, and
the whole thrust of the thing might be pretty critical of the US,
but it's soft enough not to take offense at. Surprising. Nothing
special, but it's not offensive either. Treads a fine line
successfully. 6
Bugginess/mechanics: There are a few things that might have been
nicer, but I was surprised by the smoothness of the syntax. I should
have read the "about" text sooner, but it wasn't
explicitly mentioned when I started the game. I lied: it says
"Type ABOUT for important game information" and I ignored
it -- my bad. I would have liked more talkative NPCs (isn't that
*always* true?). 8
Entertainment/fun: Actually not bad. There were hints, there was
a walkthrough, there were puzzles that even I could solve. I love
that sense of accomplishment. 8
Composite score: (7+6+8+8)/4 = 7.25 (7)
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Bellclap
Tommy Herbert, Z-code
Bellclap is an interesting experiment in points of view. In this
game, the protagonist is a human being named Bellclap who moves
through the environment and stuff. You play a god. There is also a
very distinct parser-type character who relates your instructions as
you type them to the human being -- and all of your commands are for
him, not for yourself or for the middleman. Each of the three
characters has its own personality, although you have to imagine any
personality you might bring to the god character. Here's a good
illustration of the three different parts interacting:
Sir, Bellclap is in need of help, sir. He's in one of your
temples in the mountains. He says he has insufficient food to
return home, and it's getting dark. He is also complaining about
the weather.
Temple
The temple consists of a stone room with an altar and a statue of
you, sir. He entered it through an archway to the south.
He is promising bounteous sacrifices in return for his life.
What would you like him to do, sir?
>x me
He can't see you, sir. You're in light inaccessible, hid from his
eyes.
Unless that instruction was intended for me, in which case you're
looking radiant, sir, radiant.
>x you
He can't see me, sir. I'm more a sort of guiding voice.
There is a sort of series of puzzles to solve, though I found it
rather tricky. The purported goal is to get Bellclap some food, but
actually that's like an end-goal that you don't actually get to in
the course of the game. So what was I supposed to be accomplishing?
It's hard to get good hints when you're supposed to be omniscient, I
guess. Peeking at the walkthrough gave me a bit of a hint to make
some progress, and then another long look at it got me through to
the end.
I was rather hoping it would be a funny game, because the blurb
(which was also the first line of the excerpt above) amused me so.
It turned out to have some amusing bits but not very many, and
there's not an AMUSING section at the end to entertain me any more.
In the end, I was intrigued by the unusual viewpoint, stymied by
some odd puzzles, and found Bellclap a bit lacking in actual meat,
or crunchy bits, or whatever it is we're calling real content these
days.
Writing/story: Actually, pretty good. I didn't see any mistakes
in the text, and the writing was always clear about who was speaking
to whom. Still, not a fantastic story. 6
Appeal/likeability: I really like the gimmick. I was hoping for
more of it, but even as it is I like it. 8
Bugginess/mechanics: The goo stuff was a bit tricky, and maybe
there weren't enough responses for actions that didn't work, but
overall, good here. 8
Entertainment/fun: Just okay. No hints, but two walkthroughs.
There wasn't quite enough direction for my taste, and the game is
too short and unresponsive to encourage a lot of banging on
different things and trying different tactics. So, entertainment
value suffers a bit, but it's still fun. This game is prime for an
AMUSING section, but there was none. 6
Composite score: (6+8+8+6)/4 = 7.00 (7)
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Blue Sky
Hans Fugal, Z-code
At this point in playing my comp games, I am smack in the middle
of a string of Z-code B-games, and Blue Sky is up next. There was a
movie by this name. Checking the files that came with the game, I
see that the hints are in an html file, which is probably good
enough, but the walkthrough seems to be in a .scr file, which could
be bad if it's just a transcript... which it is.
In Blue Sky, you are with a tourist group visiting the lovely
city of Santa Fe, but you overslept and missed the group's
departure. So now you've got to find them and join them (I wondered
about the possibility of doing, ya know, something *else* for the
day [especially white water rafting!], but that didn't seem to be an
implemented option.) There's quite a lot of realistic-seeming
elements with local flavor, which is fun, but the puzzles leave a
bit to be desired.
The things you need to do aren't exactly intuitive, and the whole
thing is a little dry in tone. I'm sure Santa Fe is interesting
enough, and I did like being able to wander around anywhere (except
where I couldn't go). The score notes aren't consistent: some of
them have periods and some don't. I like the idea of it, but it just
wasn't that fun. Still, at least the puzzles weren't too hard -- I
solved two of the four on my own. Wow, stopping to count made me
realize there were only four puzzles.
Basically, I'd like to see a little more attention paid to an equally good idea by the same author, with some more puzzles and better
hints.
Writing/story: Not bad. More of a hook than a story. A few typos.
It's bad when the hints have to tell me what a sipa is because it's
not described properly in the game. 6
Appeal/likeability: Nothing special. I like the llama, I like the
"wandering around the city" thing, but I just didn't get
into it. 6
Bugginess/mechanics: Seems okay. I didn't make many notes in this
area, so it couldn't have been too offensive. 8
Entertainment/fun: It seems possible to get to an unwinnable
state on accident, with no warning, just by finding the llama before
meeting the flute player. And there's not a lot to do about it,
either. There were very few puzzles, and I had difficulty with all
of them except the llama thing, because that one solved itself as I
wandered. Overall, the entertainment is rather low. There is a
walkthrough, and there are hints, even if they're not super good
ones. 6
Composite score: (6+6+8+6)/4 = 6.50 (7)
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Blink
Ian Waddell, Z-code
In Blink, you play an older man named Tom Walsh who struggles to
come to terms with his own military experience in the face of some
difficult questions from his young grandson, Duncan.
