Reviews by Audiart

Theatre People does not have bugs or typos. It has a clear goal with straightforward solutions and good character development. The puzzles are intuitive but not too easy. The writing is not too wordy, nor too sparse. It should be a solid game but... there's just something missing. I just never felt motivated to care about the protagonist, or the theatre. The game felt tedious at every turn and wandering about the theatre felt like walking miles even though it's only a few rooms. It's hard to describe but although technically nothing is wrong with it, I just didn't enjoy this game.

While technically IF, "Lifeform" is more like an online teen survey ("What is Your Inner Spirit Animal?" "Which Gilligan's Island Character Are You?") than anything else. Except that, unlike a teen survey, it is funny, well written, and not a complete waste of time. Although it's a hypertext game, it is not tedious like the Twine genre and is ultimately an enjoyable, quick, puzzle-less diversion worth playing once or twice if you feel like something light. Or you could fill out a Meyers Briggs Test. The results may be remarkably the same.

Chlorophyll is a well designed game reminiscent of Stationfall (shorter, fewer balloon animals) in which the protagonist explores an abandoned space station in an attempt to restore power (Spoiler - click to show)and save your mom. There is a "food" requirement (significantly less annoying than in Stationfall) and Floyd has been replaced by a robot plant, but the eerie-wonderful feeling of wandering through an empty building doesn't fail to deliver.

However this game's true strength lies in the subtle revelation of the intricacies of the plant folk and the amusing parallels to our own world. No expository text dumps; you learn about the world room by room in the description of items, books left lying around, and the thoughts of the protagonist. The puzzles are not difficult and are mostly vehicles for delivering details about the clever parallel world of sentient mobile plantfolk.

Where Stationfall suffered greatly from "guess-the-verb" and "find this tool to put in this slot" the puzzles in Chlorophyll are a joy to perform. They are generally easy to figure out but not lacking in the pleasure of a subtle Eureka moment. The basic premise of returning power to the station is not a series of grumbling repetitive chores, but rather a series of playful experiments, especially (Spoiler - click to show)seeing how many illegal activities you can perform.

There are a few red herrings that are simply for your own amusement, (such as (Spoiler - click to show)going to the barber shop) but the plot elements are so seamlessly and naturally resting amongst the idle amusements of the mall that you cannot right away tell which are for fun and which are for the solution. As a result, it's all fun. You are encouraged to play with everything, explore, and basically, be a kid wandering through an abandoned mall.

Chlorophyll is just the right length, not long enough to draw a map (like Stationfall) but long enough to satisfy. Very well written with a great background story, and a likable protagonist, with intuitive, easy yet satisfying puzzles reminiscent of Infocom (without all the diabolical stuff.) Lots of fun, good for a beginner or someone who wants to recall the Infocom style without spending a week on a game.

Right away I thought, this game is for me. The bookstore, the proprieter, the cat. I felt like I was really the protagonist. Yes, a nice big, juicy, literary game. I walked all over the store getting ready to dive into something big, exploring everything, looking for stuff to pick up, petting the cat, trying to read books, or anticipate the direction the game would take.

However, none of this yielded any result (except petting the cat.) It turns out that almost none of the locations or objects in the game are necessary. I got tired walking through the unimplemented rooms, and felt frustrated by the feeling of constantly following a red herring. All that the player must do is following directions given you by an NPC (go upstairs and look for this, go downstairs and bring me that.)

Conclusion: Great setting, no puzzles. For a game called Bibliophile, there is astonishingly little to do with anything literary. On the contrary, as another reviewer mentioned, I was truly thrown off by the bad language of the librarian - not only unwelcome but contextually inappropriate. For me this game was exhausting but not rewarding. As it turns out, the best part happened in the first two minutes: naming the cat.

Atmospheric, entertaining game with a high re-play value. I recommend playing both versions just to experience the different endings (I prefer the original release.) The puzzles are simple, but not too easy. Despite some repetitve commands and a linear plot there is still some legroom in Snowquest's simple yet picturesque landscape. (Other games fall short in this regard, such as also-ran Condemned and the notorious Photopia.)

The first release is less artful in its use of language, less subtle in its metaphor (which is saying a lot!). However, the revised ending (Spoiler - click to show)involving time travel is less realistic in the context of the game world. The beginning of the game has the almost magical mood of a fantasy; the original ending balances this out with a down-to-earth scenario that is equally believable.

Critics are howling about the (Spoiler - click to show)three "realities" in this game. I did not find this confusing, but rather I thought it was implemented nicely! My straightforward interpretation is (Spoiler - click to show)the first and last realities are parallel. The middle scenario (apprentice finds the pilot) is an alternate reality for either the first or the last reality. The author made this clear and the subtlety adds to the game.

Aptly summarised in the quote above, CHAOS is a weak attempt at surrealism which succeeds only in being abstract. The distinct and immediately noticeable lack of any plot, objective, or character depth make this game little more than an exercise in futility. While CHAOS is busy trying to channel Kafka, Fellini, or Dali, the player is left to wander aimlessly with no inventory, no personality, and no clue.

(Spoiler - click to show)The 'object' of the game is simply to escape one room and continue on to the next in your meaningless quest through a featureless landscape. Ironically the 'vulcher' is "flapping his wings ... with a plot in his mind." Don't get your hopes up. I was expecting the 'puzzle' to be, figuring out what was going on. Then I realised nothing is going on at all.

No technical problems, though copious grammatical errors (and the glaring misspelling of "vulture" in the first room) make the otherwise capable prose a chore to read. Each room is a disconnected vignette, sparsely-furnished with a cluttered description. Much of the writing in CHAOS is so absurd as to be paradoxical and ultimately, "full of nothing."

"In each direction you can see hazy beginnings"... perhaps this is more of a warning to the player than a description of the desert. Unwrapping the mystery of CHAOS' environment would add much-needed dimension to the handful of memorable rooms in the game. Given a plot, some of these hazy beginnings could become remarkable with a little flesh on the bones.