Reviews by OtisTDog

The only other review for this game (at least, at the time that this one is being written) frames this work as an experiment of dubious value and inconclusive results. Both Pirate Railroad and that rewiew were written in 2011, a year before Twine arrived on the scene. We'll skip over the immediate years following Twine's arrival and note that here and now, fifteen years later, the situation (as memorably phrased by Mike Russo) is that the Twine wars are over, and we can all benefit from the peace dividend. One of those dividends has been the large number of experiments with new models of interaction seeking better control of pacing of the play experience, and this short piece would seem very much to be a precursor to those.

Pirate Railroad is unapologetically a subversion of the dominant parser model of its era. The player is quite heavily railroaded through the accelerated, nonsensical vignette of a pirate attack on a train traveling through the desert of New Mexico in the late 1800s. The player character saves a damsel in distress, flees a horde of pirates, is saved from certain death by authorial convenience ex machina not once but twice, is ushered through a micromelodrama of tragedy and comedy with a dash of plot twist and a near-instantaneous mock romance -- all in the space of about 10 or 15 minutes of play time. As Kenneth Hutt notes, the player has no real control and the "correct" moves are telegraphed so strongly that playing along is as easy as turning a page.

But still, it's a bit different from static fiction, isn't it? The need to enter a short command is like a little lock on each page, one that asks the player to confirm with just a tiny bit of effort that there is a desire for the story to continue. It's a little more effort and a little more engagement than would be required by a press-any-key-/click-this-link-to-continue interface, and to me this is the right way to create a fast-paced sequence in parser IF. Though trying to step off the rails causes the game to exhort you (somewhat monotonously) to play along until you relent, the experience of cooperating with the plain-as-day prompts sure beats trying to mindread one's way through a gauntlet of false choices that result in a "death end" whenever a wrong one is picked.

The author deploys a limited conversation system that is used for clever comedic effect in at least a couple of instances, and this, in conjunction with the finely-balanced writing required to sell the absurd premises just enough so that the player can have some genuine snack-sized fun with the scenario, convinces me that Utkonos was an interactive fiction author of some nascent skill. The only other work by the same author, The Duel in the Snow, seems to have been released earlier and to be somewhat better known, but so far as IFDB is concerned, this game was the end of a brief yet promising career.

This one is well worth the investment of the small amount of time required to play, best experienced when in the mood for something pacy that is inherently silly but played straight, as seen in games like Moonbase Indigo, A Matter of Heist Urgency, Fine-Tuned, or the like. Would-be authors can dissect the writing for clues about how best to "herd cats" along a railroaded sequence in a relatively congenial way.

If you are a completionist who happens to encounter this game, then you will find the title to be 100% accurate: The end is your escape from this muddled, nonsensical mess.

I agree with Paul O'Brien that it is "rather disconcerting to be thrown into this environment without even a halfhearted explanation about what was happening," but unlike O'Brien I never found The End Means Escape to become absorbing. The first fifty moves generated only hostility from the talking objects in the first puzzle, after which came my first use of >HINT and then a brute force "exploration" of oodles of combinatorial unproductive responses.

After working out that it's possible to (Spoiler - click to show)>UNLOCK DOOR WITH SCISSORS (which seems to accomplish nothing), I looked back over the various responses and tried (Spoiler - click to show)>BALLOON, RUB FLOOR. All well and good, and then I got the balloon to pick up another object. Then another fifty moves without progress, at which point >HINT tells me that I need to... do exactly what I've just done (which had no effect). And won't give any further hints until I do that. I don't know whether the issue is a consequence of the context sensitivity of the built-in hints or a bug in the program logic, or both. The only solution I found was a restart.

Several reviewers cite this first scenario as the game's high point. Should you somehow plow through it, your reward is another completely ungrounded scenario, this one featuring moving words around. This is an interesting mechanic, but here, devoid of useful context, it is reduced to a mere tech demo. You can try to "solve" this, if you like, but my suggestion is to just use the walkthrough.

