Reviews by Andrew Schultz

I've read that many other Panks games were real messes. I've even seen people refusing to play his games because they're, well, his. But Ninja's Fate made me curious enough to give the game another look. Based on ratings and comments, this seemed like the safest one, and while it has few positively memorable moments, it's playable, mostly coherent and straightforward. The in-game help is useful and direct. This is no small personal accomplishment in a game built from scratch.

The only problem is that this doesn't translate into much fun for the player. People tell you, as Jesus, what to get, and you get it. JoN is nothing more than a fetch-quest with some RPG elements. You must convert four of six possible disciples(Spoiler - click to show), though you can convert three of them with one fish, and satisfying each one feels like bribery. You start out with a dagger and tunic, then you move up to a spear and helmet and shield. Once you start a fight, it is to the death. Each side has hit points. Hit messages can be grossly inappropriate: "Sweet mercy! You crucified him!" Yet winning is not hard, though you do some iffy things (Spoiler - click to show)like killing Harod and a few centurions--though all those weapons are probably a clue.

JoN shows a certain attention to detail, or a wish to attend to detail. The room and item descriptions show imagination. But then Mary Magdalene is described as a small town and doesn't even take the item she asks for. Also, drop in fig and olive trees you can't climb or examine, or leave a sick boy none of the in-game verbs did much to help. Scattered scrolls, if read, have bible passages galore which are too long to really be interested in, and converted disciples blather interminable platitudes.

It's unfortunate Panks isolated himself and was never really able to ask for or use other people's criticisms by the time he wrote something like this. JoN obviously needs help, but it equally obviously would be worthwhile. Perhaps using an established language, he'd have had time or energy to iron things out better. With a tester or two, he'd have had something more polished.

I know what it feels like to realize I've passed on asking for creative or technical help--especially when learning programming early, by not using or asking for help on a script from someone I disliked--and I remember the reasons I gave to pass it up, and hopefully I've learned somewhat to change course if I get in that trap. It's sadly but memorably ironic that in a game ostensibly about one of the great forgivers, the author did not take advantage of much more earthly graces.

Maybe I'm just rounding up to two stars as a sort of respect for the dead, or for someone more diligent in rejecting criticism than I could be. Or maybe it's a harsh learning experience to see my own mistakes magnified, or it's humbling to see I can empathize or vaguely identify with someone who made such big mistakes, and seeing an honest effort from someone who never really put it together has helps me move on from my own mistakes in the way that a perfect game or even a great tutorial never can.

Some smart-aleck was eventually going to riff on the IF trope in the title name, and I'm glad it was someone clever. GtV isn't a long game--the central joke would grow old--and it's not tough, but you can extend the experience by examining everything and rifling through hints of problems you've solved. I haven't seen anything this odd that actually worked in text adventures since _Nord and Bert_.

As an 11-year-old lost at a fair, you find a robot named Lalrry who will let you Guess the Verb for a shiny quarter. You have a dull one, and there's a useless quarter-shining machine nearby. Cue the twisted meta-humor to manipulate the genuinely creepy, though harmless, Lalrry. Each verb you guess sends you to a scenarios featuring an evil wizard, a mad scientist, a dwarf, a spaceship and the author himself, in a particularly metafictional computer lab. The last one actually works.

You're not really guessing the verb in these. You just need to find where to use it. You even help some poor souls who can't quite guess their own verbs or solve a puzzle while your nemeses guess theirs.

Given how small the areas are, the puzzles can only have so many solutions, so there's a ceiling to trial and error, unlike true verb-guessing. Still, GtV's effortless surrealism makes the game feel much bigger than its solution, and it may help you laugh off stress in the next game that requires actual verb-guessing.

So on the surface this game is a 9-question interview where you are graded on your answers. Survive, and you're graded on teamwork, leadership and technical skills, and you get a salary, too.

It's not entirely that simple, though. XYZZY gives background--too much--and gives pages of ideas what the author was trying to do.

While (Spoiler - click to show)one easy "win" is >3's all the way through, the game gets interesting when you twiddle one answer to see what happens. And it's pretty clear that if you're too lousy in one area, they'll thank you for an excellent interview and "the phone never ring."

Unfortunately there's no cluing from the interviewers if you're in trouble or doing well. You're left reverse engineering the answers. Change one and see what happens with your grades, and soon you can figure which answer doesn't just trade one grade for another. It's a cute learning exercise but, like crazy IF mazes, more technical than imaginative. Some answer swaps show scorched-earth approaches are penalized, and computer industry people who look into it may find heart and a touch of irony.

They won't find a good game, though. It could be an interesting side puzzle, and if he had put some of the energy from the XYZZY response into describing the interviewers and cluing when you are in trouble, it would be more than an elimination puzzle. As it is, I got all A's and $100k a year after spending two five-minute sessions that felt much longer.

This game may have inspired me to write my own multiple-choice vignette as a sort of therapy. Perhaps I will suggest such an activity to the next ranting co-worker. But the playing experience also made clear that something like this is not seriously publishable as a stand-alone work.