Showing posts with label IFComp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IFComp. Show all posts
Thursday, November 15, 2018
IFComp 2018 - Five Short Reviews
** ORIGIN OF MADAME TIME - BRIAN RUSHTON **
I don’t recall trying the story that this is the sequel to but I recognize this veteran authors name and it’s a parser-based game, so I wanted to give it a shot. In this game you play a female with the super power to stop time. Now that time has stopped, you have to sort through scenarios frozen in time to get the superheroes out of the theme park. “TAKE”ing everyone as if they were static objects did feel a little awkward but I’m not sure would verb would have even been better.
There are ways to trap yourself and meet other bad endings, and I had to use the walkthrough to get to the proper ending. Had I not resorted to that, this line probably would have really nagged me:
“You have the worrying feeling that you’re forgetting something. But it might just be nerves.“ (Argh! Now I feel really insecure about this!)
This isn’t a bad game, but I feel it would have really frustrated me without a walkthrough. There’s some good humor, scenery descriptions, and the story isn’t long-winded or hard to follow.
** PEGASUS - MICHAEL KIELSTRA **
In this one you are basically playing some sort of futuristic future agent. After a brief intro screen you are sent into a training mission only carrying a rifle and wearing body armor. There is a simplified choice-based conversation system here which is always welcome to me. The story shifts from different periods in the characters past like flashbacks. It’s quick with not a lot of description, but effective.
A bit more story and ending text would have been cool here but the way it is helps reflect the bleakness of the future portrayed.
** TERMINAL INTERFACE FOR MODELS RCM301-303 - VIGIMECH CORPORATION **
This is an interesting one that I did have a lot of fun with. It’s not very traditional in respect to commands, movement, etc. However, I think this is one of the strong points because you are controlling a mechanized industrial vehicle while getting pointers from a fellow in some amusing dialogue. There is no walkthrough present, but if you are patient you should be able to complete the story fine without one.
Without spoiling anything for someone who has never played this one.. all is not what it seems here. This is made even more effective due to the fact that in the beginning it’s a bit hard to grasp what’s even going on to begin with.
** THE FORGOTTEN TAVERN - PETER M.J. GROSS **
As you may have gathered from my previous reviews I’m generally not a fan of “choice-based” games, but there have been some exceptions.The premise of this one in the entry preview sounded a bit interesting and mysterious. It definitely got mysterious. You have been taken in by two peculiar NPCs with unknown motives. The combat can get a bit repetitive but overall OKnot a bad game. I wish I was given a bit more background on the NPCs and the strange happenings of things on the other side of a particular door, but I suppose too much explanation would be a bad thing in this story.
** NIGHTMARE ADVENTURE - LAURENCE EMMS, VIBHA LAIJANI **
This is a text parser game but seems to have been made from scratch rather than using a popular language like TADS, Inform, Hugo, etc. This parser took some getting used to. For instance, you can not use the command “SOUTH”, rather you must use “GO SOUTH” or “GO OUT FRONT DOOR”.
While I enjoyed the introduction of a new parser that was compatible with most OS terminals, I found the experience a bit frustrating.. the “USE” command is a bit ambiguous as well as other commands, but I can’t really say this is a bad game either. If anything, this game gets a point due to not being yet another choice-based game (heh-heh).
Sunday, November 5, 2017
IfComp 2017 - 8 reviews
The Interactive Fiction Competition has many entries this year. Here are short reviews of those I've been able to play so far. You still have until November 15th to play and vote on games if you are interested.
*** A CASTLE OF THREAD ***
By Marshal Tenner Winter
A lot of games that involve “ships” whether they be in the sea or outer space have always confused me a bit as far as map layout versus the area I’m picturing in my head. This was kind of the case for me in this game too, but not as bad as others. I’m not sure how difficult of a time I would have solving some of these puzzles without a walkthrough because some of them seem kind of abstract. The 2nd part of the game you are off the ship and in a city called “Badushizd” where you’ll find a humorously-named inn. It went by pretty fast for me in contrast with the 1st part. Pretty cool game overall. Some technical issues and a few nags here and there. The pacing of the last part and ending of the game seemed appropriate.
*** GRUE ***
BY CHARLES MANGIN
Short game. Cool concept of being able to play from the perspective of a grue from the Zork series, but there just isn’t much to it. I was not able to finish the game; I think perhaps I didn’t get a timing puzzle right or something. Glancing at the walkthrough, there’s not much to the ending either.
*** INEVITABLE ***
By Matthew Pfeiffer
I start in a crappy apartment. Apparently I’m a mad scientist. The game calls itself a 1-room escape game. There is no walkthrough and I couldn’t figure out how to escape the apartment.
*** MOON BASE ***
By Andrew Brown
A short, creepy web game. I don’t think I reached the best ending, but seeing the consequences of apparently bad choices as a result was satisfying. Web games that seem to just go around in circles to reach only 1 or at the most 2 endings always seem to fail to keep me engaged or care to replay the game again. I would give this game another play if I wasn’t in the middle of all of these entries at the moment.
*** QUEER IN PUBLIC: A BRIEF ESSAY ***
By Naomi Norbez
This is more of an “interactive essay” than “interactive fiction”. It's not a game at all. I don’t identify myself as Christian or queer, (the 2 main elements being compared in this entry) so this really didn’t hit any nerve with me one way or the other. The conclusion is basically a “The Jesus I know is a cool dude that isn’t mean to people.” theme.
*** The Richard Mines ***
By Evan Wright
A parser game in which you need to search through some old tunnels and make your escape. Short room descriptions. Short game for that matter. Fairly easy puzzles. Not a lot of story here, but not a lot to complain about either.
*** A Walk In The Park ***
By Extra Mayonaise
In this parser game you play a punk wandering around a city. It had a couple of lines that made me chuckle, and the setting was nicely put together. However, I got stuck trying to follow the tutorial at the step where I should “say uhh”. Uhh…
*** Will Not Let Me Go ***
By Stephen Granade
Another web game. Here you are an old man dealing with alzheimer’s. This is another one where I don’t feel like I have any real choice here but to just keep clicking links to keep the story chugging along. What makes up for it though was it actually was a good story. I think it could have been a bit shorter though and still got the same effect across.
*** A CASTLE OF THREAD ***
By Marshal Tenner Winter
A lot of games that involve “ships” whether they be in the sea or outer space have always confused me a bit as far as map layout versus the area I’m picturing in my head. This was kind of the case for me in this game too, but not as bad as others. I’m not sure how difficult of a time I would have solving some of these puzzles without a walkthrough because some of them seem kind of abstract. The 2nd part of the game you are off the ship and in a city called “Badushizd” where you’ll find a humorously-named inn. It went by pretty fast for me in contrast with the 1st part. Pretty cool game overall. Some technical issues and a few nags here and there. The pacing of the last part and ending of the game seemed appropriate.
