Ratings and Reviews by Lumin

This is the most frustrating game I've ever played. On one hand, there are important things that seem broken, underimplemented, unclued, or just plain unclear. But on the other hand, this is not a game you can easily dismiss. Even setting aside the fact that English obviously isn't the author's first language, in places the writing is just so GOOD and evocative as it sets the scene ("The roofs were all covered with snow and trees were kneeling under the weight of frozen branches.") with the music and pictures enhancing the effect, that there's no denying this was a labor of love.

You play as Alessandro d'Estino, a 17th century alchemist who has discovered the secret of creating gold and been summoned to Prague by the king to duplicate his experiment. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it much farther than that; once it was time to stop reading journal entries and touring the palace and admiring the scenery, I hit a brick wall. The only clue I was given was that I needed a certain item, but there were no hints as to where I might find it, even after examining everything and attempting to talk to every NPC I could find.

At some point I accidentally destroyed another item, and after that--with the developer password protected so I couldn't even take a peek for 'inspiration' and with no way to make further progress--I had to concede defeat.

(EDIT: After searching around I discovered a walkthrough on the wiki, but unfortunately it only highlights the problems with the puzzle design. Short of literally reading the author's mind, no one would ever figure out most of the required commands, and so 90% of the game remains inaccessible unless you're willing to sit there and follow the walkthrough step by step.)

I'm convinced the seeds of a great game are in here, but the obvious lack of beta testing (and of a native English speaker to comb over the text) really shows, and makes The Alchemist all but unplayable in the end.

This was...different. Not at all what I was expecting when I loaded it up, but as a gimmick game (or is the term parser abuse?) it was done with some serious style and was a blast to play. I'm not even sure where one would start in actually WRITING something like this, and I'm willing to bet it was a headache to implement, but for me at least it was a loads of fun to play. (Even if I did keep crashing my rocket...)

'Rich guy controlling expensive machines' may not be much of a plot, but what was there was serviceable enough and obviously wasn't the point anyway. The technical aspects and gameplay were seamless in my playthrough, and really, the only complaint I have is that it was way too short.

It took me a few tries to get the rocket high enough in the first segment, but the other two I just breezed right through. Maybe the point IS just to be a fun, awesome little toy, but I felt like either more levels, or greater challenge in the levels that existed would have made it seem more like a fun, awesome, sizable game. (And can we get some old-school little bleeps and blips and crashy noises in there, please? This is the first IF game I've ever played where I felt like it actually NEEDED sound.)

First, a disclaimer! I might very well be incapable of being objective here just because I don't think I can ever get enough of Thingamus's writing style. Even simple things like the fact that my character 'swaggereth east' instead of just, you know, moving there, puts a huge grin on my face. (Also, pirates!)

So, that out of the way, in my incredibly biased opinion this was ridiculously fun to play. Everything I did or looked at had an appropriately piratey description, and I don't think I ever even saw a single default message to break the mood.

This game also has to be one of the newbie-friendliest ones I've ever seen, with a handy (in-character) tutorial, objects with clearly described uses to remove the possibility of GTV, and a simple, straightforward plot. (Also, pirates!)

If I reeeeaaally force myself, I suppose I could still think of two minor nitpicks. First, at one point a ship shows up, but afterwards is not actually visible when you look around. (Though due to the nature of this ship and its crew, I suppose if one were creative enough it could be argued that that could actually make sense, though I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intention from a gameplay standpoint.)

Secondly, the game is way, way too short. That simple, straightforward plot is a double-edged sword; without more puzzles, or at least more complex ones, it means the game is over just when it feels like is should be beginning. I wanted more content, a bigger island and a treasure that was trickier to find.

...for that matter, remotely realistic expectation or not, after leaving the island I wanted to sail around the ocean drinking grog and having adventures on the high seas. I choose to believe that the author is working on making this so EVEN AS I TYPE THIS and nothing will ever persuade me otherwise.

As soon as I saw who the author of this one was I suspected I was in for a dark, twisted game with a lot of atmosphere, and I was able to make some assumptions about the ending as well. (which I won't go into here for obvious reasons) The warnings in the 'about' text as soon as I loaded it up informed me that yes, I had been right on all counts, and off I went.

Light Up gets off to a strong start, even with the somewhat familiar horror game opening of a character preparing to explore a scary house. It may seem a little cliche, but that just goes to show that EVERYTHING comes down to presentation. Exploring the house was genuinely unsettling for me; I was at first reluctant to go inside, and even then reluctant to go into new rooms, nervous about what I might find. (The way the main character is written made it very easy to slip inside his head and start identifying with him, though that's part of a problem I had later on.)

