Reviews by tggdan3

I'll be honest- when I first saw this game, I wasn't too excited about it. It seemed like it would be some kind of Beauty and the Beast knockoff about love and conversation with NPCs more than the cave crawl I've come to love.

I was wrong. Very wrong.

Emily Short has taken many IF tropes and made them wonderful again. The dark maze is here, with a twist (Spoiler - click to show) you can listen to find your way around , you have the abandonitus of being in this huge castle alone, and there are puzzles to solve, keys to find, areas to unlock. It may not have been in the Zork universe, but I had all the excitement I had when I first played Zork I some 20 years ago.

What's more, she makes things so EASY for you, at least as far as annoying actions. Doors are automatically unlocked if you have the key, and opened. None of those annoying "that door is closed" messages. You can "go to" a specific room, or "find" a specific item, going back to where it was. When lost in the maze, you can be reminded what direction you came FROM, and when using the GO TO command, it tells you what directions and rooms you passed getting to your location. These little things really make the game more fun, as it avoids the tedium of moving back from room to room. If only Zork I had that...

Anyway, if, like me, you were wary of the game because of the title and premise- don't be. It's a fun puzzle game with plenty of flashbacks to provide a deep and well written story.

Rarely do I play an IF game and really get the feeling of BEING the PC. Party Foul did this for me. Even being a man, I was put into the POV of the female character as she tries to find a way to leave the party, collect her husband, coat, and casserole dish, without setting the house on fire. (And I really tried to microwave the butter knife, or put it in the toaster to stop the party early!).

The author really thought this through and implemented so much of the game. The NPCs seemed genuine, even when they didn't quite interact with ME the way I WANTED them to, they would speak to each other and make comments based on my actions that made the game feel real. I even got to feel my wife's frustration when the husband wouldn't stop watching football and help me leave the party!

The game is kind of tricky, too. It's not just a conversation game. You really have to use all your IF tricks to wake up the fat drunk guy laying on your coat, or to get the TV off so you can make your husband leave, or to get the pregnant lady to stop eating your treats so you can take the casserole dish. Definately a fun and worthwile play, whether you're interested in IF for the writing, or for the puzzles.

This game is not in any real way IF. Mainly because it's not interactive. The whole game is this: You die. Your one choice: Is this okay? Either way, the game is over. It's a bit more than that, the death is described in a matter of turns in an IF game, with the actions supplied by the computer. Would have made a better joke in a blog then as an actual "game".

Yes, yes, I get it. Adventure was the game that started it all.

And there are SO MANY different versions of it, that it hardly seems possible to review or score it, considering you probably played the sub-optimal version.

I've played the two-word paser version, and the inform update.

The inform update is full of bugs. You can carry any number of things in the wicker cage, allowing you to bypass puzzles that might not let you carry certain items up certain areas by putting them in the cage. The scoring is off too, because if you carry a treasure in the cage to the "base" you get penalized when you TAKE the item out of the cage, then get the points BACK when you drop the item, stopping you from geting proper points.

Anyway, version aside, the game has its plusses and minuses.

The game is a cave crawl puzzle fest, except that everything is totally random and the answers to the puzzles are totally arbitrary. Everything is under-implemented. I had trouble catching a particular bird, and then, i just caught it. I imagine it was turned away by something that was in my inventory then and not now, or vice versa, but regardless, I was able to catch it at one point and not at another point. And your use for the bird is rediculous and there's no reason to believe the bird can be used for its indended purpose.

It keeps going. You have your mazes of passages, rooms with exists not clearly defined, multiple paths going to the same place, and the reverse direction doesn't always take you back where you started. Random enemies show up and attack you, for what appears to be no reason, and never seem to hit you, making their presence appear useless and annoying.

Much like Zork, you are dropped in the middle of nowehere with no clue as to what's going on. Had I never played Zork, i never would have assumed you need to put the treasures in the house. But since I played zork, I tried it. Yep, it works. And it's relevant.

I can only imagine the nightmare of beating this game with a limited parser, considering how frustrated I've become with even newer versions (which allowed you to bypass inventory limits with a wicker cage!).