*** GRUE ***
BY CHARLES MANGIN
Short game. Cool concept of being able to play from the perspective of a grue from the Zork series, but there just isn’t much to it. I was not able to finish the game; I think perhaps I didn’t get a timing puzzle right or something. Glancing at the walkthrough, there’s not much to the ending either.
*** INEVITABLE ***
By Matthew Pfeiffer
I start in a crappy apartment. Apparently I’m a mad scientist. The game calls itself a 1-room escape game. There is no walkthrough and I couldn’t figure out how to escape the apartment.
*** MOON BASE ***
By Andrew Brown
A short, creepy web game. I don’t think I reached the best ending, but seeing the consequences of apparently bad choices as a result was satisfying. Web games that seem to just go around in circles to reach only 1 or at the most 2 endings always seem to fail to keep me engaged or care to replay the game again. I would give this game another play if I wasn’t in the middle of all of these entries at the moment.
*** QUEER IN PUBLIC: A BRIEF ESSAY ***
By Naomi Norbez
This is more of an “interactive essay” than “interactive fiction”. It's not a game at all. I don’t identify myself as Christian or queer, (the 2 main elements being compared in this entry) so this really didn’t hit any nerve with me one way or the other. The conclusion is basically a “The Jesus I know is a cool dude that isn’t mean to people.” theme.
*** The Richard Mines ***
By Evan Wright
A parser game in which you need to search through some old tunnels and make your escape. Short room descriptions. Short game for that matter. Fairly easy puzzles. Not a lot of story here, but not a lot to complain about either.
*** A Walk In The Park ***
By Extra Mayonaise
In this parser game you play a punk wandering around a city. It had a couple of lines that made me chuckle, and the setting was nicely put together. However, I got stuck trying to follow the tutorial at the step where I should “say uhh”. Uhh…
*** Will Not Let Me Go ***
By Stephen Granade
Another web game. Here you are an old man dealing with alzheimer’s. This is another one where I don’t feel like I have any real choice here but to just keep clicking links to keep the story chugging along. What makes up for it though was it actually was a good story. I think it could have been a bit shorter though and still got the same effect across.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
IFCOMP 2016 Reviews
I've been playing a few games from the 2016 Interactive Fiction Competition at random that have interesting cover art or concepts to me, and have written a few short reviews for 7 games out of the bunch. If I have time to play and review more, there will be a part 2 to this blog.. but I wanted to go ahead and get a few out.
*** SPOILERS BELOW! **
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*** Color the Truth by mathbrush ***
This is a mystery game that looks like it will have a lot of conversation in it. After reading the ABOUT text, it looks like the gameplay system will be more complex than the old Infocom mystery games.
Actually, at the very start the game throws out a handful of conversation topics and the system of choosing topics and "linking" them feels pretty smooth. Changing characters when an NPC gives a statement feels a little weird. I started to think perhaps just a wall-of-text would suffice for these events, but that would eliminate the possibility of throwing in a couple of puzzles here and there during the flashback.
Repeating actions in the flashbacks can seem a bit annoying, but is nessasary for revealing new bits of the investigation. Pretty cool game.
*** Snake's Game by Nahian Nasir ***
First "web" game of the bunch I tried. I'm partial to parser games, but I do really like a CYOA once in a while if the story is good. The story is definitely weird, but actually wasn't as weird or creepy as I was expecting. The choices seemed pretty linear. This one really isn't bad, but I didn't enjoy it all that much.
*** Ariadne in Aeaea by Victor Qjuel **
This is a parser-driven game written in Inform7. It's a pretty amusing story, but none of the humor made me laugh out loud. I was hoping the topless ceremonial lady in the cover art was somehow depicted in the game, and she was! Old auntie. Nice.
The environment of the game itself seems well-rounded. NPCs react different when you walk by in in different attire than you did previously and other features. I did end up glancing at the walkthrough probably a bit too more than I should have early on, so I can't really speak to the difficulty of the puzzles.. but for the most part they seemed fairly easy and not too obscure with exception to probably would have had a bit of back-tracking to do had I not skimmed the walkthrough early on. There perhaps could have been less rooms and more time spent on more parser understandings.. such as "herder" when referring to a "goatherder".
*** Riot by Taylor Johnson ***
Another CYOA game. This one got me interested in the beginning, but then I end up with the same complaints I have with many of these types of games. My choices seem either too linear, and at times I'm asked to make choices that I wonder if any sane being would do, like correcting a random strangers broken nose. I straightened a friends dislocated finger in RealLife when I was about 12 after making an impulse decision, but I was young and he was no stranger. I don't think it ever healed correctly either..
I felt like this story was ok, but not great. I did get into it more than Snake's Game.
*** Toilet World - by Chet Rocketfrak ***
This sounds promising. Though on closer examination, it's just a "joke" game. Whatever, let's give it a shot. I'm told I'm in this glorious world of toilets, surrounded by toilets. Cool. I think I got this.
> X TOILET
You can’t see any such thing.
*** SPOILERS BELOW! **
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*** Color the Truth by mathbrush ***
This is a mystery game that looks like it will have a lot of conversation in it. After reading the ABOUT text, it looks like the gameplay system will be more complex than the old Infocom mystery games.
Actually, at the very start the game throws out a handful of conversation topics and the system of choosing topics and "linking" them feels pretty smooth. Changing characters when an NPC gives a statement feels a little weird. I started to think perhaps just a wall-of-text would suffice for these events, but that would eliminate the possibility of throwing in a couple of puzzles here and there during the flashback.
Repeating actions in the flashbacks can seem a bit annoying, but is nessasary for revealing new bits of the investigation. Pretty cool game.
*** Snake's Game by Nahian Nasir ***
First "web" game of the bunch I tried. I'm partial to parser games, but I do really like a CYOA once in a while if the story is good. The story is definitely weird, but actually wasn't as weird or creepy as I was expecting. The choices seemed pretty linear. This one really isn't bad, but I didn't enjoy it all that much.
*** Ariadne in Aeaea by Victor Qjuel **
This is a parser-driven game written in Inform7. It's a pretty amusing story, but none of the humor made me laugh out loud. I was hoping the topless ceremonial lady in the cover art was somehow depicted in the game, and she was! Old auntie. Nice.
The environment of the game itself seems well-rounded. NPCs react different when you walk by in in different attire than you did previously and other features. I did end up glancing at the walkthrough probably a bit too more than I should have early on, so I can't really speak to the difficulty of the puzzles.. but for the most part they seemed fairly easy and not too obscure with exception to probably would have had a bit of back-tracking to do had I not skimmed the walkthrough early on. There perhaps could have been less rooms and more time spent on more parser understandings.. such as "herder" when referring to a "goatherder".
*** Riot by Taylor Johnson ***
Another CYOA game. This one got me interested in the beginning, but then I end up with the same complaints I have with many of these types of games. My choices seem either too linear, and at times I'm asked to make choices that I wonder if any sane being would do, like correcting a random strangers broken nose. I straightened a friends dislocated finger in RealLife when I was about 12 after making an impulse decision, but I was young and he was no stranger. I don't think it ever healed correctly either..
