Ratings and Reviews by OtisTDog

The first and only work ever published by author Brian Uri, Augmented Forth is an astounding debut piece. Coded via Inform 6, its half-a-megabyte source code is a testament to levels of dedication and attention to detail that are extremely rare.

I often comment that a game could use more polish -- not here. Augmented Forth may as well be lacquered! Its interaction is extraordinarily smooth and fairly gleams with charm and wit from every angle. I found myself marveling again and again that the author had covered the situation with some special bit of flair, whether it was one of the many small jokes sprinkled throughout or just a simple variation on standard wording to show that you were still "within bounds" of the planned interaction.

I can't stress enough how impressed I am by this aspect of the game, and this alone makes it worth playing to experience. If you've ever tried your hand at writing IF, you know how much work all of these little details add up to, and my hat is off to Mr. Uri here. The only places I found any hiccups in the flow were in cases where there is a vocabulary overlap between objects that causes undesirable disambiguation requests, a notoriously tricky issue to handle using Inform 6's parse_name routine.

However, having spent some time admiring this beautiful instrument, I was a little disappointed with actually playing it. As Emily Short pointed out, there are "irritating patches, mostly related to the design of the puzzles", places where the expected final nudges (or even telling silences in the form of careful omissions) are not forthcoming, even though I had a partial solution.

Thinking about this, I came to believe that, in such instances, the tremendous level of polish actually works against the gameplay. In a typical work of IF, the "shininess" of world interaction is itself a form of hinting: Often, one knows one's on the right track by virtue of the differences from more general default responses. The richly embroidered surface detail of Augmented Forth magnificently camouflages any such hinting, leaving the player sometimes at a loss to differentiate between threads of plot and threads of whimsy.

Most puzzles are relatively straightforward, sometimes of the physics (or silly physics) variety and sometimes along "hey, let's see if this new spell can do that" lines. There were only a few that didn't work for me(Spoiler - click to show):

#1 the fern -- (Spoiler - click to show)The hinting in the description about it is misleading. This isn't one of those "help the plant thrive" puzzles. (Spoiler - click to show)The responses to basic actions are misleading. They give the impression that you shouldn't be dealing with the fern now (but maybe should later) when it definitely is relevant in the immediate context. (Spoiler - click to show)First, you have to understand the basic goal here, which means you should have already visited the other cottage and gotten to understand its inhabitant a bit. (Spoiler - click to show)The framed music gives a strong hint of the goal here. (Spoiler - click to show)If you want these two to fall in love, the first thing you have to do is get them in the same room. (Spoiler - click to show)She's a bit too wrapped up in her book to move, but he is just waiting at her beck and call. (Spoiler - click to show)What will make her call him? (Spoiler - click to show)Well, he's a butler, what do butlers do? (Spoiler - click to show)Yes, they introduce visitors... except here. Yes, they bring food and drinks.... except here. (Spoiler - click to show)Maybe you've noticed he's really tidy? Might he tidy something up for her? (Spoiler - click to show)Now even if you have the right idea, you're up against a guess-the-verb challenge. Try the most basic verbs. (Spoiler - click to show)Not "spill soil" or "knock over pot" or "throw dirt" or "break pot" (another misleading response)... just "push plant" is the magic command. This particular interaction is so antithetical to the rest of the work's tone that I really don't understand how it was left as is during playtesting.

#2 the safe -- (Spoiler - click to show)The basics here are easy enough to understand, you need to get on the platform to access the safe, and additional weight on the platform sets off a trap. (Spoiler - click to show)No problem, there's a spell for that right? (Spoiler - click to show)Only it doesn't work. Even though there's a presumably heavy safe on the platform, and increasing gravity should add quite a bit of weight. (Spoiler - click to show)Put something heavy on the platform instead, like one of the big books lying around. Again, this one just kind of leaves me shaking my head, as it would be trivial to implement the alternate (and, in this game, perhaps more natural) solution.

#3 Moilan -- (Spoiler - click to show)This one can't be solved until you have made some progress gathering music, so stop here unless you've been to all the initially-accessible places. (Spoiler - click to show)He's a gate guard, and you want through the gate, a common type of puzzle. (Spoiler - click to show)So you have to bribe or divert or disable him, of course. (Spoiler - click to show)You should pick up some clues that he has a favorite kind of food from one of many places. (Spoiler - click to show)Where can you find some of that stuff? (Spoiler - click to show)... that he doesn't eat the moment you try to get it? (Spoiler - click to show)No dice on finding any, huh? Maybe you can trick him? (Spoiler - click to show)Anything that looks like fudge around? (Spoiler - click to show)Perhaps something brown with a thick texture? (Spoiler - click to show)Bring him some mud in the cup. (Spoiler - click to show)You might have to make some mud first, using magic. (Spoiler - click to show)It's a bit indirect, but stand in the Center of Volcano and use "Rainy Day" to cause a storm, then gather mud in the quarry ("fill cup with mud"). Here, the design issue is the very weak link between fudge and mud. ANY kind of relevant hint would have worked here, such as an infinite supply of fudge that he never stops eating (to clue you that getting him to ingest something fudge-like might be possible) or changing his food mania to coffee (especially strong black coffee, sometimes referred to as "mud", and which, unlike fudge, is served in a cup).

