Review: The Wedding (1996)
Summary: Some under-implemented stuff, and a few quirks in plot,
but overall it's clever, light-hearted, and well-written. Thumbs up.
Author: Neil J. Brown
Reviewed by Jess Knoch.
Note: Like in all my reviews, some of the object and
place names have been changed to protect those who haven't played the
game.
The game starts off with a mysterious phone call: your
friend Malcolm is missing on the day of his wedding, and you're being
asked to help find him. The setting is an English country house,
albeit without any wonderful sense of English country house
atmosphere, but it works. The house is full of NPCs: relatives of the
bride and groom, the bride herself, the caterer. I would have liked to
have seen more responses available from the characters: for example,
the groom's father is nowhere to be seen, and no one (not even his
brother) has a comment to make about it. And, just for an example,
suppose one of the characters was a big fan of CHiPs, and I show the
ultimate CHiPs guidebook to that character. Wouldn't he be at least a
little interested, especially when (the next turn) I ask him about
CHiPs and he *is* interested? At least a dismissive "Oh, not that
old thing" or something would have been nice.
But these are nitpicky things. Sure, I like to see a
ton of different topics in my consult-able objects, and I like a ton
of different things to talk to the characters about, but I can live
without that. There are plenty of amusing responses from the parser to
actions to make up for the NPCs. In fact, if I had to pick a Miss
Congeniality, I'd pick the parser over any of the NPCs.
One of the best parts of the game is the writing. No,
it might never win any awards for its high quality or evocativeness,
but it is straightforward, it doesn't distract at any point (no typos
that I could see [maybe--see below]), and most important of all: it is
sufficiently long.
Too many times there is just not enough text when I
want it. The introduction to The Wedding is just the right length; the
clever responses are just right, and most importantly, the ending is
just the right length too. I loved the fact that the ending told what
happened right then, and later on, and even later on. The "aargh"
may have been a bit much, but I don't hold it against the author. Even
better than the ending, there are some bits of writing in the
"amusing" section at the end with some top-quality stuff.
Like trying to fill in plot holes (of which there are many), and
describing a secret meeting between IF addicts on the street.
The game does come with an online adaptive hint
system, in addition to the "hint book" in the game which
crumbles after a single use (Hellloooo, "undo!"). Also, I am
told that the dog will give clues if he happens to be nearby. I never
really saw that happen, but then again, I may never have realized
there was a cellar door without the help of the loveable scamp. There
is also a walkthrough on the archive, which I did use at some points
because the hints really aren't that great. Authors, I understand
completely the temptation to have a hint system that only prods and
never gives anything completely away, but you really should remember
that some of us are dense. Yes, we are "part of the IF
Community" and no, we're no good at puzzles. I'm not saying every
author has to write a hint system (hmm... it would be nice, though)
but if you do include a hint system, why not finish out the hints?
People only look as far as they need to anyway, so if "Maybe
there's something in the pool you can use" is good enough, then
I'll get it and stop there, but if it's not, then at least I have some
more to go on without having to go find a walkthrough. We all agree
that hints are better than walkthroughs in that they allow players to
try things on their own more and give away "just enough."
Hm. I went on for a while there, didn't I?
Ah well. My point is, the hints in this game are
helpful but not helpful enough. It would have been nice to have a
"What am I supposed to be doing?" hint topic, because the
worst puzzle of all is trying to figure out what your next set of
tasks is, or what is there for you to work on.
Speaking of which, this game is great that way. Once
you're in the house, there are a couple of different puzzles open for
you to work on. It's kewl (once you notice what there is to do).
Some small problems: when I try to put something
besides the cassette tape into the VCR, the game tells me "That
can't contain things." Actually, it can (the tape!). The author
is already aware of some of the plot problems, and apparently they
don't bother him so I won't bother to list them out here. Just don't
expect it to be a tightly-woven masterpiece in the vein of
Detective... uh, never mind. Oh, and there is an extra punctuation
mark at the end of a sentence, but the rest of the writing is good
enough to make me wonder if this isn't a British quirk: in America, we
don't do this:
The man on the television says "I'm home!".
Maybe that's proper across the pond. Someone let me
know.
Hm, what else? Once, Chloe (a female) is referred to
as "he." There is a very interesting looking door upstairs
(yes, leading to a room) that doesn't seem to be implemented at all;
that's a shame. And I never like it when there's an obvious pile of
stuff that I want to search, and "search stuff" doesn't find
anything, but "move stuff" does. Gr! Same with manipulating
objects: I can only think of so many (push, pull, move, turn, look
behind, look under, take) and if I don't get the right one, I could
convince myself that the interesting-looking thing really can't be
manipulated. Hm, I should make a page for people like myself who need
a list of verbs to try! Coming soon!
As for puzzles: mostly pretty good. I'm not a good one
to judge puzzles of course, but these seemed to make sense after I saw
the answers. Seriously though, I managed a few of them on my own,
which is a good sign for me. Some of them are well done, but they
could use just an extra hint about what comes next. For example, the
pizza. I did a great job of figuring out how to order it, even heard
the moped, but couldn't figure out where it was being delivered. The
in-game hint about what to do with the diamond is an excellent one,
and just the sort of thing I'm talking about.
All in all, a great game worth a play. Funny bits,
clever bits, and tongue-in-cheekish scary bits. By the way, the choice
for the "sack object" was great! And what the heck is
paracetamol?
Scores
|
Story
|
5/10
|
Nice idea, with several "plot
holes."
|
|
Writing
|
7/10
|
I liked it a lot, after I finished the game
(it didn't occur to me while I was playing). Completely
accessible, personable, the writing works great. And no
typos!
|
|
Puzzles
|
6/10
|
The camera bit was clever, and I figured it
out on my own! It's a rough job to make "clever"
puzzles that someone like me can solve. Still, some
obscurity.
|
|
Coding
|
9/10
|
Some odd quirks (is the VCR a container?)
but the implementation of so many buttons and machines was
really well done. Good job with the conditional responses,
too (where NPCs' responses change depending on if you've
done or said something else).
|
|
Parser
|
8/10
|
Great. I love Inform, and this author knows
how to use it.
|
|
Humor
|
7/10
|
Not bad! I'm hard to amuse, and this game
did a great job with the occasional smile!
|
|
Involvement
|
6/10
|
We never get a clear picture of who the PC
is, so it's hard to feel like anything other than a text
adventurer. At least until the end.
|
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Lack of Annoyance
|
4/10
|
Okay, I know the door is closed. Can't the
parser ASSUME I want to open the door when I try to walk
through it? PLEASE? And the same with taking things before
trying to do something with them. A simple "(first
taking the monkey wrench)" would have made my day.
|
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Game Idea
|
6/10
|
Not much new, although there are a few small
twists on the "manipulate NPCs to find out what
happened" schtick. And I like weddings.
|
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Wildcard
|
6/10
|
Enh. I like it, sure.
|
|
Total
|
64/100
|
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See Also: Baf's Guide entry for The Wedding (includes
download links); our old scoring system (used
for this review); a complete list of other
reviews on strangebreezes.com.
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