I felt like this story was ok, but not great. I did get into it more than Snake's Game.
*** Toilet World - by Chet Rocketfrak ***
This sounds promising. Though on closer examination, it's just a "joke" game. Whatever, let's give it a shot. I'm told I'm in this glorious world of toilets, surrounded by toilets. Cool. I think I got this.
> X TOILET
You can’t see any such thing.
Oh hell nah. So, in short what we seem to have here is a "joke" game that's basically a few room descriptions filled with typos, no implementation of objects, nothing to really do. Or maybe I'm missing some grand game behind the scenes that I couldn't figure out how to throw the right parser commands at to unlock. Probably not however, considering there is no walkthrough included.
** Ventilator - by Peregrine Wade **
Ha! Now this one has some humor to it, at least in the death messages. There's no walkthrough included either with this parser game, so I didn't expect it to be too long. The few puzzles are pretty abstract, but it didn't take me long to figure them out. The ending was kind of a head-scratcher, but I found this more fun than the web-based games so far.
*** Cactus Blue Motel - by Astrid Dalmady ***
A web game with some cool-looking text upon starting up. You play a girl on a road-trip with two of your friends traveling across the desert until you come to a stop at a desolate hotel. The game has nice visuals, but oh man these choices. The actual path to the finish line seems like it's fairly linear, but I'm forced to re-ask various NPCs questions over and over again until new options pop up. The author perhaps should have made previously asked questions that you've already read responses for disappear. The story seemed kind of interesting but the gameplay system made it very difficult to enjoy.
A web game with some cool-looking text upon starting up. You play a girl on a road-trip with two of your friends traveling across the desert until you come to a stop at a desolate hotel. The game has nice visuals, but oh man these choices. The actual path to the finish line seems like it's fairly linear, but I'm forced to re-ask various NPCs questions over and over again until new options pop up. The author perhaps should have made previously asked questions that you've already read responses for disappear. The story seemed kind of interesting but the gameplay system made it very difficult to enjoy.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Handful of IFcomp 2015 Entry Reviews
This year's Interactive Fiction Competition has a very large number of entries. I knew I wouldn't be able to play them all online, so I picked a few at random that had interesting descriptions. I ended up playing through and reviewing Crossroads, Life on Mars, Laid off from the Synesthesia Factory, Much Love, BJP, The Sueno, and Taghairm. I played a few others that I just could not finish either because I couldn't get into them or I glanced at the walkthough after a few turns and decided I didn't want to play though the game. Of course, I'll only be voting for the ones I've finished and reviewed here. There might be spoilers here, so if you are afraid of seeing any now is the time to look elsewhere!
Reviews being after the stars...
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CROSSROADS
Interesting description, so trying this first. This Twine game was sort of interesting, but wasn’t interesting enough to play though again. I was expecting the text to be more graphic than it was due to the content warning. One typo I found that may be deprecated: “sand” where an “and” should be.
LIFE ON MARS
Scrolling thru the entries further so I don’t end up playing titles in the lower portion of the alphabet. Huh. A speed setting. And another content warning.. which is seems like a bit of a spoiler. There’s also a recommended playlist. While I like old Satyricon and some Aphex Twin songs, the two don’t seem to go together well if there should be a consistent mood to the game.
Spatterlight crashed when trying to use the email function, so I build Frotz from the latest source and ran the game in that. The email thing works now though, and I can see the text speed effect now which is pretty neat. Now, on to the actual game.
There aren’t a lot of rooms to explore, but given the setting there shouldn’t be. Using the “email” function seems to be the main thing driving the game until I get prompted that taking a nap might be a good idea. After the nap, more email and a robot needs my assistance. There wasn’t much more after that. Wasn’t too crazy about the ending. The game was mostly on-rails showing off a lot of text effects; the latter of which does make this a pretty cool little adventure.
LAID OFF FROM THE SYNESTHESIA FACTORY
And here we have another game with both a content warning and a recommended playlist. It promises to generate a readable, static story once I reach the end and also claims to be both short and completely puzzle-less. X GREEN. X BRAIN (surprised that one gave a response). CALL BRIAN (Huh. A response, but nothing that seems to be relevent). EXIT. Ah, that makes more sense.. DRIVE TO LAKE. Eh. PAINT LAKE. Ha! Myrtle Beach reference! God, how I’ve come to loathe that place since the arcade went to shit and they tore down the rides. Also, South of the Border! My family never did fall for that trap either though I also remember counting the signs as a kid.
Now I think I have a good idea of what this synpiece is.. but having it on while driving certainly feels wrong. I guess that depends on if I can still make out things or if the road is going to look chunky and crooked as it tastes. (That’s a synthestisia joke.) I end up at a lake with Brian where a “compromise” is met. I guess I got the OK ending. This was a neat little game and I’ll probably give it another play after the comp. I liked how it started completely abstract and hard to follow yet then started to make sense. I would gripe about things not being more explained, but I have the same gripe about the previous title I reviewed and this one at least warrants another play to perhaps tell more of the same story from different angles.
MUCH LOVE, BJP
Another Twine entry. This one is just basically what feels like newspaper articles linked by verb hyperlinks. Not many of them, either. Not many choices here. While the story of the reporter in this one is inspiring and all, it’s rather political and if anything, this title warranted more of a “content warning” than the other 2.. though overall I think content warnings are stupid.
THE SUENO
A game about a sleep study and lucid dreaming. This should be interesting. I’m not sure if I’ll ever finish the lucid dreaming game I made a prototype for.
We start out with good descriptions and all, but feels like I’m waiting in the sleep lab forever. Hm. I “look” in the Sleep Lab again after waiting many turns. I haven’t been prompted to do anything. Dr. Lynch is just “here, clipboard in hand”. I scroll back to look at all of the talking topics and ask about those. Still waiting. Oh. Consulting the walk thru says I really should ask about medication. OK, here we go. Going to try to not look at the walkthrough again now.
I can’t read or take the Frederick’s of Hollywood lingerie catalog?! No such thing?! Bah. Anyway, a few fairly simple puzzles progress the game along various snippets of moving through a house, some woods, and a town; separated by cutscenes of the doctor conducting the study interrupting your sleep with questions.
The inventory and puzzles in this game felt a bit clunky, but overall not a bad game and worth a play. I ended up returning to the walkthrough again a couple of times despite the suggestion that I should try not looking at it at all.
TAGHAIRM
Another Twine game, but very different from any other I have encountered. Cool sounds add a neat atmosphere. Around the time I started to think “Well crap. Just like every other Twine game. Not many choices or forcing me to make choices I don’t want to make to finish the story.”, something neat happened when I clicked the forced answer a few times. It actually explained what in the world was the purpose of this, and in a cool way. I was surprised to enjoy this one. Cat lovers will probably hate it.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
IF Comp 2014 Reviews: A - F
There are a lot of entries this year, and I'm trying to at least try to play them all. Here are some short reviews of what I've played so far. While I'm not doing any scoring here, (I've been making private notes for that to use when voting time arrives) there are some spoilers here. If you don't want to risk spoiling any of these games you haven't played yet yourself, then don't scroll down.