Past this, we get to even weirder interactions with dead bodies of a type one reviewer (Danielle) called "creepy" and another (Tina Sikorski) deemed "icky." Enticing, huh? Even the walkthrough notes: "Ewww...That was gross."

Next: a maze with an unusual solution but not one I enjoyed. And finally, a metaphor for... who can say for sure? Fortunately, this last segment is quick enough even without hints.

There appears to be no raison d'etre for this work -- it's just a pile of detail implementation utterly lacking in story or any other observable coherence. As Adam Cadre summarizes it: "... goal, please?" One reviewer suggests that the unifying feature is that "each [tableau] has as its basis understanding or at least discovering the nature of something," but that's a core basic of puzzle-oriented interactive fiction, not something novel to this work.

A smart person that I talked to about this game noted: "Surrealism isn't a pass to make no sense and then pretend it's more meaningful." Other reviewers delicately dance around the point, but I will not: When not actively repugnant, this piece is at best a waste of time.

The End Means Escape is clearly the product of a lot of genuine effort on the part of the author, and it just barely manages to claw its way out of one-star territory (i.e. "no redeeming qualities") by virtue of a few mechanical parts worth a closer look for their effect on mood and tone. However, don't expect to enjoy this one even if you choose to study it, and my advice to pure players is to steer clear.

The blurb for Bill Belichick Offseason Simulator claims:

Any fun you may have, or amusement you may find, while piloting this simulator is purely accidental, and should be reported as a software bug.

If that is to be taken seriously, then I am sorry to report to the author that this work is riddled with bugs.

It seems certain, however, that this tongue-in-cheek warning is not to be taken seriously. BBOS is a short-form absurdist comedy that can't even take itself seriously as a lampooning of Bill Belichick, who at the time was head coach of the New England Patriots. "Serious" is not a word that applies to this endeavor.

I know nothing about the Patriots or Mr. Belichick's career as a football coach. Author Jon Bois is a sports writer of some note about whose career and work I'm similarly ignorant. Knowledge of these things is almost completely unrelated to enjoying this game, which draws the bulk of its tropes from text adventures, adventure games, RPGs and popular fiction, all of which are blended together in a base of pure author id.

There is a slight unifying framework to this game that involves collecting cards in order to design the perfect offensive play. It's pretty incidental to the play experience, which is more about having fun with a series of pixel-animated vignettes featuring everything from an encounter with a "roving rock music gang" to a visit to a hardware megastore to being summoned to another dimension by a wizard to interrogating an NFL player about favorite music and recipes.

BBOS is a great choice for a lunchtime or commute "snack" game (though you may need to make use of its bookmark feature to complete it across more than one session), or as light entertainment for a rainy afternoon. If you're on the fence about this one, give it a shot -- if the first five minutes amuse you, you can expect to enjoy the rest.

This game is a remarkable achievement, full of cleverly devious (or deviously clever?) little puzzles that are suitable for both kids and grown-ups. The fact that it's written in a custom system that seems every bit as full-featured as any of the major parser systems (like Inform 7, TADS or Dialog) is just icing on the cake.

The simple premise of an apprentice's fetch quest in a land of sweets really undersells the difficulty level of this game. I tried it by myself and never got more than 12 out of 16. When I suggested it to my play group, everyone was quickly hooked by the game's central premise of a decomposable/recombinable set of magical wordlets and had a blast working out all of the ways that they could be exploited.

The fact that there is no checklist of items to gather means that finding all sixteen will require some lateral thinking; part of the puzzle structure is figuring out what things might be convertible into the special ingredients that you've been sent to find. The very British-style approach to descriptions of locations and items means that, though the information provided is sparse, almost every bit of it is relevant in some way or another.