Okay, okay. Adventure gave us PLUGH and XYZZY. But Infocom gave us BLORB and FROTZ. Adventure gave us Sierra Online (as the creators made games because they coldn't find more games like adventure), but I guess this is one of those games where "you just had to be there". As it is, I am finding myself having little patience with limited inventory, drop items in the maze and map it, and perform any random action you can think of to see if THAT works. Yes it was the first IF game EVER, and for that, it deserves to be played and deserves to be respected. The site wouldn't be here without adventure.

But you need to be a die-hard IF fan AND IF history buff if you're going to get a lot out of this game today. The same can probably be said for the Zork series.

I gave this game 3 stars. Compared to current standards, it really is terrible. But back when it was written, it was the best there was (the only there was). It gave us so many IF conventions we take for granted today (such as the dark room, and using compass directions to move!, inventory and LOOK commands), and people really need to play it if they want to see IF roots- just be ready to take a while, and have hints on hand!

There are a lot of one-room escape the room games out there, where your only goal is to get past one (or a few) puzzles to get into the next room. Suveh Nux or Enlightenment are good examples, with a series of flash ones available all over the internet.

69,105 keys is very straightforward- one of the keys is unique to all the others, and is thus the key that opens the door.

Realistically, it seems like, were you actually THERE in the room, you could quickly scan the keys for the unique one, but maybe not. Instead you have to count them based on several distinct qualities, like their color, whether they have a scrach on them, the brand name, etc.

The game has numerous sesame street references, such as the "one of these things is not like the others" songs, and references to the count, and ever a dirty mode, in reference to the youtube "censored" count song, which was kind of cute. There are even references to how much the PC hates tedium, which is funny, because the game is specifically an exercise in tedium.

I rated this higher then other tedius games, becuase the humor kept the game going, and the puzzle was very easy and straightforward. If you were just learning how to program Inform, or some other system, this is the type of game you should make, one straightforward puzzle that gives you the opportunity to program several different commands well. No doubt further games by this author could be much more involved.

The story isn't very deep, but neither was some of the other great one-room games. Let's face it, how much story can you put in a one-room game without some kind of loaded backstory or cut-scene? And the game doesn't pretend to be anything bigger than it is, and I give the author props for that.

So if you're looking for a quick diversion- this is the game for you. If you want a long puzzle or conversation filled game like Enchanter or something, look elsewhere.

This game is really cute. You're a janitor behind the scenes in a Zork-like adventure game, and you need to put everything back so the next guy can play.

First of all, this game was written very well, better than I expected. You get a hold-all right away, so you can carry all the treasures back, and you get a talking mop who can help you with some tasks (though he's not particularly helpful).

The game can be very funny (particularly when you find out what happened to your predecesor). It's also well-planned, because as you walk around you do get the feeling like someone has been there before you- muddy footprints on the carpet from outside, fingerprints on the mirror, just the little things that give you the feeling of a "used" world.

It is cute how your score goes down rather than up, indicating putting things back to the original position, and discovering where the adventurer picked things up (you missed training so you have to discover the initial placement of things yourself). Luckily, the score indicates when something is where it should be.

Zork-style comedy is there (such as a comfy chair that "traps" you), and discovering how cheap some of the "treasures" actually are. If you were a big fan of Zork (like I am) you will love this game. It's all puzzles.

If you're a bigger fan of the plot or conversation oriented games... well, you probably won't like this game. But to the rest of us, it's great fun.

I am a big fan of Non-Human PCs (going so far as to include the baby in child's play in this) because it forces you to think in a different way. This game takes it one step further- not only do you think differently, your non-human form gives you further advantages: you can walk through walls, you channel things rather than picking them up, everything- even the error messages- are written in a separate text than you're used to. None of this "as good-looking as ever" or "you see nothing special ahout the [noun]".

The game is difficult to figure out at first. For one thing, you aren't bound in your movement in any realistic way- you can go down thruogh the earth or up through the sky- but the further you move from your summoner, the more purpose you consume per turn, and if you run out of purpose, you lose your existance- so the purpose is your only "timer". Kind of an interesting twist on the hunger puzzle. Purpose can be increased by doing certain actions in line with your nature, being near your summoner, or returning to your djinni container.

Some minor complaints: Sometimes what you need to do is confusing, and sometimes your choices don't matter. You are given a choice early in the game amongst 3 options and it has no real relevance what one you choose. (Minor conversation changes later). You play as different djinnis throughout the game, each with different powers, which is hard to find out, also. Presumably the game had some kind of feelie associated with it that I never got when I played, which may have made the game easier.