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- ALETHICORP -
First game on the list. I'll just click "play in browser" and away we go. No, wait. There's another link waiting for me there, to apply for a job. Interesting. Wonder what the pay rate will be? The 2nd job sounds like one perhaps I can do. Oh great, a personality test. I failed one of these miserably when I applied to Pizza Hut as a teenager.
"If you were a bear, what type of bear would you be?" I would most definitely be a Were-Bear. Unfortunately, that isn't on the list. Okay, Smokey Bear it is. Team player? 9, of course (total lie). A few more questions and.. accepted! Wow, that was easy.
As the game moves along, I find myself going through many texts in the form of emails, reports, and conversation logs while flagging some things as suspicious. The constant train picture and comparison in some of the emails is pretty humorous. I seem to be doing not such a great job, but not horrible either. One person who calls themselves "Alpha" is asking me to not do my job and delete as much as possible. I am ignoring them.
Eventually, when asked to make "recommendations", I recommend Alpha at threat level 9. Doing so results in my termination from the company, as it was obvious to everyone but me that I was letting all the bad people slide. Oh well. "Those 'Smokey Bear ' types are never reliable."
- AND YET IT MOVES -
x me
How very vain of you.
Okay, not a big deal. This is a game about Galileo and all, so I'm letting it slide.
"inventory" says I've got a travel case that contains what looks like useless scenery, but that I've also got a bag with a list in it. Hey, I'm going to start grabbing some stuff off that list! I remember seeing some fruit outside!
I go to take an apple, but can't due to my morals. However, I see a bit of metal, which is of course a key. I try to take the potato, and it tells me about the bit of metal again. A bit later, I discover a hint on an object referring to this key. I hope anyone reading this did not have trouble finding this key.
There are little slightly annoying bugs around but nothing game-stopping yet. Things like the latch on the globe can not be seen after the description of the globe telling you that it is affixed with a latch, which is locked. Soon, we are upon lack of capitolization in within various sentence beginnings. Pretty neat how it throws the items from the list into the bag once I buy them, though. Argh, multiple objects that seem to do nothing and do not have plural understandings; with exception to taking things.
Visiting the trinket shop, I notice there's no shopkeeper, so I'm going to loot the place. I start with the "marbles", and get 57 lines of:
marble: If you want that marble, pay for it.
Seems obvious the next course of action at this point is trying to find the new location of the bank so I can cash in the note so I can pay for the bookbinder's services. Found it.
"Now you just need some supplies, and you can be leaving for Holland. There is a market nearby, and you have a list of things to buy in your bag."
Cool. But I wonder what would happen if..
>give bag to bookbinder
(the bag to the bookbinder)
You give the bag to the bookbinder.
>take bag
Which do you mean, the bag or sack of coins?
>the bag
Which do you mean, the bag or sack of coins?
Very impressive and extensive hints system. Though the game seems a bit too simple for all of these. It also fails to tell me why I can't complete the 4th(out of 5 according to the hints) scene when I have paid to get the book bound and have walked into Alighieri street holding 2 apples, 3 pumpkins, a water vessel, and a veal slice. I did this with the items in and out the bag. Waited. Gave up.
Had good points and was fun at moments, but the bugs killed the experience for me.
- ARQON -
This game comes with a warning for anyone who may be offended by IF RPG. I will press SPACE to continue.
It doesn’t take long before a combat encounter begins in this game. I keep meaning to check out Kerkerkruip, so I can’t really compare that to this.
Starting out, I go check out a temple which houses a priest. I pray and receive bless and curse (strangely, the same 2 scrolls I already have with me). Praying again gives the same result. Over and over. You can’t actually talk to the priest though because “You can’t see any such thing.” You can ask the owner of the trading post about “the trading post”, but “ask trader about trading post” gives no reply. There is a free scroll referred to at the trading post, but I can’t seem to buy or take it.
The popular typo theme in this one seems to be missing ending sentences. While the game doesn’t describe my defeated enemies pooling into thin air, there’s no trace of the body after the combat to search for loot or whatever. After a while, I just became disinterested in this one and moved on to the next.
- BEGSCAPE -
Beg. Beg. Beg. Choice.
That’s where the choices end with this one. Your only possible action is “beg” over and over and then you asked if you should stay in the current town or move to another (unless you are kicked out.) Then you die. Then you restart. This being advertised as a randomized game, I gave it another try. I replayed it roughly 5 times.
The lack of options here makes for a disappointing experience. Descriptions of opportunities float by, yet there is no “ask dude @ bakery for a job”, etc option to click. Why can’t I stop begging after getting enough money for shelter for the day? There are very few options other than dying and seeing a slightly more detailed death message in this game. There’s no background to anything. WHY can’t I do anything but beg? I could start to imagine this for myself, but I feel the story should give me a lot more explain this lack of options. At least I can complete it.
- BUILDING THE RIGHT STUFF -
This game has an interesting layout, though it does look a little rough. I like the green coloring of the screen, but waiting on it to refresh can be kind of annoying. Checking bioscans between turns gives some cool results, it's just too bad that the game wouldn't let me go back to the menu and essentially froze on my 4th or 5th bioscan.
On my first play through, I accidentally exited the game by hitting escape. On the 3rd turn, the game ended due to "space sickness" despite talking to GENE as frequently as I thought to, though scared to do it too much in fear of triggering the freeze bug again. Bug fixes and some randomization of the messages would make this game more worthy of play.
- CAROLINE -
The game starts with a dinner date, and my date wants to play footsies. We leave after getting crappy wine from a creepy waiter, and away we go to her house. She agrees to cook spaghetti, but won’t give me her secret recipe. I think her disgusting secret is carrots in her spaghetti sauce. I like both, but the two don’t go together.
Again, I don’t feel like I have enough choices here. The “correct” ones seem obvious to keep from pissing off Caroline. Our next date is quite strange. “Do I forgive myself?” for what? I’ve been on my best behavior with Caroline. Whatever, I’ll say yes. I have to yes a few times once in the church to properly role-play. Doing this did make for an amusing (and pretty ridiculous) ending. No show-stopping bugs to be found, but the lack of choices going on here prevents me from rating much higher.
- CREATURES SUCH AS WE -
This game starts off as a typical CYOA style game, then (at least for me) quickly ended in a bad ending. Then, I was poked at in a “R U MAD, BRO?” sort of fashion. A few more replays later, I don't really find much fun to be had here.
- EIDOLON -
When this story begins, I mistakenly think there are flying saucers outside. Instead, there's some really strange and creepy things going on here dealing with insomnia, alternate realities, and dreams. We have a few choices here, but nothing story-forking. However, we do have some cool puzzles in this Twine game! While there were parts of the story I did not enjoy, there was a lot that I did.