Ugh.
Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's talk about
implementation, which is sadly lacking. Here are some typical
examples. First, a room description and the major missing noun:
Pond
The pond, algae-covered and teeming with life, surrounds you in
all directions except all southernly directions. Cattails poke out
of the water, clearly thriving in this wetland-- unlike you, of
course. A drainpipe can be seen to the north, but it's almost
completely submerged in water.
>x pond
You can't see any such thing.
And second, the lovely conversation mechanism, "talk
to", in action:
[Duncan] still sits though. "Grandpa, can I ask you
something?"
>talk to duncan
You can't think of anything in particular to say.
"Sure, sport. Ask anything."
Most of the time it seemed like there was only one conversation
option, or that all conversation choices led to the same thing, so I
never got to see the multiple paths that were mentioned in the About
text.
No hints and no walkthroughs means, of course, I got stuck.
Luckily I had Jen to suggest "take all" in every location
(if you consider that a spoiler, please let me know, because I do
not, in this case). One of the most dramatic moments of the
flashback loses all of its intended emotional impact because of a
punctuation error, smack-dab in the middle of it. Later, what is
supposed to be another emotional moment (I assume) is ruined because
of how a dead body is implemented -- you can't talk to it, it's
"fixed in place," and it's missing an important,
humanizing synonym, so it becomes just a prop.
In summary, this is not entertainment at all. It doesn't seem to
be intended to entertain, but what it's actually trying to do, I'm
not sure. Any emotional impact is lost due to implementation
problems. And if the message is supposed to be that sometimes people
die tragically and needlessly, well, thank you, but M*A*S*H did that
a whole lot better.
Writing/story: A few typos. The story is, as they say, "on
rails" the entire time, even though multiple paths are
mentioned. Still, not terrible. 6
Appeal/likeability: Pretty low. What is the point of this? What
message are you getting across to me: war is bad? Yeah, thanks for
the tip. 4
Bugginess/mechanics: Not terrible, but there were a couple of
things that could have been done better. Then again, it doesn't try
very much either (see the "x pond" problem mentioned
above). 6
Entertainment/fun: SuX0r. NO HINTS AND NO WALKTHROUGH MAKES JESS
ANGRY. Yeah, I got to "an" end, but it wasn't any fun. I
wonder which part exactly was supposed to be entertaining? 2
Composite score: (6+4+6+2)/4 = 4.50 (5)
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Luminous Horizon: Earth and Sky 3
Paul O'Brian, Glulx
In the third installment of Earth and Sky, you play both Austin
and Emily, switching between them at will to ultimately save your
parents. Oh, I can't tell you how excited I was to load this one up. EAS2
was just about perfect from a technical standpoint, and the hints
were good enough to bring tears to my eyes. Perhaps I expected too
much in thinking EAS3 could match it.
The first ten minutes were sunk into reading the intro file with
helpful verbs and the comic that reprised the story of the previous
two episodes (YES! THE SQUID!!). After that, I was really ready for
a great game. Alas, the very issues that EAS2 handled perfectly (syntax, synonyms, disambiguation,
parser) were the ones that EAS3 struggled with.
The puzzles were intelligently laid out -- you start with a few
easier ones that require the use of both character's powers, so you
have to be aware of them later in the game. Then you get to some
harder ones, which would have been just peachy if there had been
lovely hints like in the second episode. Unfortunately, the hints
are in-game only, the kind you get from talking to other characters,
and I had a lot of trouble actually getting help.
So, while there was a lot to be impressed by in this game, there
was a lot of polishing left to be done.
Writing/story: Rock solid, with just the one typo. 10
Appeal/likeability: I have difficulty getting into character due
to the switching between them. Still, I love the idea behind this
game. I *really* wanted to get into that vehicle, but it was a red
herring. I loved the comic. And I do *like* the characters plenty; I
just like them as NPCs. 8
Bugginess/mechanics: I would love to say it was perfect, but
there were just some things that should have been better. I had
difficulty with the gizmos, for example, and I can take the archways
from the corridor. And asking questions between the two of them was
not as easily understood by the game as "talk to." 7
Entertainment/fun: With no way to judge how long the game was (no
score), it was very difficult to feel comfortable doing the puzzles
at my own pace. And I got stuck a *lot*, for a long time, and the
hints just weren't enough. They seem to be location sensitive, which
just makes the puzzles harder when I think I need to be doing
something in a different room. And what's up with the ending? Could
I have done it any differently? Why is there no walkthrough? I
admire the puzzles, I guess, but I just couldn't figure them out. 6
Composite score: (10+8+7+6)/4 = 7.75 (8)
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The Realm
Michael Sheldon, TADS2
Another game that starts with "you wake up, and here you
are." I guess this is a pretty normal way to start a game; it's
just that for some reason this year it really caught my eye and
started being more of a distraction than a normal IF beginning. I'm
sure I'll get over it.