My playgroup was able to obtain all 16 points in the course of a two-hour session, with only a few nudges from me based on previous experience. In a few places there are hints of guess-the-verb in that one must intuit that a particular action can be applied to objects, but with multiple people playing it was never very long before one of us came up with the right idea. The biggest headslapper from my perspective was discovery of two magical ingredients (both flans) in an unexpected location -- it's a bit of a joke on experienced players, but the game was quite fair about this in its hinting. (Spoiler - click to show)In the cottage, there's a remark about desk drawers that you shouldn't forget!

This is a great game for introducing newcomers to parser IF, and well worth the time for anyone looking for some fun with a neat magic system remniscent of Suveh Nux. My hat is off to author Nils Fagerburg, whose impressive talents are on display here.

(The title of the review comes from the game itself. I couldn't resist.)

Raising the Flag on Mount Yo Momma is from 2010, but its core design sensibilities come from an earlier era. Author Juhana Leinonen maintains the overall feeling of a very old-school game but wraps it up in a fun and reasonably user-friendly package.

I think it's the feel of the NPCs that hearkens farthest back. For a game released in 2010, they are positively atavistic: serving largely as obstacles and treated by the PC as an inferior class of being instead of as fellow travelers in the game world. Scott Bruner notes in a contemporary SPAG review (linked on the game's page): "The characters aren’t one dimensional so much as they’re actually caricatures." This is true, but it is almost certainly intentional.

The game's comedy is almost purely of the bad-things-happen-to-people style. That's phrasing things a bit passively, since you are generally the one doing these bad things -- and when you're not doing them directly, you're certainly setting them into motion. At least one caricature (a "lounge lizard" type) is skillfully portrayed, such that the typical player is probably glad to see the straw man take a beating.

Although the design is "merciful" on the Zarfian scale, there is a smidgen of unintentional cruelty due to it being possible to get the game into a permanent loss state. (Spoiler - click to show)(At least, it seemed that way to me. It's possible to use the gum on the jukebox twice, and the second time the associated NP will be stuck trying to fix it forever. He also won't let you fix it. That means the music can never be changed, which is necessary in order to retrieve something from under the speaker.)

I was a bit disappointed that the actual showdowns on the stage were low on interactivity, since the setup seemed to promise that they would be the center of the action. Instead on a mechanical basis this game is a typical light puzzler in which overcoming obstacles off-stage allows the PC to do better when on-stage.

The presence of at least one game-breaking bug makes this one veer toward two-star territory, but since the average player probably won't run into it and the overall gameplay is pretty smooth, Raising remains safely in "good" territory via competent execution of a conventional design using an uncommon type of setting.

Having recently enjoyed Good Bones: A Haunted Housewarming, it seemed like a good opportunity to check out an older work by the same author, Leon Lin. What a pleasant surprise!

If you're interested in the history of the form, this game is a significant to the study of the evolution of NPCs. It's the first to garner XYZZY Awards for both Best NPCs and Best Individual NPC, a feat matched by only four other games since: Varicella, Lock & Key, Cryptozookeeper and The Wizard Sniffer.

I think what stands out most about this game is that it seems like an obvious precursor to Violet. The plot is oriented around removing distractions for someone trying to accomplish an academic goal by the next day, with a puzzle structure just a little off-kilter from everyday reality in order to accommodate a comic sensibility. There's even an NPC (the award-winning one) who takes over parser messages!

There are plenty of classic IF references (especially to Infocom titles), which may not translate well for someone unfamiliar with them, but these are not essential to the puzzles, which are of moderate difficulty and well-judged to deliver a two-hour play session. The puzzles that stumped me the longest came down to (Spoiler - click to show)missing an object on a supporter that's not mentioned until the supporter is examined and (Spoiler - click to show)failing to realize that I'd need something to use as a makeshift dolly to move a heavy object. Neither one is a game issue -- they're just stumbling blocks for a modern player that arise from certain old school conventions having fallen by the wayside. (I tend to forget about the old school basics when the game feels newer than it is, as this one does. Maybe that means it was ahead of its time? At any rate, if you don't habitually play older games, remember to (Spoiler - click to show)examine every piece of furniture and that (Spoiler - click to show)some things can be pushed between rooms.)