The game presented itself well aside from one typo that stood out to me which I will mention later, never bugged out, had a cool and solid story, and was genuinely fun to play.
The only hitch was in the end: ”and now I just want everything to over"
- ENIGMA -
Got off to a rough start despite not getting many parser errors, and looked at the walkthrough. Lack of paragraphs makes this one a bit harder to read. Way too much typing to think and examine instead of just “doing” things to make this much fun for me.
- EXCELSIOR -
One of the bricks in the tower wall is black. That’s odd, you didn’t notice it before.
> x brick
It looks just like the other bricks, except black.
> take it
That’s not a command I recognize. Type “help” for command info.
> push brick
That’s not a command I recognize. Type “help” for command info.
“help” reveals a “use” command which is usually completely alien to me aside from graphic adventures with text parsers. The game advertises a streamlined parser, but it just feels more limited and frustrating to me. Not being able to use more than one line at a time is annoying once I glance at the walkthrough.
- FIFTEEN MINUTES -
After some examining and waiting, it's obvious that there's some time-travel puzzling going on here. I used to get helplessly stuck in Day of the Tentacle, so I don't have high hopes for this one. After bumbling about a bit, I consult the hints, then the walkthrough. This just doesn't seem like it's a game for me. Moving on again.
- FOLLOWING ME -
The lack of indenting and paragraph spacing in this one gets on my nerves, but the story
feels like something bad must happen, and that keeps me interested in moving forward. As it progresses though, things get pretty cheesy and profanities seem tackily overused. A few more typos pop up like lack of periods and a random % mark. I'm not sure how much impact my choices are making, but 2 plays didn't reveal much.
I would have made those bad guys pay a lot more, for sure.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
- ALETHICORP -
First game on the list. I'll just click "play in browser" and away we go. No, wait. There's another link waiting for me there, to apply for a job. Interesting. Wonder what the pay rate will be? The 2nd job sounds like one perhaps I can do. Oh great, a personality test. I failed one of these miserably when I applied to Pizza Hut as a teenager.
"If you were a bear, what type of bear would you be?" I would most definitely be a Were-Bear. Unfortunately, that isn't on the list. Okay, Smokey Bear it is. Team player? 9, of course (total lie). A few more questions and.. accepted! Wow, that was easy.
As the game moves along, I find myself going through many texts in the form of emails, reports, and conversation logs while flagging some things as suspicious. The constant train picture and comparison in some of the emails is pretty humorous. I seem to be doing not such a great job, but not horrible either. One person who calls themselves "Alpha" is asking me to not do my job and delete as much as possible. I am ignoring them.
Eventually, when asked to make "recommendations", I recommend Alpha at threat level 9. Doing so results in my termination from the company, as it was obvious to everyone but me that I was letting all the bad people slide. Oh well. "Those 'Smokey Bear ' types are never reliable."
- AND YET IT MOVES -
x me
How very vain of you.
Okay, not a big deal. This is a game about Galileo and all, so I'm letting it slide.
"inventory" says I've got a travel case that contains what looks like useless scenery, but that I've also got a bag with a list in it. Hey, I'm going to start grabbing some stuff off that list! I remember seeing some fruit outside!
I go to take an apple, but can't due to my morals. However, I see a bit of metal, which is of course a key. I try to take the potato, and it tells me about the bit of metal again. A bit later, I discover a hint on an object referring to this key. I hope anyone reading this did not have trouble finding this key.
There are little slightly annoying bugs around but nothing game-stopping yet. Things like the latch on the globe can not be seen after the description of the globe telling you that it is affixed with a latch, which is locked. Soon, we are upon lack of capitolization in within various sentence beginnings. Pretty neat how it throws the items from the list into the bag once I buy them, though. Argh, multiple objects that seem to do nothing and do not have plural understandings; with exception to taking things.
Visiting the trinket shop, I notice there's no shopkeeper, so I'm going to loot the place. I start with the "marbles", and get 57 lines of:
marble: If you want that marble, pay for it.
Seems obvious the next course of action at this point is trying to find the new location of the bank so I can cash in the note so I can pay for the bookbinder's services. Found it.
"Now you just need some supplies, and you can be leaving for Holland. There is a market nearby, and you have a list of things to buy in your bag."
Cool. But I wonder what would happen if..
>give bag to bookbinder
(the bag to the bookbinder)
You give the bag to the bookbinder.
>take bag
Which do you mean, the bag or sack of coins?
>the bag
Which do you mean, the bag or sack of coins?
Very impressive and extensive hints system. Though the game seems a bit too simple for all of these. It also fails to tell me why I can't complete the 4th(out of 5 according to the hints) scene when I have paid to get the book bound and have walked into Alighieri street holding 2 apples, 3 pumpkins, a water vessel, and a veal slice. I did this with the items in and out the bag. Waited. Gave up.
Had good points and was fun at moments, but the bugs killed the experience for me.
- ARQON -
This game comes with a warning for anyone who may be offended by IF RPG. I will press SPACE to continue.
It doesn’t take long before a combat encounter begins in this game. I keep meaning to check out Kerkerkruip, so I can’t really compare that to this.
Starting out, I go check out a temple which houses a priest. I pray and receive bless and curse (strangely, the same 2 scrolls I already have with me). Praying again gives the same result. Over and over. You can’t actually talk to the priest though because “You can’t see any such thing.” You can ask the owner of the trading post about “the trading post”, but “ask trader about trading post” gives no reply. There is a free scroll referred to at the trading post, but I can’t seem to buy or take it.
The popular typo theme in this one seems to be missing ending sentences. While the game doesn’t describe my defeated enemies pooling into thin air, there’s no trace of the body after the combat to search for loot or whatever. After a while, I just became disinterested in this one and moved on to the next.
- BEGSCAPE -
Beg. Beg. Beg. Choice.
That’s where the choices end with this one. Your only possible action is “beg” over and over and then you asked if you should stay in the current town or move to another (unless you are kicked out.) Then you die. Then you restart. This being advertised as a randomized game, I gave it another try. I replayed it roughly 5 times.
The lack of options here makes for a disappointing experience. Descriptions of opportunities float by, yet there is no “ask dude @ bakery for a job”, etc option to click. Why can’t I stop begging after getting enough money for shelter for the day? There are very few options other than dying and seeing a slightly more detailed death message in this game. There’s no background to anything. WHY can’t I do anything but beg? I could start to imagine this for myself, but I feel the story should give me a lot more explain this lack of options. At least I can complete it.
- BUILDING THE RIGHT STUFF -
This game has an interesting layout, though it does look a little rough. I like the green coloring of the screen, but waiting on it to refresh can be kind of annoying. Checking bioscans between turns gives some cool results, it's just too bad that the game wouldn't let me go back to the menu and essentially froze on my 4th or 5th bioscan.
