Ratings and Reviews by OtisTDog

"Minimalism," as defined in today's edition of Wikipedia, is a style of design that attempts to "expose the essence or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts" or "in which the simplest and fewest elements are used to create the maximum effect."

This is the word that kept coming to mind as I played this short piece, which does a fair job of stripping away the non-essentials of a pure puzzler. The player character's backstory and motivation are treated thinly but both efficiently and sufficiently, encouraging just enough thought to allow the player to start ignoring them. This is a good trick, and it is done competently here.

However, once the three challenges are overcome, the pacing falters in that the game does not end as rapidly as it should(Spoiler - click to show) -- a problem exacerbated by a small guess-the-syntax issue with the final command. I think the author was trying to provide a greater emotional impact to the resolution of the story's framing tension, but since that tension had been built up so little, the attempt to embellish it is unnecessary and quickly begins to appear melodramatic.

My original title for this review was "Minimalism and romance don't mix," but, on reflection, I don't think that's true. Cutting away some of the extra elements(Spoiler - click to show) (e.g. the extra location to travel to, the additional actions required to trigger the end, flying off on the back of an unexplained magic tiger) might have made for a stronger and more romantic conclusion.

You're a cow. A zombie cow, which, it turns out, is fully qualified to engage in the standard zombie shtick -- as a cow!

Did I mention you're a cow?

Very silly, very short, mildly amusing and (oddly enough) very likeable. Not bad for something produced in 3 hours as part of the ADRIFT 1st Three Hour Comp. If it weren't for the frustration of dealing with parser limitations, I would probably spend some time trying to find out how to get all 130 points in the author-envisioned optimum bovine undead rampage. As it is, I'll be satisfied with 80 points and a chuckle.

As others have noted, it would be difficult to avoid presenting spoilers for this work unless pretty much the whole review is wrapped in a spoiler tag. So:

To start, I want to make it clear that (Spoiler - click to show)I came across this work as a result of the "Doing things backwards" poll here on IFDB, so arguably I came to it pre-spoiled. I believe that this actually increased my appreciation of it, though your mileage may vary.

I didn't find many other reviews of Keepsake in my cursory search, but a couple of the ones I did see indicated proofreading and/or debugging were needed. The version I played this evening (yes, this is a fairly short piece) was release 3, and I saw no evidence of any such issues. Both the coding quality and the writing quality felt above average within the story's limited scope.

There are two things I really liked that I think speak to the author's potential. Neither of them is the overall concept itself(Spoiler - click to show), which the author makes clear is inspired by the film Memento (from which the title is derived via synonym).

First, the opening sequence does an excellent job of plunging you into the role of protagonist. The leading quote very subtly frames your expectations about the kind of situation the PC is in, and a few deft touches in the details set up the tensions of that situation very well(Spoiler - click to show). I love the way the initial description of the brass casing practically screams that you need to start cleaning up the crime scene, but a few simply-repeated words ("the sirens are getting closer") scream just as loudly that you need to get out NOW. It was a great opening(Spoiler - click to show), it's just not the opening that goes with this story.

Second, the first encounter with the central mystery is extremely well done(Spoiler - click to show). In the alley scene, the author has taken great pains to ensure that descriptions of things and events are precisely ambiguous enough to work whether you do or do not understand what's happening, i.e. whether they are presented forwards or backwards. It quickly becomes clear you are being given a choice, and it's not hard to work out how to make that choice.

Unfortunately, after these first few minutes of gameplay, Keepsake falls apart. Emily Short cuts right to the heart of the matter when she asks "[Do the choices the player makes] matter? What story is told by these details?" Gimmicks are not necessarily bad, but carrying this one through to the point where people would stop referring to it as a gimmick would probably take a mind-numbing amount of work in both the writing and coding departments. It almost seems that the author realized exactly this mid-project then just decided to wrap things up and be done with it.