In The Realm, you play a young squire who is trying to become a
knight, but you've lost your sword and armor. Hilarity ensues in
this zany, madcap, etc etc. There are hamsters, but also hamster
urine. The King is named Gertrude. I found it quite a lot of fun to
play through, and while the puzzles don't always seem to fit in the
setting, the solutions make sense most of the time. My main
complaint in fact is, wait for it, the lack of hints. Luckily there
was a walkthrough included with the game that I could use as a
hint-source -- not perfect, but it'll do in a pinch.
Writing/story: Some grammar problems, and the story is on the
weak side, but serviceable (I hate that word) Ahem. It's a bit weak,
but it gets the job done. 6
Appeal/likeability: The cuteness of the rabid hamster is
outweighed by the urine bit. But then Picklebird pushes me back to
"liked it more than not." 6
Bugginess/mechanics: Definitely a bit of room for improvement,
but overall things worked well. 8
Entertainment/fun: Pretty high, but not as good as the very best.
No hints, but there was a walkthrough. Still some (of what I would
consider) good puzzles. Fun. 8
Composite score: (6+6+8+8)/4 = 7.00 (7)
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Zero
William A. Tilli, TADS2
Once again I am being "awakened" to start the game. In
this one, you play a goblin soldier whose home caverns have just
been raided by the bad guys -- humans. You've got to go through the
colony's halls and put everything back in place. I guess. I didn't
really get that far, to be honest.
The idea is entertaining enough, but I had to laugh at some of
the typos: fowl humans, someone "unleashed a furry of death." Still,
it's interesting to play the part of the goblin for once, instead of
the human soldier whose town was just raided by goblins. There's a
great deal of descriptive text that could be a part of a great game,
but the lack of feedback and true interactivity make it difficult to
appreciate it in its current form.
The puzzles leave a lot to be desired -- like, making sense,
being clued, being intuitive, working, etc. I'm so picky. The
gameplay goes something like this: wander around, find something to
be put back in place, put it back in place. This makes some other
item available somewhere else in the caverns, so you start over with
the wandering around, looking for things to put back in place. I
couldn't find any rational link between the item I put back and the
next thing that opened up, which means it's all just wandering at
random and hoping for the best.
Around 400 turns in, I got hit with the sleep and hunger puzzles.
It was about that time I realized I wasn't going to be able to solve
this one without hints, and there were no hints. I beat my head on
it for a while longer, out of obstinacy, really.
Sigh. I decided at last to go ahead and grade it based on what I
had played so far, and not take off four points because I didn't
finish. It just wouldn't be right without spending the full two
hours on the game, and quite frankly that would be a waste of my
time. But to be fair, I will change my policy so that there is no
longer a penalty for not finishing a game. I don't like it, but I'll
try it this way to see how it all falls out.
Writing/story: Mistakes, but sometimes it tries to be a little
too much: "The stone walls seem to choke the small bed laying
here." (Further, note laying instead of lying, and "seem
to" which is frowned upon.) Still, I like the story plenty
fine. 7
Appeal/likeability: Not too bad. There aren't any grossnesses
like I remember from the last Santoonie game I played. I like
playing a goblin, and the character is actually interesting. It's
good that he has a history. Still, I didn't get to see much of the
world. 8
Bugginess/mechanics: TONS of things not implemented, commands not
understood, and trouble getting through to the parser. 4
Entertainment/fun: Hmm... stupid die-at-400+-turns-hunger-daemon.
Annoying visit-the-same-places-many-times puzzles. Still, it's not
terrible. I like the idea of the puzzles even if I can't do them.
Oh, and no hints and no walkthrough means Jess can't solve it. 4
Composite score: (7+8+4+4)/4 = 5.75 (6)
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Magocracy
Scarybug, TADS2
Normally, I love games with wizards and spellcasting and stuff in
them, but when the game also involves combat and a slew of
randomized elements (NPCs, wandering monsters, the aforementioned
combat, to name a few), I am wary. In fact I expected to not like
it.
The premise is simple: you, a simple street magician are taking
part in a wizard death-match. Six wizards are locked into a castle
until only one remains alive, and that one will inherit the kingdom.
Woot, right? Sure, okay. There are quite a few different strategies
you can pursue, from improving your spellcasting abilities, to
working on those sword skillz, to turning the other wizards against
each other. I opted for the "use UNDO to defeat really strong
monsters and gain lots of points with little to no real effort"
strategy, which may have killed some of the fun, but I'm not here
for fun; I'm here to WIN.
Actually, I only did that because it seemed the only way to get
out of the dungeon alive. Yes, if you take a wrong turn early on in
the game, you can be dumped into the dark maze that is the castle's
dungeon, there to be set upon by wandering monsters as well as enemy
wizards and their summoned henchmen/creatures. Since this can happen
early, it's really easy to get trapped down there with monsters you
don't have any real hope of beating yet -- unless, of course, you
know how to UNDO.
I definitely wouldn't have had any luck against the other wizards
without extensive hint-reading -- but at least there *were* hints.
It's a neat little system, if you like this sort of thing, but not
usually what I'm looking for in a work of interactive fiction.
Writing/story: Typos, story is mediocre, etc. 6
Appeal/likeability: I quite liked the setting, creatures, idea,
but it really fell flat. 6
Bugginess/mechanics: Not too buggy. Very annoying at times, but
only part of that was due to buggy-type stuff. 6
Entertainment/fun: Rather low, but not awful. Probably a 6,
though I wouldn't recommend it unless someone was looking for this
type of game.