On my first play through, I accidentally exited the game by hitting escape. On the 3rd turn, the game ended due to "space sickness" despite talking to GENE as frequently as I thought to, though scared to do it too much in fear of triggering the freeze bug again. Bug fixes and some randomization of the messages would make this game more worthy of play.
- CAROLINE -
The game starts with a dinner date, and my date wants to play footsies. We leave after getting crappy wine from a creepy waiter, and away we go to her house. She agrees to cook spaghetti, but won’t give me her secret recipe. I think her disgusting secret is carrots in her spaghetti sauce. I like both, but the two don’t go together.
Again, I don’t feel like I have enough choices here. The “correct” ones seem obvious to keep from pissing off Caroline. Our next date is quite strange. “Do I forgive myself?” for what? I’ve been on my best behavior with Caroline. Whatever, I’ll say yes. I have to yes a few times once in the church to properly role-play. Doing this did make for an amusing (and pretty ridiculous) ending. No show-stopping bugs to be found, but the lack of choices going on here prevents me from rating much higher.
- CREATURES SUCH AS WE -
This game starts off as a typical CYOA style game, then (at least for me) quickly ended in a bad ending. Then, I was poked at in a “R U MAD, BRO?” sort of fashion. A few more replays later, I don't really find much fun to be had here.
- EIDOLON -
When this story begins, I mistakenly think there are flying saucers outside. Instead, there's some really strange and creepy things going on here dealing with insomnia, alternate realities, and dreams. We have a few choices here, but nothing story-forking. However, we do have some cool puzzles in this Twine game! While there were parts of the story I did not enjoy, there was a lot that I did.
The game presented itself well aside from one typo that stood out to me which I will mention later, never bugged out, had a cool and solid story, and was genuinely fun to play.
The only hitch was in the end: ”and now I just want everything to over"
- ENIGMA -
Got off to a rough start despite not getting many parser errors, and looked at the walkthrough. Lack of paragraphs makes this one a bit harder to read. Way too much typing to think and examine instead of just “doing” things to make this much fun for me.
- EXCELSIOR -
One of the bricks in the tower wall is black. That’s odd, you didn’t notice it before.
> x brick
It looks just like the other bricks, except black.
> take it
That’s not a command I recognize. Type “help” for command info.
> push brick
That’s not a command I recognize. Type “help” for command info.
“help” reveals a “use” command which is usually completely alien to me aside from graphic adventures with text parsers. The game advertises a streamlined parser, but it just feels more limited and frustrating to me. Not being able to use more than one line at a time is annoying once I glance at the walkthrough.
- FIFTEEN MINUTES -
After some examining and waiting, it's obvious that there's some time-travel puzzling going on here. I used to get helplessly stuck in Day of the Tentacle, so I don't have high hopes for this one. After bumbling about a bit, I consult the hints, then the walkthrough. This just doesn't seem like it's a game for me. Moving on again.
- FOLLOWING ME -
The lack of indenting and paragraph spacing in this one gets on my nerves, but the story
feels like something bad must happen, and that keeps me interested in moving forward. As it progresses though, things get pretty cheesy and profanities seem tackily overused. A few more typos pop up like lack of periods and a random % mark. I'm not sure how much impact my choices are making, but 2 plays didn't reveal much.
I would have made those bad guys pay a lot more, for sure.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Moving On
Yesterday, I came home to a surprise. I went to update something related to my Ultima Online shard, and realized that my site now resolves to a Roadrunner.com help page. The site has resided there for about ten years now, as I never really needed a lot of space to host it. In about 3 hours I had uploaded all my data from a backup and redone all the URLS to the site, but you may still find a quirk here or there before I catch it. The old address was home.roadrunner.com/~fragmeister and the new address is retrolab.servebeer.com.
The new site is hosted by Amazon.com and so long as I keep refreshing the free domain name (or finally pay for it), it should stay there for some time to come. Also, all games and source code in my "Files" section should be working correctly now, because they are also hosted on the new server. The old site had a lot of files that were linked to Fileplanet, which is "no longer being updated and is in the process of being archived". Always a good idea to make frequent backups.
With that out of the way, I have a couple of game-related things to mention. The DPRK demo (Interactive fiction written in Hugo) is just around the corner. I just need a couple more hours to tie up some loose ends. The demo will feature the first PC's section of the game as well as an introduction to the second PC. I'm mainly looking for feedback on 2 things from the testers of the demo; how interested you are in certain aspects of the story (what should be focused on more) and what do you like or not like about the interface (The text parser commands, the layout of the windows, etc). It should only take a few minutes to play, but there are reasons for replay here and there due to story forks dependent on things like held objects and NPC interactions.
IFComp is also starting soon! I'm currently beta testing one game for it and hope to play a lot of the entries, and will try to review one or two once the time comes. I didn't really have anything near enough to completion to feel comfortable entering myself this year.
Retro Shard is back in order again lately new interest from a couple of people. My girlfriend has been doing a lot of play-testing on it, and I've gotten around to creating a new dungeon and finally creating a desert area. Next up will be creating a region within the desert area to allow for people to collect sand for glass-blowing. The new dungeon still needs some more spawners (monsters and treasure) to be fully complete, but that shouldn't take too long. Check out the Retro Shard section if you are interested in playing 2D Ultima Online on my server. It's free and fairly straightforward to set up.
There's been a new version and a few revisions of Inform7 released since I last worked with it. I'm interested in the OSX version, but figure the best thing to do is continue on DPRK until all of the extensions my last unfinished Inform project was dependent on are working in this new version. That last unfinished project was the "Interactive Dreaming" game. I recently took some pictures that I think will fit into the game nicely, and still have the beginnings of a cool sound track a friend of created a track for. The game itself was progressing okay as far as content, but the conversation system (the one I used in Lunar Base 1) was mothballed. If anyone has any recommendations for clean yet dynamic conversation systems that I may have missed in the past two years, I'd like to hear them.
The new site is hosted by Amazon.com and so long as I keep refreshing the free domain name (or finally pay for it), it should stay there for some time to come. Also, all games and source code in my "Files" section should be working correctly now, because they are also hosted on the new server. The old site had a lot of files that were linked to Fileplanet, which is "no longer being updated and is in the process of being archived". Always a good idea to make frequent backups.
With that out of the way, I have a couple of game-related things to mention. The DPRK demo (Interactive fiction written in Hugo) is just around the corner. I just need a couple more hours to tie up some loose ends. The demo will feature the first PC's section of the game as well as an introduction to the second PC. I'm mainly looking for feedback on 2 things from the testers of the demo; how interested you are in certain aspects of the story (what should be focused on more) and what do you like or not like about the interface (The text parser commands, the layout of the windows, etc). It should only take a few minutes to play, but there are reasons for replay here and there due to story forks dependent on things like held objects and NPC interactions.
IFComp is also starting soon! I'm currently beta testing one game for it and hope to play a lot of the entries, and will try to review one or two once the time comes. I didn't really have anything near enough to completion to feel comfortable entering myself this year.