As the first bits of the mystery started to come together, I found myself getting even further drawn in. It's at that point that, without getting into spoilers, the character makes a discovery and the genre basically changes. Not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing, and there's plenty to experience in the later chapters too (the dark and twisted-ness is still there, most notably in one scene/puzzle that may well be the most disturbing thing I've ever come across in an IF--or any--game) but for me at least the jump was a little too jarring, and the game's first section will always be the high point.

As far as gameplay goes, the technical aspects of the writing were sound, and there were only a couple of puzzles (in the second chapter) that I thought should have been clued better. This game also features the one and only example of combat in an IF game that didn't immediately irritate/bore the heck out of me, even if it did get kind of tedious before it was over.

The ending, I hate to admit, I didn't really care for. Partially because, as I said, I saw it (or something like it) coming from the beginning, and partially because I couldn't stop myself from identifying with the main character anyway, especially compared to the other people around him. I also felt that there were a couple of fairly major plot points that got introduced and then dropped; in the end, as interesting as this was in other ways, I couldn't help but wish I'd also been able to play the 'terrifying mystery in a creepy house' game this had seemed to start out as.

Way, way back in the forgotten mists of time (2005 I believe) David Whyld proposed the idea of a Finish the Game comp. The idea was that he'd create six rooms with basic descriptions that could then be added to and elaborated upon to make a full game. The comp did surprisingly well, garnering six entries, all of which were fairly good.

However, Richard Otter's game, Pathway to Destruction, was far and away my favorite, and took first place by a healthy margin as well. I replayed it recently and was pleasantly surprised to see that it had lost none of its charm. I'll admit that a lot of the time I'll make allowances for this type of game, taking into account a deadline that may have forced the author to finish in a rush without much testing, but that was completely unnecessary here. Sure, there were a few flaws that I'll get to in just a moment, but on the whole it's a solid, well-written game that's enjoyable in or out of the context of the contest.

The only real problems I came across (and ones that would be easily fixable, assuming the author was inclined to do an updated version after all this time) were a few guess-the-verb issues that made some of the puzzles much harder than necessary.

In particular, there were a couple of connected puzzles involving a metal bar that I never would have had a chance of figuring out on my own. Luckily, if you don't mind doing things the easy way it's all but spelled out for you in the hints and a 'useful information' topic at the beginning of the game, but in my opinion a far better solution would to have clearer clues in the game itself, and more synonyms for the commands. The same applies to two items in the game, a jewel and a ring, both of which caused me some confusion and could have used more detailed descriptions that at least give you an idea of their purpose and how to use them.

Again, the robust hint system keeps all of this from becoming too much of an obstacle, but I've always founds puzzles that all but REQUIRE hints and/or a walkthrough to be a major annoyance.

But don't get me wrong; despite these problems, PtD is still an great game. The writing in particular is excellent, even if the contrast between the six rooms in the beginning with their bent towards fantasy, and the sci-fi city just outside is at first a little jarring. I seem to recall that the contest rules allowed you to modify the original descriptions a bit, which may have helped smooth the transition, but either way it's a minor issue. In fact it may have even added to the sense of atmosphere that impressed me so much. (What can I say, I'm a sucker for the mysterious ruins of an alien civilization.) I only wish the game was a little longer with a slightly expanded plot, because I would have loved it if I could have done some exploring in the city itself, and done a bit more detectiving before the end.

At first glance it seems like the author might have tried to add some more content by letting you choose whether you were male or female in the beginning, but after trying both options I would have to write it off as a failed experiment. Nothing about the plot changes no matter what you pick, and in fact the only thing choosing a female does is shunt you off to some bizarre 'grrl power' alternate universe where you worship a goddess instead of a god, you're female, your co-workers are female, etc. Everything else is identical. I don't really see a reason to have included the option in the first place, but it seems like that's something just about EVERY game that lets you pick your gender is guilty of, so I can't really hold it against this one. (I would love to see an IF game with a significant difference there, different solutions to puzzles, etc. though sadly the genre that's most likely to tackle this first would be AIF, and that's not the kind of 'puzzle' I had in mind...)

But even as a small game it's pretty satisfying. Without giving away too much of the plot, I'll just say that Something Bad has happened, and one of the more interesting tasks is to figure out exactly what it was. For some reason I've always been fond of information gathering in IF games (maybe because Anchorhead was my first). There's just something about finding a bunch of scattered pieces and then fitting them together myself that's so much more engaging for me than the traditional 'unlock the door, pull the string, attach the gidget to the gadget and steal the gloves from the gardener' type of situation.