Composite score: (6+6+6+6)/4 = 6.00 (6)
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Goose, Egg, Badger
Brian Rapp, Z-code
Warning: this review discusses the implementation "secrets."
Normally I'd provide a link skipping anything spoiler-like, but
since it's pretty much the whole review, I won't. To be honest, I
really wish I had known the secret before playing the game, because
it would have made it much more entertaining from the start.
This is a gimmick game in a way, though it's not immediately
obvious. The best kind of gimmick games are ones that you can play
as if they were normal games; Goose, Egg, Badger is one of those.
Here's the deal: you can solve the game and get full points using no
other verbs than those which appear... as nouns... in the
game itself. There's a goose, there's an egg, there's a badger. You
can use all of them as verbs. In fact, I think that every object in
the entire game has a name you can use as a verb, and in the
"gimmick-y" way of playing through, you use only these verbs (and
directions, if I recall correctly). Most of the puzzles can be
solved using other verbs as well, which is a good thing, because
without knowing the gimmick ahead of time, I would never think to
use certain verbs in a work of interactive fiction ("skirt" comes to
mind here).
You play a girl on a farm (another "you wake up and here you
are"), trying to put things right after some intruder has apparently
messed them up. So you've got to clean up the messes and get the
animals back into their pens and so forth. If that doesn't sound
terribly exciting, it's because it's not.
All the new verbs means lots of new ways of interacting, and also
a lot of default responses. These are for the most part short and
clever, which I appreciated. I kept running into trouble with the
inventory limit, and trying to figure out why my score went down.
There are hints, but it's hard to get a useful hint because of the
way they're presented.
Writing/story: Fine; I don't remember seeing any errors. The
story is all right. 8
Appeal/likeability: Hm, not a whole lot to go on here. The
gimmick is kind of neat, but only kind of. 5
Bugginess/mechanics: Some spacing troubles, but pretty
straightforward stuff here. Obviously a lot of new verbs were added.
8
Entertainment/fun: SO frustrating. There are hints, but they suck
and they are hard to get to. The puzzles were difficult or poorly
clued or guess-the-verb. Not a ton of fun here. There was a
walkthrough (for full points, yay) and an attempt at hints. 4
Composite score: (8+5+8+4)/4 = 6.25 (6)
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I Must Play
Fortytwo, TADS3
Nothing in this game makes sense. Start with that, and it will go
down a little easier. Not the puzzles, not the plot, not the
motivation for being there or doing anything, certainly not the NPC.
The idea behind I Must Play is simple. You're in a video arcade
after hours, and you can play all the games you want. The games are
color-coded (aqua, silver, green, orange, onyx, and puce), though
apparently they're supposed to represent actual games from the real
world. In the manner of Interactive Fiction, when you play one of
the video games, you act out the part of the thing in the game.
It's hard to tell what real-life games these are supposed to be,
because they are sometimes presented in a strange manner. Aliens in
control rooms? That's actually one side of the Space Invaders game.
The game doesn't supply enough information about what's going on in
each of the arcade mini-games for you to be able to make sense of
what's happening by itself. To add to the confusion, some of the
video games are linked to each other, so that actions you take in
one can affect the other. I'm not sure if it was the intended
mechanism, but I ended up taking items out of one game-world, into
the "real" world, and then into another game-world.
The idea is to win each of the mini-games so that you can get
your name on the leader board at the arcade. Meanwhile, Eric the NPC
stands at your elbow making droll commentary about the civil
engineering process that is blatantly misrepresented in some of the
games, blah blah blah. I wanted to shake him: "Dude! It's a game!"
Anyway, that's pretty much all there is. Win all the games, get
the highest score, and be the arcade game queen. I don't know who
Billy Mitchell is, though, so if that's a joke, I don't get it.
Writing/story: Fine. Story is a bit weak. I didn't see major
errors though. 7
Appeal/likeability: Ick. Absolutely nothing in this game is
designed with me in mind. In fact, if someone sat down to write a
game and make sure I wouldn't like any of its elements, this game is
not far off from what they might come up with. Still, it's not
blatantly offensive. 3
Bugginess/mechanics: Definitely some trouble spots, but I didn't
look at it too closely, so I didn't spot a whole bunch of missing
synonyms. It's nice to see T3 making more of an appearance. 7
Entertainment/fun: Rather low. Hints were not enough to help me,
though they were at least there. 4
Composite score: (7+3+7+4)/4 = 5.25 (5)
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Blue Chairs
Chris Klimas, Z-code
In looking over my notes for Blue Chairs, the first thing that
pops out is all of my caps-lock ranting and the censored expletives.
Apparently there was some frustration. Which is weird, because I
don't remember the frustration as much as the surreality of
everything. Still, there are definitely a few weak spots in the
implementation: things that would be normal in another game stand
out as "weaknesses" here because of the responsiveness of the rest
of the game.
Blue Chairs starts you off at a party. Actually, you seem to be
in the attic of the house where the party's going on, and weird
stuff happens. Then you can go to the party itself, and weird stuff
continues happening, in varying degrees. If you're lucky, and you
can get a ride, then the weird stuff really picks up, packs its
bags, and catches the last flight to Borneo.
