Reviews by Hensman Int'l
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From the Author
Related reviews: InsideADRIFT Summer Competition 2010I do want to fine-tune the game and all input would be appreciated (maybe not liked, but appreciated). Check out the ADRIFT forum website and PM me with suggestions/comments/bugs/complaints. The idea of including the map was not to “make things easy”, but like the Infocom games of old, having “feelies”. I'm working on a "Hint book" similar to ZORK era which includes, "Did you try ..." for the fun of it. I will zip all together when the final revision is complete.
For example, did you try to...
(Spoiler - click to show)- ignore the wizard and go off on your own.
- kill the wizard another way.
- kill the warlock. (one way is an early death!)
- kiss the warlock.
- drift down the river and look around.
no story, no direction, and no instruction, August 31, 2010"This is a game with no story, no direction, and no instruction. This is a game meant to make a statement in the world." I agree with the first sentence, and have no idea what the statement is supposed to be, unless it is the monotony of a job not liked. Nothing was examinable, and many other standard commands did not interact as expected. On the second day, I could not proceed east without talking to my boss, and talking to boss yielded the error command 'Use the format "ask [character] about [subject]"'. Even having access to the source code, I did not want to proceed any further.
To be fair the author did realize that this game was not original shortly after the start of the competition and withdrew.
Reminds me of the old arcade game "Moon Lander", but backwards to the DOS games (ASCII characters to build an image). Unlike an actual timer to race against, it's knowing when to not just hit [Enter]. The first time around I quit the game on the second 'chapter' bored with enter, enter, enter, etc. But to do justice in evaluating the game for the competition, I persisted and plowed through to the end.
The descriptions were somewhat brief and simplistic - would have liked to see more 'Adventure' to the game. That said, making the ASCII images stay in the correct layout took some skill and patience on the part of Abbi Park.
Tongue in cheek, not sword in stone, August 31, 2010When I first saw the title "Camelot" I was prepared for a serious medieval plot and spending hours on end to achieve a crusade-like goal. Reminicent of "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", I was anticipating a challenge of mythic proportions.
Maybe I’m spoiled on the concept of Camelot, and this game was more of a short spoof – I did find it humorous and enjoyable. A few of the commands eluded me as I am 'old school' and expect to input more detail than less. (Spoiler - click to show)Example, “light torch” – I kept trying to “light torch with matches”. In this type of game I was expecting at least one secret passage and kept examining a wrong location, certain I was missing something as the descriptions were so vivid. The actual secret passage was less described, thus it took a long time for me to find.
One of the frustrations for me was the use of timed delay between rooms. After being kicked out of one of the rooms I wanted to race thru the directions to get back there. That delay prevented that from happening.
The anacronisms seemed a little too out of place, however overall it was a cute short game.
Mystery wrapped in an enigma, August 31, 2010Started as a good mystery, then transitioned thorough strange, weird, to disgusting. The combat near the end was a lot of typing - shortcuts would have been preferable. I would have enjoyed it much more if the game focused on the mystery of where his son went and what was the blood about, not some sci-fi/metaphysical journey. In a way, each of the chapters deserved a separate, more detailed game. Some of them I would have liked to play; others not in the genre I prefer.
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