I'd definitely recommend this game as a fun interlude and as a good example of a late 90s game that has aged pretty well. If you liked Violet, you should definitely try Kissing the Buddha's Feet to compare-and-contrast the approaches to two broadly similar scenarios.

It is a substantial surprise to note that I am only the eighth person to register having played Custard & Mustard's Big Adventure. The fact that this game lounges in obscurity is a crime.

Let me assert, as a counterpoint to Mike Russo's review, that I came to this game predisposed to not like it. As a fan of IF with command prompts, I admit to a certain prejudice toward any parser game not written in one of the "major" systems (i.e. Inform, TADS, Dialog). The shortcomings in the platform translate to shortcomings in the gameplay experience, and there's a bit of grating annoyance every time I run into the kind of problem that is just automatically "solved" by using more developed systems.

That said, an author of sufficient skill who is willing to take on the burden of overcoming those shortcomings can manage it with enough work, and it's clear that Christopher Merriner is one of those who has done so.

I say this in all seriousness: Custard & Mustard is the funnest work of IF that I have played in years. The last time I enjoyed myself this much was playing J. J. Guest's Alias 'The Magpie', and the style of humor here is a cousin (if not quite a close cousin) to that marvelous farce. The main difference is that where Magpie leans highbrow, Custard & Mustard leans lowbrow -- though it does this without embracing crudity or mockery. This is terrific family-friendly fare, though as noted by others it's likely that younger kids will need some assistance to solve certain puzzles.

To the extent that this game has flaws, some of them are deficits of Adventuron which simply must be conceded (such as less definition between various types of parsing parsing errors), and some are design choices that could be revisited (like a reduced level of handholding in orienting the player to the plot or the need for repetitive actions to complete some puzzles in a couple of places). The >HINT system works well when needed, more so in the later game than the earlier, where it seemed to often have no suggestions and the "solution" tended to be to just wander around the map until a cutscene is triggered. (This is less of a chore than might be expected, as the rich object implementation offers a cornucopia of amusement in the form of observational and situational humor. As Russo notes, the protagonists' sense of smell is an ever-present companion, and the verb >SNIFF should not be forgotten!)

However, on the whole the design of Custard & Mustard is exceptional, tightly interweaving various lightweight puzzle-oriented set pieces with the consistently entertaining story. The imaginary small town comes alive through a series of vignettes taking place over the course of the day, and a sizable cast of secondary characters will impress themselves on the player's memory though huge amounts of "business" in the form of background actions and conversation. Flipping back through the various scenes in my memory, I'm astounded at the amount of work put into this aspect of the game -- it must have been difficult, but it was very worth it, as it nearly always seems like the model universe has more to offer than one is seeing.

I'm going to hold off on a rating for this unforgettable romp for now, but it handily reaches four star territory and is a definite contender for a rare five. Tip of the hat to Merriner for this outstanding crowd pleaser, which is the newest addition to my "games to recommend for kids and newcomers" list.

In this entertaining mid-length work, you play a grizzly bear who's on a quest to pack in some more calories before settling in to hibernate. Along the way, you will accidentally (and/or on purpose) terrorize a number of people in order to get access to prized junk food of various kinds, as well as interact with other forest creatures.

Although the protagonist is a bear and has a bear's priorities, the game has fun with the knowledge that the player will be a human. There are a number of puzzles that would be beyond the capacity (one hopes) of any actual bear, and the PC seems to have a pretty good command of human technology and even English.

There are plenty of cutesy moments, many beats featuring comical property destruction, and a few places where the tone edges across the line into serious. (Spoiler - click to show)There is even the death of a human due to your actions, though the human in question is not sympathetic, and the death is in the indirect Disney style. It's not exactly a kids' game, but I would think young children playing along with older kids or parents would have a good time.