Fortunately, there are hints. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell at
times if you are looking at the proper hints or not -- it's that
weird of a game, at times. Fortunately, there is enough to get you
through to the end. Unfortunately, the end is weird. But it's
thought-provoking, and even I (the queen of
just-play-it-once-and-score-it) played through a few times to a few
different endings, and I'm glad I did.
Writing/story: Several typos. I like the story fine, except maybe
the ending (man, if I had a nickel for every time I said that!). 8
Appeal/likeability: Not consistent, but at times very high. At
other
times rather low, but there was a lot of cool stuff going on. 7
Bugginess/mechanics: Occasional minor bugs. A few major
weirdnesses made my life difficult (stupid go-back-to-places-you've-already-been-because-something's-changed
puzzles). Disambiguation trouble, which is always so disappointing
to see in an Inform game. 8
Entertainment/fun: Some of the puzzles I got on my own, but I
needed the hints a *lot*. Fortunately they got me through it. I
forget if there was a walkthrough or not, because I think the hints
were good enough for me. Was it fun? At times. It varied quite a
bit. 7
Composite score: (8+7+8+7)/4 = 7.50 (8)
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Splashdown
Paul J. Furio, Z-code
When there are accompanying documents with a game, I generally
look at them before starting the game. Reading through the PDF
brochure, I noticed that the planet I was traveling to had just
0.96% of Earth's gravity! WOW, I thought, that's almost nothing. I
wonder if that will be a puzzle? But in the end I assumed the author
meant 96%, rather than less than 1%.
Further in the brochure, I get to the sample transcript (not from
Splashdown). It has spelling errors in it. It also makes me
suspicious that the game uses port/starboard/fore/aft. The sample
transcript uses the command "SB" and I have NO idea what
that means. Superbrief? If so, why didn't it acknowledge that the
game was now in superbrief mode? Much later, I realized this was an
(undocumented as yet) abbreviation for starboard. It might sound
obvious when you're writing up the documentation, but if I've never
played a game with those directions before, why would I recognize SB
as a command?
Anyway, I finally started the game to find two typos and the
ultimate "you wake up and here you are" situation.
You play a traveler on his way to the aforementioned planet, but
you've woken up from your cryogenic sleep because something has gone
wrong (TM)! In this case, it's that your ship has landed in an
ocean, on some unknown planet. It's up to you to save the lives of
everyone aboard, with a little help from a robotic spider and the
knowledgeable ship computer. Or something like that, anyway.
I spent the first several minutes of my playtime amusing myself
with the silly little errors like those I've already harped on
(another good source of amusement was the confusion about how many
passengers were actually on board the ship). It was a bit tricky at
times to separate the real puzzles from the red herrings, but once I
got my bearings I was impressed with the puzzles. Of course, me
being me, I got completely stuck a few times, but the game provided
hints, so I was happy. A few times I had (what I thought was) a good
idea that seemed not to be implemented or acknowledged, so I was
unhappy. Then I started having trouble finding the right hints
because of the way they were organized, so I resorted to the
walkthrough.
Despite some frustration, I came away quite liking the game. It
had a traditional puzzle-y adventure game feel, in a fun spaceship
setting. I would have liked a little more refinement on some
gameplay issues and all those distracting typos, though.
Writing/story: Typos; punctuation and grammar problems. Story is
good, but there really are too many errors in the text here. 8
Appeal/likeability: I like spaceships and stuff, but there really
were some negatives here as well. Actually, not that many negatives.
The spider thing was a tiny bit creepy, but more it was just
annoying because it couldn't help for such a large portion of the
time, and it kept on doing the same few actions in its daemon. Not
enough variety there. 6
Bugginess/mechanics: Occasional bugs, to the point that things
were sometimes tricky for me. 8
Entertainment/fun: Enh. The hints were terribly crippled, and
from a game design perspective, it was extremely difficult to tell
what I was actually trying to accomplish, even after I got into the
computer and poked around inside of it. 5
Composite score: (8+6+8+5)/4 = 6.75 (7)
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Chronicle Play Torn
Algol, Z-code
Let me get one thing out of the way:
There are exits to all directions from this room.
>ne
You can't go that way.
Ha ha. Okay, enough about that.
Writing/story: Okay. Nothing special. Story is okay at first,
then it kinda stops being a story as much as an excuse for being
here, doing this stuff. MANY times the wrong word was used. MANY
grammar mistakes, misspellings, typos. 5
Appeal/likeability: Actually, rather high. Something made me come
back after the first fatal error crashed the program. And I quite
like the Sunken City -- there really is atmosphere there. It's not
perfect but it works well enough. 8
Bugginess/mechanics: Fatal error with workaround. REPEATED
aggravations with the parser. LOTS of non-intuitive syntax required.
This is the perfect example of a 4.
Entertainment/fun: Not too bad. Some of the puzzles were good,
though some were far too difficult based on either just puzzle
design or because of the crappy bug problems. Still, reading over my
notes, I have "the puzzles are too arbitrary and
difficult." And the three different endings were each kind of
lame. Hints did not always work, even following along precisely, and
I had trouble with part of the walkthrough. 6
Composite score: (5+8+4+6)/4 = 5.75 (6)
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Redeye
John Pitchers, TADS2
"[M]ost will not find [this game] too challenging. The
game has been written to be solvable within 2 hours."
