Reviews by lobespear

A similarly structured narrative to Reed's previous game, For Whom The Telling Changed, with highlighted words that you can enter to move the story on as well as the normal IF command syntax. The high-fantasy elements are amped up, as is the scale of the thing. So fans of FWTCC should be well served. If, on the other hand, you found FWTCC a dull, over-written, choose-your-own-adventure in fancy clothes, this one won't sway you. The opening intro is so overwrought and half-baked it takes real perseverance to continue to the game proper, which turns out to be little more than a surreal fantasy-quest.

The s-l-o-w-e-s-t text adventure ever. On a 1.4Ghz CPU running the latest, most optimised version of the Gargoyle interpreter, Alabaster runs like a crippled dog, making it literally unplayable.

The game itself, a twist on the Snow White fairytale in which the PC chats with Snow White and decides whether to help her or help the Queen (there are seven possible endings), is a conversation-piece that constantly prods you with hints about what to ask about next:

"you could ask her if the Queen manufactured the magic mirror by herself, or that the witchcraft may involve demons from the dungeon dimensions"

and then requires you to type in that entire l-o-n-g (and grammatically incorrect) sentence yourself at the command prompt. Miss a word, or spell something wrong, and it's no soup for you. Wait for 10 seconds while the game grinds away to redraw the exact same picture on the left of the screen, then you get to type it all over again! Fun, huh? There is nothing here that couldn't have been implemented via menu options, requiring a single key-click to jump through dialog options. But no, it has to be a (buggy) Typing Tutor instead. Poor all round.

The gimmick on offer: you can choose to play in first, second or third-person tense, and past or future tense. It's neat, but the game is so much fun to play (in any tense) that the experimental aspects of this technical wizardry are overshadowed (I chose to play in first-person past tense, which gave a nice "wartime memoirs" feel to proceedings).

The cliche horror-style opening doesn't bode well, but once inside the "old dark house" it really takes off. Not one, not two, but *three* well-implemented, well-characterized NPCs who are not only chatty but can take the initiative to direct conversation, and can wander around the house like real people. Lots of detailed scenery descriptions, solid parsing, gentle puzzles, and a cracking yarn to boot. Go in blind, and you will really have no idea where this story is leading. I was expecting further twists and revelations right down to the very last turn. Play it.

Hey look, I've got a super-hot, rich, clever, jet-setting Australian girlfriend! She's so cool I even think in her voice! And she loves to play charming tricks on me, like (Spoiler - click to show)writing me a letter to tell me I'm dumped... but it's just a "joke"! Hahaha! Sure you do, Mr Freese, sure you do. You don't live in your mother's basement, alone, programming videogames in your spare time, not at all! ;)

To be fair, this isn't the only game in this comp that suffers from the "imaginary super-girlfriend" problem: RIVERSIDE did too, but it managed to redeem itself by turning out to be a giant rib on exactly *that* type of game. VIOLET is just *that* type of game. Meaning a constant smug, condescending, "aren't-I-amusing" tone, lamebrained "whimsical" humour (it's zombie day! ZOMG how hilarious), and a ridiculous over-extended Babelfish-style puzzle (trying to block distractions while writing an essay) where you are constantly one step away from the solution. Freese's very solid implementation is let down by the awful writing and characterization. Less whimsy next time round please!

A meaty effort... lots to read, lots to do. Some evocative writing, a compelling story filled with intrigue, interesting characters and lots of twists and turns. In the world of pulp novels and trashy sci-fi, it would be described as a "page turner". Overcomes some very poor vocabulary, buggy disambiguation, and the "mother of all cut scenes" (one character's dialogue runs for at least twelve turns!) to deliver a nice, solid game that neatly balances puzzles and story. Well worth a play.

Released by The Escapist videogame website as a Halloween treat, Phantom of the Arcade is a sparse, simplistic adventure in which you traverse an abandoned games arcade busting ghosts. Implementation of scenery nouns is minimal, and there is no interaction with the ghosts beyond examining them and giving them the the thing they require, but as a Halloween diversion it works great. Plenty of pokes at videogame culture, some sharply amusing responses to unnecessary actions, and at least one clever lateral-thinking puzzle make this a winner.

You wake up dead, in a hospital. You know, like Planescape Torment, but without the talking skull. Can you find out what happened to you? Or will you just go on a bloody rampage?

It's a solid premise, a solid idea, and a solid piece of short fiction. But not *interactive* fiction. I imagine the author taking their pre-written text and, every few lines, inserting "Can you guess what happened next?" and a command prompt. Of course you can't guess, you can't read the author's mind, but this is exactly what is expected of you. Totally unclued actions have to be guessed and entered with the exact syntax at exactly the right moment (one move early and its "violence is not the answer to ths one" - even though it specifically *is* the answer).

Despite this, it's actually a compelling tale with an unusual, interesting ending, so I'd recommend you play it, but with walkthru in hand. Much like the old laserdisc arcade game Dragon's Lair where you had to bash buttons to make the story progress, it's an entertaining romp, so long as you're not actually *playing* it.

Just the most obvious, heavy-handed, "nazis were bad" point-making possible. Embarrassingly naff. To complement the pompous, pretentious tone, we have a ridiculously sparse implementation, with barely any description beyond the surface-level.

An experiment went wrong... society has crumbled... figure out what happened by collecting some conveniently scattered objects from around the world map! Its an age-old formula for text adventures (see e.g. GLOWGRASS) as it means no NPCs so no pesky mimesis-breaking "I dont know anything about that" type conversations. Add some occasional clumsy writing, and at least one moment of undirected wandering, and you have a potential recipe for tedium... but luckily there is enough evocative imagery (a city skyline described as "a row of sharp, jagged teeth") and fun puzzle-based gameplay (with hints) that it will keep you playing to the end. Credit to the author for daring to break away from his ADRIFT comfort zone (this review is for the full rewrite of his ADRIFT game in Inform) - I look forward to his future z-code efforts.

See http://www.uprightdown.com/whatisUpRightDown.html to explain what "uprightdown" is. Basically a game of contrained fiction where the authors interpret the story specification given by URD in their own way. This, of course, has possibilities. None of which are explored by Fugue which merely repeats the exact story specification, almost word-for-word. A pointless endeavour, not worth playing.

Takes you through three vignettes (childhood, high school, and imprisonment as an adult) which you must complete in a manner befitting your chosen "god" - at the end, you meet your maker for the final judgement. The author's views on the atheism/theism debate are clear from the fact that your allegiance is decided by a dice-roll! The gods available range from the usual (Jeohvah) to the insane (Cthulhu!), and the actions required of the player for each god are distinctly different. With around six gods available, there is six times the replay value. Six games in one, wrapped around a fascinating philosphical conceit. The highlight of Spring Thing 2008.

A shot of pure Lovecraftian horror. Unlike the disappointing Dead Cities, this entry in the Commonplace Book Project maintains the creeping dread perfectly from beginning to end. No jarring implementation issues or intrusive default parser responses, no aimless undirected wandering, Ecdysis is short, sharp, and perfectly formed. There are multiple endings, all suitably Lovecraftian.

The bells and whistles added to the standard text interface are all very impressive, and the central Lovecraft-inspired tale it supports starts off well, but once you get into Arkwright's study any "creeping dread" the story has built up dissipates into a ridiculous comical book-chase and an action-adventure plot that really doesn't feel Lovecraftian at all.