Reviews by Cena

On my first play-through, I wandered around in the woods for 44 turns before quitting out, having lost sight of the house early on and seemingly unable to find my way back to it.

I'm not well-versed enough in the Zork family genealogy to do a real comparison, but it feels just as annoying as it did when I first played Infocom's Zork I in the '80s.

It's a wonder how formative it remains; I still can't see a random white house with a small mailbox out front without a momentary frisson of recognition. (I did miss the mailbox in this version.)

Still, Zork/Zork-likes are like the "Stairway to Heaven" of IF: still great, still influential, but I could live without hearing it again in this lifetime.

See also: Castle.

Wander is maybe the first IF-writing system. It's playable on an instance running on Amazon Web Services, and comes with 4 'databases', or game worlds, you can choose from: Aldeberan III, Castle, Library and Tut (Binary Arithmetic Tutorial). I spent some time poking around it, but found myself frequently stymied by guess-the-verb and un-clued puzzles.

Regardless, it was an interesting experience, probably best accompanied by the saga kicked off by Jason Dyer:

https://bluerenga.blog/2015/03/19/lost-mainframe-games/

The game was ultimately found:

https://ahopeful.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/wander-1974-a-lost-mainframe-game-is-found/


Jason Dyer also has a review of the 'Castle' database here:

https://bluerenga.blog/2015/12/21/castle-using-wander-system-1974/

Just a note that the game, which appears only available on Steam, crashes on MacOS M1 (15.2) with a 'missing executable: Sumerian Game.exe' error. (Yes, I installed the Mac version. :))

I dropped a note in the developer's forum on Steam, so if they reply/fix will update this.

I mean, not much to say here. It's basically a one (or two)-room logic puzzle. Appreciated the Postscript.

'm very conflicted about Down. On the one hand, this is my second KT game (not counting Tetris) and I really like his writing. I like the ideas of his games, the way he has of evoking a particular setting, a mood, a genre convention.

But. Beyond the first puzzle, this was terribly clued. Lots of verb-guessing, reading the author's mind, and general not-sure-what-to-do-isms. On the one hand, I could also complain about the relative barrenness of the map; very little is implemented. And yet, as in Spur, KT manages to convey a lot with a little. So I can picture myself (YOU) in the tiny map, the black smoke rising in the late afternoon air, the people huddled in their little groups of misery.

What I can't do is interact with all of that very much. This is a static piece, regardless of the finale. Having sat with it for a week, it feels like an outline, almost, rather than a complete game.

There's a disjointedness in Down's puzzles and set scenes - both in terms of logic and implementation - which hasn't resolved over time. There's a hole in the center of it al, an emptiness; I almost feel like I'm watching ghosts relive the scene of their demise.

Update: I'm a maroon. Running this game requires using DosBox and the he12.exe Hugo interpreter, as well as the game file. (Thanks to Roody Yogurt for the help!)

I like the sparse yet atmospheric text, the apparent gimmick, and yet...it's a demo game, and it has defeated me.



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As of this writing in December 2022, this game won't run in the 3 terps I tried it in: Hugor, Gargoyle, and Spatterlight.

I played the Hugo port of this game, which Gargoyle doesn't like.

Out of curiosity, because I missed this back in 1995, I loaded the Inform version and...wow, this is pretty awesome.

So then I wondered if Gargoyle was the issue, and downloaded previously forgotten terp HUGOR. And lo - there it was, in all it's colorful glory. And music! I'm suffused with delight and glee! I can't get over how cool and unexpected this was. Now I'm envisioning something like Pole Position - in Hugo! This really kinda blew my mind.

Note: the current iteration seems broken both online and playing through Gargoyle. I thoughtlessly typed 'help' as my first command and led me into a (bug) cycle I couldn't escape.

Hammurabi wants whole, positive numbers only.

I remember when this came out (the Hugo port, that is), and enjoyed it. It's a different thing than the usual IF, and these days I could see it being a good base for a mini-game or something within a larger work.

This is a fun little turn-based game where you're trying to outshoot (or chase away) the bad guy. You each start with 4 bullets, and have a variety of tactical choices each turn. There's a puzzly quality about your choices, because if you (or he) shoot from too far way, you're likely to miss, but moving forward can increase your likelihood of being shot.

Simple but effective mechanics.