Sentences like these make me groan and cringe, because for some
reason I am always one of those few people outside of "most" who
can't seem to solve puzzles on my own within the time limit. Am I
really that bad at puzzles? Yes. I'm persistent, though, which is
fine for non-comp games, but not so good for the month of October.
Anyway, on to Redeye.
Writing/story: Slightly entertaining story, not so great on the
writing skills. 6
Appeal/likeability: Rather low. There just wasn't anything to
like about the game, and there was a lot to dislike (especially at
the beginning). 4
Bugginess/mechanics: Very unforgiving parser, many unrecognized
commands, a few missing synonyms. 6
Entertainment/fun: Poor puzzle design at times, and overall not
really a lot of fun. The walkthrough was not a list of commands, but
just some talk about what to do, so it did not always help like it
should have. The hints, when there were any, were not nearly helpful
enough. 5
Composite score: (6+4+6+5)/4 = 5.25 (5)
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Mingsheng: A Chinese adventure
Rexx Magnus, Z-code
Note: although I am listed in the game's credits as a
beta-tester, I did not actually test this game.
My first impression of Mingsheng was a message about my font not
supporting Chinese characters. Normally, I thought, that isn't a
problem. But apparently there are some Chinese characters added
throughout the game, for flavor -- I didn't see them because I
decided not to switch fonts.
After that bit of technical interference, we got into the game
itself. You play a young Chinese _philosopher?__, trying to
understand the world in his own way by exploring ____. The
introductory text does a great job of setting up the character, but
as you get further into the game, any sense of characterization was
overshadowed by my difficulty with the puzzles.
Yes, the puzzles. Not too bad at first -- a few simple things
that encourage exploration and paying attention to detail. I am in
favor of things like this. Getting past the door was fine, but then
I found several apparent puzzle-y bits without any idea of how to
proceed. There's an interesting-looking cemetary, a strange tent
with a sleeping man, and what appears to be _____. I am confused by
apparent contradictions, such as, "the leaves are too large to
make tea with" and "the leaves would make a good
drink." There's a "hint" command ___ which offers me
a nudge, but a nudge won't help me if I'm blindfolded and spun
around in a circle four times before trying to find my way. The
"hint" ___ is the only recourse I have -- there is no
walkthrough, no more complete hint system, or actual answers to
questions. "Try paying your respects to the dead" is
wonderful, but, um, HOW? Dammit. I had to take a break.
At this point I was really wishing that I had indeed beta-tested
the game, so that I could have helped out with the puzzle
difficulty. But maybe I'm something of an extreme case; I probably
have severe puzzle deficiency (SPD, now forming support groups).
I returned to the game and beat my head against it for a total of
one hour of playing time, before realizing that I wasn't going to
get anywhere. So I enlisted help (in the form of my sister Jen,
natch). It turned out I had the right ideas for various things, but
the game was being kind of a stickler for going through all the
steps in precisely-worded ways. It really made me long for a game
like __link_ Risorgimento Represso, which took a lot of the (in my
mind) boring stuff and made it actually enjoyable to play. It's
tragic when syntax is the major obstacle between the player and a
good time.
Writing/story: Pretty good in this category, though the text
stretches too far sometimes. Is there an occasional typo? No? Ah,
capital letters after a semicolon. The story is fair, not too bad. 8
Appeal/likeability: I'm torn here. Part of me wants to say high,
because the game sounds so cool, but then the whole Pinyin thing and
slavish attention to Yin vs Yang make it feel like a cultural lesson
instead of a game. I never saw anything that was super cool. 6
Bugginess/mechanics: Only one or two problems. A few problems
with spacing, line formatting. You can't examine the fog. 8
Entertainment/fun: Kind of low. The puzzles in the first part
weren't too hard, and I could get past them, but then I got stuck
and I had no idea how far along I was because there wasn't a score.
And no hints, and no walkthrough, means I can't finish the game and
that REALLY detracts from my enjoyment. 4
Composite score: (8+6+8+4)/4 = 6.50 (7)
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The Great Xavio: A Mystery
Reese Warner, Z-code
[This review first appeared in the Comp edition of SPAG.]
I got to The Great Xavio late in my list of games for the Comp,
thanks to the so-called randomness of the Comp04.z5. I say "so
called" because my list had about five mystery games very late
in the list. Clearly, this was the work of a mastermind computer
program out to torture my poor brain. Not that I don't like
mysteries! Well, okay, mystery games can vary in quality quite a
bit. Let's talk about this one.
I was a little put off at first by a missing punctuation mark,
and the "about" text, which stated "There are hints
available in the game, though you need to figure out how to find
them yourself; WALKTHROUGH is available for one possible bare-bones
path through the game." That set off some big warning flags in
my mind: I normally have a tough time with puzzles and rely on hints
to finish games in two hours for the comp. In addition, I am a firm
believer that the walkthrough included with a competition game
should take me down the best possible path, so that I can have the
best possible view of your game. That is, if you want a good score.
Anyway, it turned out the the walkthrough included with The Great
Xavio is only bare-bones in the sense that it doesn't explain why
you're doing all of what you're doing, or show all the different
ways to solve each puzzle. That's not such a problem, actually,
because by the time I turned to the walkthrough, I was almost
completely done with the game, and just needed to solve one teensy
tiny problem before ending it. I didn't know I was quite that close,
but I was.