Retro Shard is back in order again lately new interest from a couple of people. My girlfriend has been doing a lot of play-testing on it, and I've gotten around to creating a new dungeon and finally creating a desert area. Next up will be creating a region within the desert area to allow for people to collect sand for glass-blowing. The new dungeon still needs some more spawners (monsters and treasure) to be fully complete, but that shouldn't take too long. Check out the Retro Shard section if you are interested in playing 2D Ultima Online on my server. It's free and fairly straightforward to set up.
There's been a new version and a few revisions of Inform7 released since I last worked with it. I'm interested in the OSX version, but figure the best thing to do is continue on DPRK until all of the extensions my last unfinished Inform project was dependent on are working in this new version. That last unfinished project was the "Interactive Dreaming" game. I recently took some pictures that I think will fit into the game nicely, and still have the beginnings of a cool sound track a friend of created a track for. The game itself was progressing okay as far as content, but the conversation system (the one I used in Lunar Base 1) was mothballed. If anyone has any recommendations for clean yet dynamic conversation systems that I may have missed in the past two years, I'd like to hear them.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Lunar Base 1 - Version 1.1
Today I went ahead and made a second release of Lunar Base 1 to my website. Here is the changelog, which I have tried to make as vague as possible for anyone who hasn't tried the game:
- Fixed description of exits (or lack thereof) in one area. A pet peeve of mine has always been not showing how to get back out of a location.
- Locked down 2 items that I thought already were in the comp release. I'm sure this time!
- Added another conditional ending.
- Made a couple of wording/grammar changes.
- Added to the "about" text to reflect the new version.
You can download release 2 of Lunar Base 1 or play it in your web browser here.
- Fixed description of exits (or lack thereof) in one area. A pet peeve of mine has always been not showing how to get back out of a location.
- Locked down 2 items that I thought already were in the comp release. I'm sure this time!
- Added another conditional ending.
- Made a couple of wording/grammar changes.
- Added to the "about" text to reflect the new version.
You can download release 2 of Lunar Base 1 or play it in your web browser here.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Lunar Base 1 Submitted to IfComp
I submitted my entry into the 2012 Interactive Fiction Competition today about 6 hours before the deadline. Even in the last few stages of polishing, I found a bug or two to eliminate. I was not able to send out the file for one last round of testing, but after running through the story a few times myself today I'm fairly confident that it won't be a sloppy release. An aesthetic request here and there from my testers may have never been implemented due to time or technical restraints. Of course, there will surely be some sort of surprises when the story is in the hands of the judges.
Earlier this week I wasn't sure if I would be able to use an original sketch I had worked on for my cover art at all. My intent was to photocopy it, paint and ink it, then scan it for an electronic version. The results were very poor using this method. I ended up actually taking a picture of the page in my sketchbook with a digital camera using no flash underneath a lamp in my computer room. This gave it the yellowish tint you see, which I think captures the ghostly feel of the surface of the moon pretty well. I then added black into the darker areas to make everything pop out a bit more, and finally touched up a rough edge or two.
This is now the last time I can mention anything publicly about Lunar Base 1 until the end of the competition per rules of the organizer. There will probably be a retrospect of the competition added after the results are in. Good luck to all authors of IfComp 2012, and good adventures to all of the judges.
Friday, November 11, 2011
IF Comp 2011
Here are a few short reviews for the IFcomp games I've played this far. Some mild spoilers may be present.
BLIND
This game was an interesting premise to me. In it you actually play a blind person. While I myself am not blind, I did have an eye injury some years back that left me temporarily blinded for a few days. During those few days I learned to do quite a few things differently to compensate. I wondered if that painful experience would come in handy playing this. Also, I do hope to read a review by someone who has played this game who has been blind all or most of their life. I would be interested in that perspective of their experience playing it.
Sometimes I'm allowed to 'look' at some objects though, which tells me that looking wasn't completely eliminated (but probably is useless). Then I find that using 'f' does not always print all of the room contents, so I turn on verbose mode. Also, 'look' and 'f' produces different texts, which is kind of confusing. I think the author should have done a bit more to remove any references to sight. Right off the bat my movement and progress is very constricted. I needed a couple of hints at the beginning of the game to get out of the first room.
Bah, I think I'm stuck again. A hint tells me to set up a trap basically, though I don't have any real strategic reason for doing this yet in my mind unless I'm going to camp out in this room. As far as puzzles go, I'm more of a "let's just play around until I have to deal with something" kind of player. Doing another feel around the room once the trap is set returns a strange bit of text. I don't think something should seem to be somewhere if I actually put it there myself.
This game has a lot of items (and benches in one room). There are also has inventory limits. I came across quite a few scenery things noted in the room summaries that should have produced some sort of text. However, I was able to look past these flaws because I found the setting to be interesting. In the garage, if you type "open door" there is no "garage" option, while "open garage door" returns that the door is locked.
This game apparently has many endings. I think I probably saw the weakest one. Hmm. Now I am interested in playing this game again with no hints, though I don't think I'll get around to that until there's a new version.
4/10
CALM
"A game of postapocalyptic relaxation" it's called. Sounds like Fallout. The first screen has a difficulty setting. I chose normal. I started out in a run-down supermarket, checking things out while scavenging a few items. My first mission is to find someone, anyone to talk to. After figuring out how to break out of my refuge, I set out into the world. Exits all seem to be clearly marked thus far.
My exploration stroll didn't last long. Soon a pack of dogs was stalking me. I tried to hit the dogs with a pole I found laying around, but somehow the pole "bounces of the pack of dogs" so I had to restore and find a different solution. After restoring, I do my best to avoid the dogs because I'm still unsure how to deal with them. Of course, eventually they find me. I eat something to reduce my stress level a bit.. but the growling dogs increase my stress to the limit. Game over again. This game could probably benefit from either a numerical amount of your current stress level to be added to the status bar, or some sort of graphical meter. The "mood" label isn't informative enough to me. Please include more understanding for your nouns as well.
Then I find a way to deal with the dogs, but only temporarily. I get stressed out again and lose. I'm a little annoyed now. For now I'm putting this aside, and will save a rating for if and when I complete it.
N/A
PLAYING GAMES
After a short introduction, the game starts quickly. The first few puzzles were easy yet fun to solve. Then, I get to a series of of puzzles. The short one isn't too bad. Then I get to the medium one. The error sound drives me nuts as I move the O around a few times, and I give up on this one too.
N/A
SANTALAND
Honestly, I was hoping this game took place in Santa Land theme park. Some of my family has been there a few times, though I have never been. I've only seen the pictures. At any rate, I did like the general premise and plot of the game. The environment was pretty well fleshed out. The only thing was that I just couldn't really get into the puzzles, so I resorted to the walkthrough. Perhaps I'll return to this game when the Christmas theme of the puzzles interests me more one holiday season.