I liked the last puzzle in particular, even though I didn't catch the significance to something the first time through and had to play through again. Oh, and just a warning; you CAN die and after that you CAN'T undo. I guess technically the 'no undo' thing is Adrift's fault for essentially booting you out of the program when you lose, but it's something that's so simple to work around I tend to count it as a mark against the game when it hasn't been. But PtD is short enough that even if you forgot to save it's no big deal to get back to where you were, and strangely enough it was actually kind of refreshing to play a game that gave me the freedom to screw up. (If I want to do something dangerously stupid I should be allowed to, dang it! :P)

I'm not sure if Ba'Roo! is Hensman's first game, or first full length game, or what, but either way it's a lot of fun, and doubly impressive if the above is true. There is a very old school vibe about it right from the start, and over the course of the adventure you will get to explore an expansive cave system, assemble a macguffin, say WTF at the plot a few times if you think about it too hard, and shoot an anachronism in the face. (...to be honest I'm not sure if that last one's necessarily an integral part of the whole 80's thing but it was still a defining moment for me.)

Not to say that there weren't a few issues though, even if I did enjoy the game as a whole. I encountered a fairly major bug and an annoying decision by the author in the first room (being a jerk to the player may be a staple of retro IF but my love for that particular aspect of the genre only goes so far), and later had some GTV problems, as well as a poorly-clued puzzle that completely derailed me for awhile. (At one point you're told to find a suit, but not given any information whatsoever about where or how, and the otherwise fairly talkative NPC has nothing to say on the matter. After a fruitless search I finally became convinced I needed a key to access a certain area first, but that turned out to be misleading as well...)

I wouldn't consider any of those complaints to be actually game-breaking however, because in the end I still enjoyed the experience and was able to play through without assistance (though apparently I missed a few things, for instance the meaning of the title..), though after talking to a couple of other players it may be that I lucked out and had a smoother ride through than average. It turns out Ba'Roo! actually contains multiple paths (REAL multiple paths, not just multiple endings where you type undo a couple of times to see them all), which I thought was pretty ambitious. Whether the author got TOO ambitious at the expense of solid gameplay I can't say until I get a chance to personally check out the other paths, I think it's impressive in its own right that he made the attempt, and hopefully any bugs can be cleaned up in a post-comp release.

Looking at file sizes, Camelot was the heftiest game in the 2010 SummerComp, continuing Finn's trend of writing longer IF, something I always think we see too little of these days. (I suspect because it requires a whole bunch of work...) I probably spent the longest on this entry than on any of the others, and while, thinking back on it, if you simply listed the required puzzles it may not seem all that substantial, the truth is there is a LOT to do here--Camelot is one of those games that really rewards the player for taking the time to poke around the world trying different things, something I also haven't seen that often recently.

The puzzles that are there seemed a little more challenging than the usual, requiring some thought. (theoretically a good thing except I suck at logic...) Close attention to detail is definitely important here...there were a couple of points where I became seriously stuck and had to PM the author, only to realize the answer had been right under my nose all along. Also, this game has convinced me to include more secret passages for the player to discover in my own WIPs; I don't know what it is about the things, but they rock and always make me feel all smart and stuff when I figure them out. :)

On the whole I really enjoyed this game, and though ALL of the eligible entries were impressive in one way or another this year, for me at least Camelot managed to edge its way out to the head of the pack. The only real criticism I can even think of has to do with the plot--other than a handful of typos that I believe have already been fixed in a newer version, the writing was excellent, with lots of attention to the detail of the setting.

It's actually the realism there that hurts it a bit, in my mind. For the most part the player doesn't find themselves in some shiny fairy-tale Camelot, but a fairly convincing depiction of a medieval castle. (The description of the kitchen alone made me want to scrub down all my counters with bleach, and then shower in the stuff for good measure...and don't even get me started on the dungeon.)

The plot, however, gets pretty silly once it's revealed--not that that's a bad thing in itself, and there are some genuinely amusing moments there, it's just that it doesn't mesh well with the setting at all. And though it's probably beside the point, I never did figure out why it was assumed the main character would be able to fix everyone's problem in the first place...though for the sake of MY (precious, precious) MIMESIS I finally did come up with the theory that, in addition to being an underachiever he was also a gigantic nerd; Merlin must have seen all the Dungeons & Dragons supplementals in his apartment and mistakenly come to the conclusion he was an expert on the subjects. :P