I never did find the hints.
Surprisingly (at least to anyone who's read other reviews of
mine), I wasn't very upset about this. At all. Normally, I'm a hint
junkie, but with The Great Xavio I found myself slowly making
progress through the game. I had a goal, I had some tools, and
perhaps most importantly I had various people watching me play the
game in real life that I could complain to, who would say something
reasonable like "maybe you can find a ___" and I would
pause and think, "you know, that just might work" and head
back to the game. The puzzles were actually intriguing enough to
keep me involved -- especially once I had put about a half hour into
it. The worst part was that what I saw as the first puzzle, finding
and getting into the Great Xavio's hotel room, was actually the
hardest and most-involved of any puzzle in the game. And you don't
get any points until you've solved it. So, I played for quite a long
time with "0 out of 101" points, with no indication as to
how long the game would go on or when I would start earning these
points.
Anyway. Enough about puzzles: what about the story? Well, the
character is a pretty interesting one, while still managing to be
vague so that the player can identify with him easily: a grad
student with only a last name, who teams up with a professor (Dr.
Todd) to solve mysteries. Or maybe fight crime. Apparently they've
been featured in other stories before, though this is their first
interactive fiction game. The professor is a bit of a caricature,
but amusing enough until he becomes annoying, which is probably how
it's supposed to be. He could have used a bit more variety in his
random actions.
This review is backwards. Normally I start off talking about the
characters and the premise, and move on to the puzzles, but in The
Great Xavio the story is mostly an excuse to solve puzzles -- at
least the puzzles make sense for the setting. The basic premise is
that Dr. Todd suspects something fishy about a magician's
performance, and wants to get to the bottom of it by searching the
magician's hotel room for evidence. Most of the game for me was
spent breaking into the hotel room of interest. From there, the
story takes a bit of a turn and moves along quickly enough to a
rather sudden end.
The game starts with just a few punctuation errors, but as you
get farther into it, a few programming bugs crop up. For example,
once you've broken into the hotel room, you can convey to the
professor the method of breaking in and he will give you the same
speech he did before about what a brilliant idea of his it was. A
few little things like this, and some annoyances with the elevator,
and the fact that extra items get less and less well described as
the game wears on, lead me to wish the entire game had the polish of
the first few scenes I saw: the lobby, the bar, the basement.
Towards the end, I even found a few solutions to puzzles by, more or
less, exploting bugs.
Overall, The Great Xavio could use a second release (I suspect,
as I sit here isolated from all goings-on in the IF community, it
has already seen one). But the puzzles are entertaining, and each
can be solved in more than one way, giving even me (a pitiful
puzzler) a chance to solve almost all the puzzles on my own. I don't
think I would have gotten that last one even with extra time, so
it's a very good thing a walkthrough was included. And as for the
hints... if you make it a puzzle to find the hints in the first
place, what happens to people who aren't very good at solving
puzzles? They never get hints, that's what, and you risk leaving
them out in the cold. Luckily, it worked here.
Writing/story: 8
Appeal/likeability: 6
Bugginess/mechanics: 7
Entertainment/fun: 8
Composite score: (8+6+7+8)/4 = 7.25 (7)
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Ninja v1.30
Dunric, Win9x-only
Short game, short review. I loaded this one up with some
trepidation, because I'd played other games by the author and they
all seemed to have some common weaknesses (overly simple parser,
random combat, illogical moves required). Still, __that one game__
wasn't that bad, and my expectations going into Ninja weren't really
very high.
I noted as I started in on it that "the parser may suck, but
I would like to point out that ninjas are *way* cool." After
all, the only thing cooler than a ninja is a pirate. I would like to
request more pirates in next year's Comp, please.
Then I died. An enemy ninja leaped out at me from the shadows and
killed me. My score was -13/-26. Would I like to play again?
I tried. There were no hints, and no walkthrough. I didn't want
to waste two hours of my life on this game, so I checked the source
code to figure out how to cross the river. That doesn't make the
game much fun, but at least I finished the game.
Writing/story: I hate not having a transcript to look at. Nothing
horrible in the writing, and it does try to be a little interesting,
though the writing is often not good enough to carry the attempts. 6
Appeal/likeability: Ninjas = Teh Cool. Too bad I play a suck-ass
ninja at first that can't even spot someone hiding in the shadows. 6
Bugginess/mechanics: You don't have to have fatal errors to get a
4.
Entertainment/fun: Not fun, haven't seen any humor. I used the
source code to help me. I floundered a bit. 4
Composite score: (6+6+4+4)/4 = 5.00 (5)
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Murder at the Aero Club
Penny, Z-code
Suddenly, I realized that Comp04.z5 had grouped all the murder
mysteries at the end of my list. I swore at it for a few minutes and
then got on with the playing.
Rule #1 of solving a murder mystery: thou shalt know who was
killed.
In Murder at the Aero Club, your boss, the head of the Criminal
Investigation Squad, sends you to
investigate a murder without giving you that vital piece of
information. Oh, you know there's been a murder -- it's the whole
reason you're going out to the club. But you don't have the name.
And, for a long time, I didn't have the body, either, since I went
into the club and spent a good deal of time in there first. You'd
think one of the other characters might have wanted to point me at
it.