Most of the interaction is smooth, though there are a few places where a little more polish would go a long way. Specifically: 1) (Spoiler - click to show)the beehive puzzle doesn't render a consistent impression of the world model, as some responses (e.g. >TAKE BEEHIVE) suggest that it is out of reach even though >EAT will work, and 2) (Spoiler - click to show)the description of the tower's movement doesn't really clue the reader about the way to solve the puzzle of knocking it over. When moving south-to-north, it only says "The tower groans and sways back to upright as you head back north." If the text indicated that tower wobbled a little past upright before settling, that might communicate the situation a little better. Outside of those key issues, there are other spots where things seem a bit more cartoon-like than intended, e.g. the ability to (Spoiler - click to show)push the ATV even upward to the roof of the cabin or top of the fissure.

Nitpicks aside, this one was a lot of fun and definitely recommended. That's the second work I've tried by author Charles Moore, Jr., and I'm looking forward to the next.

The Owl Consults is a game that I first came across while exploring the history of the XYZZY Awards but which I had never really heard about elsewhere. When it ended up on the chosen field for the Great Play Marathon, I couldn't resist the chance to check it out.

The game placed 6th in the 2017 IFComp, outshone only by Absence of Law, Will Not Let Me Go, Harmonia, Eat Me and The Wizard Sniffer. It went on to be nominated for four XYZZY Awards, contending for Best Game, Best Puzzles, Best PC and Best NPCs. It was clearly enjoyed and appreciated by many people, and it is still enjoyable almost a decade later. Per IFDB data, it is the 17th most-played title from its year of publication.

The game starts off very well, beginning with the blurb, which hooks via its unique premise. The title screen of the game primes the pump with a T. S. Eliot quote that evokes a serious air, though the reason for this particular allusion is opaque. (The quote is from a poem that T. S. Eliot wrote while converting to the Anglican Church.) Opening text quickly establishes a 1930s world with "superscience" elements of the type found in early scifi from that era, plus a player character who reveals almost nothing to the player. There is little time to get situated in the role of this enigmatic protagonist -- the phone is ringing, and we know from the blurb that answering it is what the game is about.

Doing so connects you to one of the Owl's clients, a jaded English catburglar named Amelia Derringer, who very much reminded me of Lady Thalia (though of course this character came first). There are significant differences, most notably that Derringer has a superpower: (Spoiler - click to show)the ability to gain the features of any animal that she consumes for a short period. She's been trapped in a cage by that apparently frequent nemesis of supervillains, Rex Dashing, who on first report sounds like a typical pulp-era science fantasy adventure story hero.

The advice that you must give to Amelia is extremely granular in nature and really seems like something she would think of herself, so at this point the structure of the game suggests that play will consist of a series of vignettes, with the player temporarily taking on the persona of a different supervillain in each. This is a clever way to shape a superhero game, giving the author license to introduce various protagonists (with their differing superpowers) in short, focused puzzle scenarios that don't require much in the way of framing story.

Once out of her initial jam, the call with Amelia is interrupted by that of another client: Dirk Radon, an overconfident mad scientist type with a knack for technologies based on atomic energy, whose superpower is (luckily) complete immunity to radiation. The tone shifts significantly as Radon's narration takes over, but it continues in the light comedy puzzler style. Radon's problem is that he's hemmed in by robots aboard an airship, which he built but which was stolen at some point by Rex Dashing. At this point, it seems as though each vignette might involve a villain trying to deal with Dashing, functionally making that character the primary antagonist of the Owl. The interruption of the first call also suggests the possibility of future puzzles that involve juggling multiple lines as the clients on the other end deal with timed challenges.