6/10
LAST DAY OF SUMMER
Argh, give me some exits listings here. Don't just make me try random moves to see if I will advance. The story seems ok so far, even if it moves along a bit too quickly. I run into an NPC with a suspicious name, "greengrocer". I guess the author doesn't know the printed name trick yet. I attempt to talk to him, and I'm told that "I don't need to converse in this story." That's kind of a let-down. Just when I don't know what to do, a "wait" followed by a "look" advances the story. It's hard to get too peeved about that sort of pacing issue when previous versions of my own first game suffered from extremely bad pacing. Short game and I didn't care for the puzzles.
3/10
COLD IRON
I'm moving along looking for something, when I find something else. Everything important in the game with some importance can be read about in a book of fairy tales that you carry along with you. Not a lot of "guess the verb" stuff happening here. This game was very short and there really isn't a lot to it. I easily completed it in about 20 minutes without a walk-through. That being said, there's not a lot wrong with it either.
5/10
SHIP OF WHIMSY
Writing style seems a little odd. I'm forced to use the names of the parts of the ship to move around instead of compass directions. After playing about ten minutes I think I have a pretty good idea of what my first task will be. Nothing I try seems to get anything done, so I turn to the walk-through only to find that it isn't a walk-through at all. It's the full text of his source. Immediately quit playing.
N/A
THE BINARY
This web-based game was easy to get into despite it's weird and random environment. I'm not sure how I feel about the interaction system, as it feels like I'm just clicking on random hyperlinks without putting a lot of thought into things to keep the story moving along. However, I find quick that there is just a little more to it. If I just randomly click things, the story ends up looping around and repeating. I end up looking at the hints after a while and a couple of the required actions to make the game progress have me scratching my head as to why the player would even think to do something.
Couldn't finish this either. Even following the hints. I think a major drawback to this game is the very strict time constraint.
N/A
BLIND
This game was an interesting premise to me. In it you actually play a blind person. While I myself am not blind, I did have an eye injury some years back that left me temporarily blinded for a few days. During those few days I learned to do quite a few things differently to compensate. I wondered if that painful experience would come in handy playing this. Also, I do hope to read a review by someone who has played this game who has been blind all or most of their life. I would be interested in that perspective of their experience playing it.
Sometimes I'm allowed to 'look' at some objects though, which tells me that looking wasn't completely eliminated (but probably is useless). Then I find that using 'f' does not always print all of the room contents, so I turn on verbose mode. Also, 'look' and 'f' produces different texts, which is kind of confusing. I think the author should have done a bit more to remove any references to sight. Right off the bat my movement and progress is very constricted. I needed a couple of hints at the beginning of the game to get out of the first room.
Bah, I think I'm stuck again. A hint tells me to set up a trap basically, though I don't have any real strategic reason for doing this yet in my mind unless I'm going to camp out in this room. As far as puzzles go, I'm more of a "let's just play around until I have to deal with something" kind of player. Doing another feel around the room once the trap is set returns a strange bit of text. I don't think something should seem to be somewhere if I actually put it there myself.
This game has a lot of items (and benches in one room). There are also has inventory limits. I came across quite a few scenery things noted in the room summaries that should have produced some sort of text. However, I was able to look past these flaws because I found the setting to be interesting. In the garage, if you type "open door" there is no "garage" option, while "open garage door" returns that the door is locked.
This game apparently has many endings. I think I probably saw the weakest one. Hmm. Now I am interested in playing this game again with no hints, though I don't think I'll get around to that until there's a new version.
4/10
CALM
"A game of postapocalyptic relaxation" it's called. Sounds like Fallout. The first screen has a difficulty setting. I chose normal. I started out in a run-down supermarket, checking things out while scavenging a few items. My first mission is to find someone, anyone to talk to. After figuring out how to break out of my refuge, I set out into the world. Exits all seem to be clearly marked thus far.
My exploration stroll didn't last long. Soon a pack of dogs was stalking me. I tried to hit the dogs with a pole I found laying around, but somehow the pole "bounces of the pack of dogs" so I had to restore and find a different solution. After restoring, I do my best to avoid the dogs because I'm still unsure how to deal with them. Of course, eventually they find me. I eat something to reduce my stress level a bit.. but the growling dogs increase my stress to the limit. Game over again. This game could probably benefit from either a numerical amount of your current stress level to be added to the status bar, or some sort of graphical meter. The "mood" label isn't informative enough to me. Please include more understanding for your nouns as well.
Then I find a way to deal with the dogs, but only temporarily. I get stressed out again and lose. I'm a little annoyed now. For now I'm putting this aside, and will save a rating for if and when I complete it.
N/A
PLAYING GAMES
After a short introduction, the game starts quickly. The first few puzzles were easy yet fun to solve. Then, I get to a series of of puzzles. The short one isn't too bad. Then I get to the medium one. The error sound drives me nuts as I move the O around a few times, and I give up on this one too.
N/A
SANTALAND
Honestly, I was hoping this game took place in Santa Land theme park. Some of my family has been there a few times, though I have never been. I've only seen the pictures. At any rate, I did like the general premise and plot of the game. The environment was pretty well fleshed out. The only thing was that I just couldn't really get into the puzzles, so I resorted to the walkthrough. Perhaps I'll return to this game when the Christmas theme of the puzzles interests me more one holiday season.
6/10
LAST DAY OF SUMMER
Argh, give me some exits listings here. Don't just make me try random moves to see if I will advance. The story seems ok so far, even if it moves along a bit too quickly. I run into an NPC with a suspicious name, "greengrocer". I guess the author doesn't know the printed name trick yet. I attempt to talk to him, and I'm told that "I don't need to converse in this story." That's kind of a let-down. Just when I don't know what to do, a "wait" followed by a "look" advances the story. It's hard to get too peeved about that sort of pacing issue when previous versions of my own first game suffered from extremely bad pacing. Short game and I didn't care for the puzzles.
3/10
COLD IRON
I'm moving along looking for something, when I find something else. Everything important in the game with some importance can be read about in a book of fairy tales that you carry along with you. Not a lot of "guess the verb" stuff happening here. This game was very short and there really isn't a lot to it. I easily completed it in about 20 minutes without a walk-through. That being said, there's not a lot wrong with it either.
5/10
SHIP OF WHIMSY
Writing style seems a little odd. I'm forced to use the names of the parts of the ship to move around instead of compass directions. After playing about ten minutes I think I have a pretty good idea of what my first task will be. Nothing I try seems to get anything done, so I turn to the walk-through only to find that it isn't a walk-through at all. It's the full text of his source. Immediately quit playing.
N/A
THE BINARY
This web-based game was easy to get into despite it's weird and random environment. I'm not sure how I feel about the interaction system, as it feels like I'm just clicking on random hyperlinks without putting a lot of thought into things to keep the story moving along. However, I find quick that there is just a little more to it. If I just randomly click things, the story ends up looping around and repeating. I end up looking at the hints after a while and a couple of the required actions to make the game progress have me scratching my head as to why the player would even think to do something.
Couldn't finish this either. Even following the hints. I think a major drawback to this game is the very strict time constraint.
N/A
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