The only thing that looked like a mistake at a high level was the epilogue presented once the story is finished(Spoiler - click to show). While I appreciate the effort that went into it from a technical standpoint, the effect is similar to playing Memento scenes in their "correct" chronological order... that is to say, it pretty much ruins the story completely. Rather than providing an instant replay of the scenes already seen, some other device (a police report reconstructing the protagonist's actions?) is called for to reveal the mystery. Then again, maybe my perspective here is driven by the fact that it wasn't really revealing anything new to me, due to knowledge beforehand of the story structure.

Again, I remind readers that my rating system is unusually harsh, and the two-star rating does not mean that this piece isn't worth the time it takes to experience it. Keepsake shows the marks of real talent: If what's on display here were paired up with more attention to story construction and consistency of player experience, I would expect to see future efforts from this author perform much better in the IF Comp.

Berrost's Challenge seems to have been released at a point when old-school text adventures were considered thoroughly déclassé by the IF community. It earned 10th place in the 2008 IF Comp -- a respectable showing for a first effort, but far from the limelight shining firmly on Violet.

At first glance, it looked like this game had every reason to simply fade away, ending up consigned to the dustier directories over at the IF Archive where it would never bother sensible people again. What made me explore it further was its one mark of distinction: It was the 2008 winner of the Golden Banana of Discord. (For those unfamiliar with it, the Golden Banana is presented to the work that has the greatest disparity in high and low marks in scoring for the IF Comp. In other words, it goes to the entries that people seem to either love or hate.)

Many of the negative sentiments seem to be rooted in the idea that puzzle games are useless and lame. If you agree with this idea, then read no further because this game is not for you. Another strong sentiment seems to be that this is the wrong kind of puzzle game -- that its puzzles are annoying and offensive relics of an era long gone, not suitable for this enlightened time. If you find no value in the Infocom aesthetic, this criticism makes sense. However, much of that decried by critics (e.g. hunger and sleep puzzles) is really little more than window-dressing. Given how prominent these aspects seem when starting the game and how little they actually impact gameplay, one could almost argue that they function like a insect mimic's protective coloring, giving a false impression primarily useful in keeping casual predators away.

If you do appreciate the early Infocom canon, this piece offers much to love. To me, it feels like something that made it all the way to the playtesting stage there before being put aside for marketing reasons. I give Mr. Hatfield credit for capturing the feel of the Zork-era games so well: Homage of this type is often attempted and only rarely achieved. Deviations from Infocom conventions are handled fairly well, with the "about" command providing a good overview and the menu-driven conversation model neatly intercepting attempts to use the ask/tell model.

Reviewing my own notes, I see that much of what I planned to mention has already been covered by others: the comparison to Wishbringer instead of Enchanter, the guess-the-verb issues, the regular (if infrequent) encounters with spelling and/or grammar errors, the lack of a proper ending. I will limit my remarks to those that seem likely to encourage those on the fence to play this piece.

This game is unapologetically puzzle-based, not story-based, and the puzzle quality is only decent, not extraordinary. What makes this an out-of-the-ordinary puzzler is that (as Merk's review point out) the clueing in this game is exceptionally well-done. In most cases, the author's careful commitment to ensuring that puzzles are fair under old-school rules is evident. Responses can be terse, and, as with many early Infocom titles, close attention to game responses is warranted. Near misses are not labeled clearly; instead of that last nudge in the right direction that most modern titles provide, there is a tendency to offer a reply that feels like discouragement but which, for those with a keen eye for nuance, provides the information needed to guide further experimentation. As with The Meteor, The Stone And A Long Glass Of Sherbet, this information sometimes comes in the form of what's not said, as opposed to what is.

I only rarely ran into anything that felt like a genuine guess-the-verb issue. If a noun or verb didn't work, one of the first few alternates I tried did. It quickly became apparent that this game was picky about terminology, but I did not find it to be unreasonably so. Arguably, in some cases, the semantic precision required encourages the mindset necessary to interpreting game clues. The are only a few instances I considered problematic(Spoiler - click to show), with the only offender that resulted in any real delay being the requirement to use "thumbwrestle" instead of "wrestle", a distinction that makes no sense until it becomes clear that both can occur in the game, and which really should have been handled by friendlier hinting if "wrestle" is used first.