Soon enough, it becomes clear that both clients are aboard the airship Mephistopheles, and at this point in playing, the gears really began to turn in my head. If both clients and (as I had mistakenly thought) the Owl are aboard the same airship, does that mean that the Owl is Rex Dashing himself?? (Spoiler - click to show)The reason that I thought the Owl was on the same ship is the game's subtitle: "Aboard the Mephistopheles," which I had read as a continuation of the title text, i.e. meaning "The Owl consults aboard the Mephistopheles." Derringer's introduction mentions an airship and robots controlled by Rex Dashing. Radon's introduction is unambiguous that he is aboard an airship in Dashing's control and surrounded by robots. It is soon confirmed that both are in the same place, and this seems to surprise the Owl not at all. As gameplay progresses, Dashing (who always seems to be one step ahead of the villains) looms large as a frequently-mentioned but mysteriously absent figure, and he seems less earnest than one might expect based on the standard tropes. Could it be, I wondered, that the Owl/Dashing is putting one over on both of these "clients" as a way of defanging their plans, and/or romancing Derringer, and/or humiliating Radon for the fun of it? The high quality writing (about which more later) seems to carefully nurture the ambiguity that would allow for such intricacies, but this seems to be either accidental or the residue of abandoned ambitions.

It seems necessary to stop at this point and fast forward a bit: This game is not that complex. In the end, what's delivered is pretty much exactly what is promised, i.e. the Owl, an accomplished supervillian, helps some less capable villains for money. You should be prepared to enjoy it primarily on that level, or risk being disappointed as I was by its unfulfilled potential.

The core game design problem is handled very well. The two clients' subplots interact, each villain contributing to progress using a combination of capabilities and knowledge that makes sense given their revealed personalities and histories. Some additional difficulty is imposed on the player by the fact that the two clients despise each other and must be kept out of the same location, but the geography of the map is simple enough to remember, and it's easy to build the habit of shunting one character into a "storage" location before switching control the other.

The two subplots are coordinated into a double climax that is the top of the rising action, and the authors correctly understood that any obstacles following it should be very low difficulty in order to keep the action moving and present a satisfying ending even the first time through. The countdown sequence that creates a turn limit feels scary and creates some urgency, but the essential solutions are well-practiced by that point, and if the player has investigated everything along the way and bears in mind that there's no actual need to rush while entering commands, there is more than enough time to reach the optimum ending even with some false steps. It's to the authors' credit that you might not want to stop and think much between prompts.

At the level of individual puzzles, things go less smoothly. The reactions of other reviewers suggest to me that players unfamiliar with parser conventions were drawn to this game, and that for some of them their amusement gave way to frustration before reaching the end. Although the current release (1.02) has substantial hinting by the standards of experienced parser players, there are some missteps that I think hamper its approachability. Examples include: (Spoiler - click to show)1. Although its clear that the vacuum flask can be moved, players paying attention to room descriptions are unlikely to deduce that it's possible to push a heavy piece of equipment up a spiral staircase on rolling casters. 2. It's not clear why the ice on the vacuum flask won't melt in other than extreme heat; perhaps it should be described as having an atomic-powered refrigeration unit. 3. Some reasonable commands (e.g. >STAB MONSTER) aren't accepted when trying to defeat the sludge monster. 4. It's not obvious that Radon would want to give his radio speech a second time, especially since points are awarded for the first time and there is no player reward (in terms of new content) for experimenting by trying it twice. 5. It seems like there could be a story-appropriate alternative solution to keeping Radon bottled up while the reactor door alarm is going off: being trapped by the octopus. The trap door control seems to have no purpose, but Derringer can get out of the room (using powers) without closing the tank while Radon cannot. 6. Given the response to trying to acquire animal powers from the taxidermy specimens, it's not clear why it should be possible for Derringer to make use of a "fur-lined scarf." This doesn't seem like it's intended to be a difficult game, so I don't think more consistency and/or hinting would hurt.

The writing is the game's single greatest asset. The fact that both clients are in the same location allows the description of locations and objects (and even their naming) to differ between the two villains, and this is used to great effect for characterization. Whichever author(s) came up with the prose knew how to maximize the value of each word the player is given to read.

