Ratings and Reviews by Andrew Schultz

Endless Sands scared me off with the title: were the sands endless? Algorithmically generated? Thankfully not. But it feels that way at first. You've been bitten by a vampire queen and need to find your way inside before light. You have about four hours of game time, or 240 moves. TLDR: it's a funny small-to-medium game with lots of nice big ideas that feels a bit loose, but there's no shame for a first time effort.

There are four possible endings, each with its own series of mildly annoying hijinks. When I say mildly annoying, I mean that they were just the right silliness to get under your skin without pushing you away. It was a good idea for the author to implement all four, though, as different players appear to have gotten stuck on different ones. And this provides a depth that so many other silly games don't have.

As you'd expect there's not a lot of NPC interaction, and what there is is a bit guess-the-subject. I maybe should've thought of (Spoiler - click to show)giving the werewolf something to chew. But the dialogue didn't point there, even though I found an actual subject that worked, I laughed. I think the puzzle for escaping below the surface was much fairer, and it had wacky humor and even a clever bit of programming where a radio gives static half the time. It was a nice little wait-nag as you had (Spoiler - click to show)seven colors to put in order, so when each had a 1/2 chance of appearing in a message, missing one wasn't critical. Or you could just brute-force.

This review is for version 1 of the game. The author, a first-time writer, showed interest in a post-comp release. So a lot of the cluing that's off (I assumed certain places were off-limits,) or the slapstick that misfires (though you see what the author's trying to do) or the technical stuff (command rejects can waste a minute) is forgiveable and easy to fix.

I had fun with the game, warts and all, and I hope the author writes a post-comp release. Even if they only have time to fix some of the bugs, I bet people will replay it gladly, if only to see the endings they missed.

EXTERMINATE! is a speed-IF that focuses really well on its concept. I saw the idea on move 2, but I didn't see the command to list everything you could do. But the game was nice and hinted me on move 6. This is an extra meta-puzzle, if you are curious, but only if you want to feel extra smug and brainy. I'm slightly sad I didn't, but I enjoyed the game well enough.

I was also highly amused that the game responded to a hidden command not listed. It was a juvenile try at profanity, and I'm impressed the author thought of a funny riff on the standard reject. It was also in good taste (Spoiler - click to show)the fella excluded another).

This is one game where I'd welcome an update version very much just because I bet it's hard to find everything in 3 hours, even if you (Spoiler - click to show)grep -i "ate$" complete-word-list.txt. Still, the game had more than enough. It's well planned, it doesn't overstay its welcome, and it has a few time-paradox jokes and alternate endings.

But this is enough. I shouldn't (Spoiler - click to show)Bloviate.

I'd read of this game as uniquely mediocre in its own way, due to its heavy-handedness. So it seemed like the sort I wanted to attack one day. I was a bit worried it would be long and convoluted and I'd get sick of it.

It's not really that bad and long--there are only three puzzles, and they feel like multiple choice (which direction do you go, and the game cues why.) Before that, an angel meets your character, and I was worried some sort of hideous death would befall me if I didn't ask enough questions, or if I asked too many. Even that introductory part is cringy--the game seems extremely well meaning, but the lack of details combined with spoon feeding the player to push on felt kind of bad. That, and there seem to be two good choices based on if your personality is introverted or extroverted. Sorry, (Spoiler - click to show)introverts! You lose! Thankfully, the ending text gives some explanation, even if it's not too rigorous.

Imagining how huge the game might be, though, gave me ideas how to construct something moral. And the few times I saw this game mentioned, I built it up as a Pilgrim's Progress, and it was anything but. Of course, I could've saved time by playing the game and maybe having all those ideas a bit quicker. And it won't be the last time I'm faked out by a big-sounding name.

So, the moral? (Yes! I have some over-general advice of my own!) If something seems intimidating, and you sort of do or don't want to look into it? Give it a shot and plan to try a few things out, then move on! And that goes for reviewing or playing something old. Don't worry if it might be too good or too bad, or you're saying something too obvious or too obscure.

I think religious and non-religious people agree this is good, if overgeneral advice. Of course, as in the game, there are pharisees who get this principle wrong, but still, it's good advice, and following through will be more gratifying than getting 3 out of 3 on a multiple choice test. I hope I can say this without snark that I appreciated the sort of failure that resulted from this game, and it was easy to see how I might fall into the trap. And it was a less painful reminder than something more robust. Not that it's a good idea to do this all the time.

PGRTAG was one of the first games I played when I came back to text adventures and judged for IFComp 2010. It doesn't seem to break any theoretical ground or have grand arguments. It would be easy to disqualify as dashed off, and I suspected once I saw ten or so games like this, I wouldn't be so high on it.

But after testing and playing a lot of games, I still haven't found many that reached this level. In so many humor games, I see what they're trying to do, and I say good job, but this one's jokes are immersive. I was worried from the title that the game might be overdone, but it feels balanced right.

Though originally I figured, sure, I enjoyed it, but it's not going to last. I figured once I learned more and saw more, I'd be glad I played it and all, but I really need to learn from more sophisticated efforts.

It's several years later and I'm still coming back to it, though, while games that discuss structure are more over my head, or I don't feel as invited to learn from them, or I figured I got their lesson and I'd like to move on. This game does pretty much everything it wants to, right. It's a spontaneous affair, and it has those touches I wish I'd seen. The over the top narrative voice makes fun of, say, coffee shops and people who complain about them too much. The puzzle where Comrade Rosalia wants to share Communist Manifestos with the students but needs one for everyone is funny and sad bad-logic.

The end result for me is a very spontaneous game. You're invited to try silly stuff, and in fact the two paths through the game are very funny, and the alternate solutions let you use items differently. There's a best ending ((Spoiler - click to show)don't use the pawn shop) and a not-best, and they both make sense.

I think the community needs games like this, to keep us all grounded, or to remember that you don't have to be academic to sort old ideas into new stuff, or even to enter into Interesting Arguments (all arguments between NPCs in the game are suitably ludicrous.) I mean, when I read about reworkings of an old myth or whatever, I can't really mark that as superior to something like this, which pastes silly tropes and leaves you feeling, yes, it's okay to write silly stuff and want to.

On the downside, there's some guess the verb ((Spoiler - click to show)POINT device at X) and some annoying disambiguation among devices, where you have three "(long name)" device to choose from. But the game's short enough, it's not a huge deal.

Sadly, I haven't seen the author again. I hope they come back. Even a game half as good would be very welcome. When someone writes a game like this, it's easy to feel they can just dash off another. But it's not so easy to find that big-idea sweet spot and execute it. Still, as a blueprint for writing something very funny, it's hard to beat PGRTAG.