Rule #1 of writing a murder mystery IF game: thou shalt implement
an awesome little notebook, which automatically takes note of
important-seeming names and facts henceforth known as
"evidence," to be referenced at any time by the player.
So, you go around asking people questions as best as you can,
making little notes in your handy-dandy notebook, and putting
together pieces of communications equipment, before you figure it
all out and try to nail the bad guy without being killed for what
you know. Whew. Not terribly inspired, but it's not bad, either. I
needed the walkthrough at the end to finish in two hours, but only
because I spent so much time trying to gather information on my own
at the beginning of the game..
Writing/story: Were there typos? Maybe a few awkward phrases, but
overall pretty good stuff. Unfortunately some of the plot doesn't
make sense at all, so I must penalize for that. 8
Bugginess/mechanics: Not too bad! Some missing synonyms and just
a few wording problems, but mostly it was good. There were missing
synonyms all OVER in one or two rooms, and a lot more could have
been implemented, but I really like the notebook. And it worked. 8
Entertainment/fun: Okay. I got a good part of the way by myself,
and the puzzles more or less made sense (until the end if you were
following the walkthrough, which I was), so that was good. 77
Composite score: (8+6+8+7)/4 = 7.25 (7)
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A Day In The Life Of A Super Hero
davidw, ADRIFT
I don't have ADRIFT on this computer. I thought I did. Maybe I'll
come back to this one. [Edit: I didn't.]
Composite score: Unscored.
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Kurusu City
Kevin Venzke, TADS2
You play a high school girl named Miki Maeda on a very important day
-- the day you have decided to overthrow the robot dictatorship.
Ho-hum. You start off oversleeping, but when the game starts you're
in your bedroom dressed and ready to go. Without any specific
objective (besides the bit about overthrowing the robots), I
wandered, doing a bit of apartment
exploration. The newspaper conveniently supplied me with a new
objective. There was a locked mailbox, and I wanted to
find the key for it, but the first hint in the hint file is "I
can't get past the nurse." I hadn't seen the nurse yet, so I
left the mailbox alone, chalking it up as a red herring.
I had seen mention of "better" hints on RGIF, but I
decided against going to get them, because they weren't part of the
original competition release. My resolve on this issue wavered a few
times, as I decoded many of the hints and found them to be severely
lacking in actually giving me something useful to do, but I held
fast. I got to the last hint in the nurse section of the hints, my
last hope of solving the puzzle, and found this pearl of wisdom:
"There's an item that can help you.";
That didn't really help me. [Edit: months later, I replayed the
game and had no trouble getting past the nurse. It just goes to show
you that it can be really difficult to guess how people will play
your game at any given moment -- and if that given moment is during
the comp, it's even harder to guess. Yes, I am a bit chagrined that
I didn't manage to solve this relatively easy puzzle oh-so-many
months ago, but I'm willing to admit it, so I will leave the rest of
the review as-is.]
So I wrote the game off as unsolvable by Jess, and looked at all
the other hints for fun. I found the section about unlocking the
mailbox a bit further down the page, and that provided me with some
amusement. I'm going to include the hints here for illustrative
purposes, though they might be considered a spoiler. You may
skip
ahead, etc etc.
Okay, now, here are ALL of the hints for getting in the mailbox.
This is an example of what not to do, when it comes to writing
hints.
Have you found the mailbox key?
It's somewhere in your apartment.
Is there any way to get at it?
Can anyone else get it?
Here I am, looking everywhere for the darn key, and not being
able to find it. I assume based on these hints that the key is
somewhere hard to reach, and that I must enlist the help of another
person to retrieve it for me. However, I still have absolutely no
idea where it is, and further searching of the apartment doesn't
help me, so I'm still just as stuck as I was before. Worse, now I'm
stuck in the same position but I've seen the hints *as if* I was a
tiny bit further along (i.e., I know I will need to get help to
retrieve the key). The hints should give away the piece of
information they assume I know (i.e., the location of the key) before going on to the next hint.
I realize that this has been more a review
of the hints than of the game, but I actually spent more time
interacting with the hints than I did with the game. I wish it had
been otherwise.
Writing/story: Bland. Story so far seems pretty lame, but it's
quite possible it didn't have a chance to shine because I didn't get
very far. 6
Appeal/likeability: Low. It looked like there was going to be
cool robots and stuff but I never actually got to see them. 4
Bugginess/mechanics: A few missing synonyms, lots of conversation
topics not covered. Not a lot was attempted though, at least not in
what I saw. 7
Entertainment/fun: The hints *suck*. There is no walkthrough. So,
since the puzzles are kind of whack, I cannot solve them and I
cannot even get past the very first part. Plus, I don't like what
seems to be an unwinnable state when I get thrown in jail. 2
Composite score: (6+4+7+2)/4 = 4.75 (5)
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The Big Scoop
Writing/story: Not too bad. See the sentence starting "The
story was actually okay..."
Appeal/likeability: Enh. Whatever. I am almost sick of murder
mysteries, but it's not this game's fault it was so late in my
queue. 6
Bugginess/mechanics: A few too many bugs, some that were really
spoilers. Occasional missing synonyms. 6
Entertainment/fun: So-so. It alternated between fun and tedious,
or at least, between kinda-fun and not-getting-anywhere-boring. 6
Composite score: (6+6+6+6)/4 = 6.00 (6))
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