As an example that I found striking: When Derringer reaches a place that she calls "The Opulent Room", the response to >X CHAIRS is "The chairs are, much like Dashing himself, overstuffed and uncomfortably smooth." In eleven words, the line accomplishes three goals: giving the player an idea of the chairs' physical nature, characterizing the off-screen Rex Dashing's habitual demeanor, and -- via the judicious use of the word "uncomfortably" -- reinforcing the implication (also found in several other responses) that Derringer is attracted to Dashing. With the demonstrated capacity for such pinpoint accuracy in the prose, I can only assume that the rougher spots found elsewhere, particularly the somewhat disjointed final passage, are the product of a rush to complete the game.

The game's single greatest weakness is its handling of the PC/player relationship. Extraordinarily little information about the Owl is given outside of the final text. The ultrabrief "scene" in which the player mentally inhabits the Owl presents no personal details outside of a sense of self-satisfaction, and the only time that I recall the Owl's thoughts appearing in the narration is during the tail end of a multi-turn rant by Radon.

In actual play, the interactor is invited to "be" not the Owl but Derringer and Radon. By requiring both of these personae to be adopted by the player -- especially more or less simultaneously and in a manner requiring coordination of their efforts -- player identification with each sub-PC can be only partial. Since the blurb and opening scenelet sell the player on identifying with the Owl, and since the Owl is still ostensibly the one issuing commands to the two clients, the player is left trying to primarily identify with almost nothing at all, and can't help but wonder why. Given the strong characterization of the two other villains, treating the Owl as an AFGNCAAP feels out of step, so one instinctively makes an effort to pierce the veil of mystery that seems to have been intentionally drawn. (Even the sound that an owl makes prompts the question, via homophonic onomatopoeia: "Who?")

The main point of including a mystery in a narrative is to allow for a reveal, whether that happens in the text itself or in the mind of a reader fitting clues together until they form a solution. The Owl Consults seems to be unintentionally mimicing the latter type, at least until the very end of the game. The reveal that's provided rather roughly cuts off loose ends and, by returning the player to the Owl persona only briefly and only to lay out future plans, suggests a wrapping up of the Owl's saga before it has really begun. Although the Owl (Spoiler - click to show)admits to prior manipulation of the clients and plans to take advantage of them both in an indirect fashion, the Owl's victory doesn't feel like the player's victory, since it was impossible to anticipate.

What I'm left with is that I enjoyed this game and think it's worth both play and study, but I don't understand why it seems to invest such work into creating narrative possibilities that it has no intention of realizing. Players will find an amusing diversion with some original flair. Would-be authors will benefit from examination of the writing technique for its characterization, which is exemplary, and also the game and puzzle design, which are above average but still leave room for improvement. It's certainly one of the better superhero games that I've encountered.

Sequitur, the first release by author Nigel Jayne, is an unusual work perhaps best described as a one-room police procedural.

The player inhabits the persona of Detective Cochone, stereotypical grizzled veteran of the homicide police. His hard life has not been improved by the multiple murder case that's his current assignment: several people found dead in an abandoned mansion, with the one survivor who might have information currently in a coma. The only clues are various bits of video footage and other information recovered from devices found on the scene, including a video camera and phones. Due to damage to the devices (or some other plot contrivance), the recovered footage consists of only fragments for which the order is not known. Cochone's (and the player's) job is to review the footage and attempt to reconstruct the sequence of events. A tech expert, Jenny, stands ready to assist as needed.

After a brief introduction to the scene, made somewhat chaotic by the attempt to conduct both character introductions and player instructions ASAP, the game proper begins. Individual clips (of which there are only 15) must be reviewed, sorted and rearranged. As this is being conducted, the PC sometimes chooses to interact with Jenny, and various bits of background business unwind automatically to give some life to the framing story. I have to say: Upon initial orientation, I wasn't very hooked by this game, but that changed pretty quickly once I got going with the main task.

The initial review yields a jumble of confusing impressions, many seeming entirely disconnected. (I didn't find out until after the fact that this game was made for ShuffleComp, and it's clear that the rather tenuous framework for the mystery is disjointed at least in part due to the need to try to reconcile the disparate elements of a random playlist serving as the seed.) The victims are clearly trespassers, and they were clearly murdered, but it's not immediately obvious by whom and why.