Some significant problems were caused less by verb and noun implementation than by dissimilar treatment of similar situations at the coding level(Spoiler - click to show). The most notable item of this type was the way that the lamp oil and the grease were handled; the same verbs and syntax do not work equally well on both, and the way the oil was presented (always in a container, never spoken of as being in said container when examining the container) never made it clear this would be something you could directly interact with, unlike with the grease. These flaws are forgivable in a first work with no further revisions, but they speak to the value of obtaining proper playtesting before release, and to reserving enough time and enthusiasm to incorporate the feedback received.

With enough additional polish and/or more inventive puzzles, this game could have earned four stars from me. As it is, I give it a solid three stars and a recommendation that old school fans give this piece a try if they've overlooked it so far.

After recently playing The Ghost Train by the same author and noticing the announcement that this work, too, had a recently-revised release, I decided to give this story a try to see how the author's craft had improved. My opinion is mixed.

The structure and flow of the story is very similar to that of the The Ghost Train: a catastrophic opening, followed by a fast-paced journey of exploration along fairly strict rails, followed by a chase, a time-limit sequence, and a couple of strongly-hinted "puzzles" (in function, light-duty obstacles) barring the way to the final conclusion. Less reliance on formula may benefit future works.

The implementation focus is somewhat better, with fewer elements that appear to be vestigial remnants of coding experimentation (though some(Spoiler - click to show), such as the food machine in the ship's kitchen, persist). The writing quality also seemed improved. Imagery was more subdued, and there were many fewer instances of repetition than can be found in its predecessor. However, like its predecessor, this story suffered from a fairly high rate of grammar and spelling errors, so additional proofreading efforts are warranted.

The coding quality seemed to have slipped a notch. I ran into several minor bugs that got in the way of the story, especially situations where two nouns could not be disambiguated(Spoiler - click to show), e.g. as occurs when trying to install the unburned circuit board during the lifeboat escape sequence. Also of note are those cases where critical objects are not mentioned in room descriptions and must be learnt of via other means(Spoiler - click to show), e.g. the CPU "circuit" object in the flight deck, which seemed to have no indication of its existence outside of the response to asking the computer about the CPU, even though it would have been plainly visible to the player character. In addition, synonym sickness is more evident(Spoiler - click to show), as when the lack of the word 'fuselage' as a synonym for 'ship' kept me busy for 20 minutes wandering the jungle and trying to enter through the implemented canopy object because the hatch can only be discovered via examining the 'ship', a word not used in describing the crash scene.

There is a famous quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." This is advice that any new author can benefit from, and it seems to be the single principle that best sums up the difference between this piece and its earlier cousin. Applying this maxim more diligently would surely continue the trend of improvement in future works from this author.

The incidence of first-timer foibles is about the same as in The Ghost Train, with #2, #8, #9, #10, #12, and #13 evident (this last being found mostly in out-of-place Microsoft and McDonalds humor sprinkled throughout).

Produced in response to the challenge of Speed-IF 6, this lightweight entry is competently coded and can be completed in short order, but is poorly designed both as a story (the premise and micro-story seem somewhat forced) and as a game (the single puzzle isn't even clearly presented as a puzzle). This speed IF had a particularly odd assortment of seed ideas; it will be interesting to see if any of the other submissions do better.

The deficiencies of this piece are hardly unusual for speed IF, and my one-star rating is typical for the mode. The apparent quality of the coding (written in Inform 6, where haste can easily make waste) leads me to suspect that the author's other works (some of which have good ratings from small groups of players) are worth exploring.

You might need the walkthrough to discover the winning moves, but the game universe is small enough that you will likely find them through brute force with a little patience.