If you're looking for your standard cave crawl, forget it. If you're looking for deep conversations, forget that too. This is a unique game with some really well thought out conventions. Definately worth trying out for something different.

What can I say? One of my first IFs was Zork I. It wasn't until much later that I found this Dungeon game, and realized that it was a super expanded version of Zork I, like they took all the best parts of Zork I-III and squished them together.

The first thing Zork fans will notice is that the mazes are all mixed up. In fact, were this not floating by on the popularity of Zork, I would give it a much lower review. Directions do not lead in directions that make sense: going south does not lead you to the room you just went north from all the time. In fact, you can go to the North of the house, and keep going north until you (apparantly) go around the world and bump into the south of the house again. Now, presumably the paths are twisting or something, but you really need some kind of reasonable mapping structure.

All the best puzzles are here, and if you played Zork I-III you will know all the answers, because there is nothing new here (except maybe a few puzzles from sorcerer that never made it into Zork I, alas!).

I played the inform translation, and there are some simple irritating errors- the boat doesn't move downstream on its own (you must move DOWN to go downstream...), some of the alternate puzzle solutions aren't presnet (the loud room is an example), and since all the rooms are in different places than you're used to, it can get frustrating.

However, those complaints only matter if you're fluent in Zork I-III. If not, this game is all fresh and new, and none of these complaints matter. What you WILL be concerned with is the light puzzle with a light source that only lasts so long, a npc who randomly comes into rooms and steals or moves things, a carrying capacity limit, a glacier puzzle which I contend does not have a realistic solution, and a trivia questionare at the end that forces you to have found all the little secret things (even ones that you would need out-of-world or hints to even know about) to finish the game.

That being said, this was the first big game since Collossal Cave Adventure, and it was the blueprint for every other game since. It is very small by today's standards, but it was broken up into 3 games originally because it was too big to be contianed on the 5.25" floppies they used to have back in the day.

Don't expect any real story- you're dropped in the world with no explanation to go stealing everything you can. Don't expect to even know what your goal is (though it's putting valuables in a trophy case). And don't expect NPCs to be friendly or even non-hostile (even though sometimes you have to rely on them). Certainly dated in every sense by today's standard- just like Lord of the Rings is dated by Fantasy Literary standards, but it started the genre, and should be played if just to experience the rich history that created Infocom and IF in the first place.

Guess What I'm Thinking- this is what the author was saying to me when I played the Devil Made Me Do It.

First of all, it's such a brilliant concept: you are the devil, trying to tempt two good kids into entering the neighbor's yard, despite mom telling them not to.

There are 2 rooms- the top of the fence, from which you can drop things in the neighbor's yard, and the kid's yard, from which you can drop things in their yard.

After an hour of trying to manipulate things, I learned the following: many objects can't be referred to by their name (such as the pez dispensor not being able to be called a dispensor, or the gnome statue not being able to be called a statue). You can't take things out of the neighbor's yard once put there, and nothing can be meaningfully manipulated.

Finally, I go to the walkthrough. It was after reading the solution that I still said: &quotWhat the hell?" Even playing through, there was no reason why I could have possibly come to this conclusion. (Spoiler - click to show) The children move in a cycle, and dropping certain items- which decrease your score if done at the wrong time, will INCREASE your score if done at a certain point in the cycle. .

Out of world knowledge is KEY to this, because you'll find out that only if things were set up in the right order will anything work, like a Rube Goldberg IF, except that the only do-over is typing RESTART. The game doesn't warn you if it's become unwinnable.

The game boils down to the one puzzle. The &quotclue" as to what to do is redicluously subtle, even after knowing what it is, it doesn't seem fair. And keep in mind, I thought the Bank of Zork puzzle from Zork II was ingenious.

The concept was great, but the decriptions of things are short, the world can barely be interacted with, and the most common command you'll use if you follow the walkthrough exactly is &quotWAIT". I would really like to see a similar game with more to do and more clues, rather than what ended up being a big cut scene once you did the 4 things you have to do.

The game has a timer. 30 seconds. You have to go to the bathroom.

30 seconds- yes seconds. You need to type fast.

There are some meager graphics- think original kings quest series.

The game is very easy. Solved it on the first try. Apparantly it awards trophies for doing things in alternate ways or something. Honestly, I didn't want to play it again.

You probably won't either.