The game soon communicates that there are two sequences to be assembled, one consisting of ten segments and another of five, but there is a huge number of theoretically possible orderings for the two. Jayne put substantial work into creating quality-of-life features to assist the player in this task, including allowing the player to rename segments, create summary notes for them, and rearrange them in a number of intuitive ways. When the player gets portions of the sequence right, the PC will note this and explain the reasoning, and subsequently the related segments can be treated as a unit group. As a result, much like with a jigsaw puzzle, connected groups of segments can be added to and rearranged as blocks, so each connection significantly reduces the search space and speeds the process of finding more.

This is a very clever mechanic in that it automatically handles pacing in a manner that is self-adjusting to individual players. Making progress through sheer luck isn't very likely in the early stages, when juxtaposing any two in correct order is a low probability. No matter which thread of imagery or action intrigues the player, it narrows the search to a subset of other pieces -- again similar to a jigsaw puzzle, in which the same applies to details of coloration or shape. With each "click," progress is made.

Two things stand out about this to me: First, when I took a moment to think about what the match confirmation mechanism involves, I was wowed by the number of cases that have to be handled. Responses are not always phrased as matches between a pair of individual segments; the PC might notice a run of three or more that fit together enough to be a coherent block. I doubt that this was handled in an entirely brute-force manner simply because the number of cases to cover would be so high, so there must be some way of aggregating links into larger descriptions. Regardless of how it was achieved, it is very well-done -- the description of Cochone's insights does not come across as any kind of mechanically-generated text.

Second, there are apparently different ways to put the sequences together. However difficult it was to pull off the central mechanic, the complexity jumps substantially when that possibility is taken into account. My hat is off to Jayne for this accomplishment, and he's earned my gratitude for the willingness to share the game's source code. (Very fortunately, though the author's personal website is defunct, the complete source appears to have been captured by the Wayback Machine, at least in unformatted text format. An HTML format version is at least partially lost.) I haven't studied it yet, but I am looking forward to it.

The implementation of the central mechanic is not perfect; I encountered a few run-time errors while playing. However, the game is resilient and makes it easy enough to recover from these hiccups, so they do not significantly impede completion. The author has explicitly licensed the mechanical aspects (but not the story text) under the Creative Commons license, so would-be authors are invited to dissect it and adopt any useful elements. (From what I've seen so far, the code is well-documented. Note, however, that it was written for Inform 7 6L38, so some minor rewriting might be needed in places.)

Once the footage sequences have been finalized, the endgame begins, and this is kept interesting through the device of asking the player to demonstrate some understanding of the total scenario revealed by the assembled footage. Cochone, who is (Spoiler - click to show)suffering medically and about to lose consciousness has only a few turns to try to communicate vital information to his superior officer. (This is done with a command prompt to eliminate the possibility of a lucky guess from a menu.) The ending that follows is improved by providing the correct information, but the story resolves satisfactorily even without this cherry on top, so only those interested in solving the mystery need go back if they haven't figured it out already.

My initial inclination was to rate this a solid three stars, but the central mechanic is unique in my experience and urges a rating of four stars on the basis of notability. It would be much more solidly in four-star territory if it were bug-free, the pacing of the introduction were a bit less hectic, the tone (Spoiler - click to show)(which wavers between gritty police mystery and horror) were more focused, and the individual stories created better synergy in their combination. (Although it's not bad given the central challenge of Shufflecomp, the game itself would have benefited from trimming the (Spoiler - click to show)apparent child prostitution subplot, which feels artificially grafted onto the main scenario. Also, the bad guys, presented as (Spoiler - click to show)generic "terrorist" bogeymen, are not very interesting.) This collection of demerits is enough that in the end I'm going with my gut instinct of three stars, which I remind the reader counts as "good, not great" in my book, and means that I'd recommend it as a play experience.