Also, I encountered only one bug in the game, but it is something of a doozy(Spoiler - click to show): As Levi Boyles mentions in another review here, in Release 2 it is possible to defeat the obstacle of one puzzle (involving learning a difficult piece of music) by removing it from your inventory via a method other than dropping it. In my case, I put it back on the stand and got the same effect -- being able to play the music without learning it.

Inspecting the source code, this appears to be due to the way it is handled programmatically: An array of booleans is used to track whether you can play a particular song, and the relevant boolean is not set to false for all verbs which allow its written form to leave your inventory. Thus this logic thinks you are still holding the sheet music even when you are not.

Since this is only piece that requires any effort to learn (and the puzzle structure prevents you from having both its sheet music and your trumpet at the same time, so it's the only time when the ability to play a non-memorized tune is meaningful), it probably would have been better to just test the world state directly (is the sheet music in inventory when the trumpet is played?) instead of trying to track this state of affairs with the same variables used to track memorization. Oh, well.

These (subjective) flaws left me with a much lower opinion of Augmented Forth as a game, but your mileage may vary.

Finally, I want to point some special attention to the handling of time in this game, which I thought was very well done. (Spoiler - click to show)Rather than being dependent on turn count or the default clock, time in Augmented Forth is plot-driven, with completion of certain puzzles advancing you to the next nebulous period of the day (e.g. "early morning", "midmorning"). Each advancement is coupled with a brief cutscene, filling you in on activity elsewhere in the game world in a plot arc with which your actions will intersect during the end game.

I don't know if this is the first work of IF to use this particular combination, but the well-written cutscenes together with the loose timekeeping produce a powerful synergy. With the cutscenes decoupled from turn count, the player is in no danger of being left behind by the outside events' timetable. With the resolution of time being so fuzzy, it doesn't seem as obvious that external events are waiting for your key actions (an illusion that the cutscene writing, with its indefinite pauses between scenes, is careful not to dispel). The net effect just seems to work for the purpose of telling the story in the IF medium in a way that is subtle, but wonderful.

Other reviewers have commented on the copious spoofy humor, and I agree that it only serves to add flavor for those who get the reference without excluding those who don't. Sometimes, the touch is so light that you might not even realize there was a joke unless you know what it refers to(Spoiler - click to show), such as the casual mention that you're feeling hungry at the start of a game (very topical in a time when the presence of a hunger puzzle was considered exceptionally stale and bitterly despised). Others are so blatant as to be inescapable today(Spoiler - click to show), like the presence of "Mollug" and a very amusingly-described ring.

All in all, this work is significantly above average in quality and sure to be fun to play for most people. Though the few problems I encountered were minor, they seem terribly out of place in a work that gets almost everything right (from an old school perspective). Consistency rates highly in my book, and these missteps knock off enough of a star to bring it just short of 4 star territory.

As a reminder, my ratings are unusually harsh, and 3 stars counts as a very good game. I would eagerly play another piece from Mr. Uri, should he publish one in the future, and old school fans should definitely try this one if they haven't yet.

This short piece received fairly positive reviews upon its release in 1999, and, when judged in the context of what was available then, I can see that it must have compared much more favorably against the field than it does today. By today's standards, it is poorly implemented, weakly written, and lacking enough positive qualities to outweigh its negatives.

My introduction to this work was via an IFDB poll, the very title of which serves as something of a spoiler for Bliss. As a result, after making my way through the implementation problems plaguing the opening scene, there was little surprise in the revelation that (Spoiler - click to show)All Is Not What It Seems.

Ultimately, this twist is all that Bliss has going for it, and a twist by itself can't provide meaning to this story any more than it does in a typical M. Night Shayamalan film.

The lack of greater meaning is what dooms this piece. The activities you (as the PC) engage in are revealed to have quite horrific consequences, so horrific that they demand more than just simple derangement of the protagonist to justify their commission. If I'm going to find out that "I've" done something as awful as (Spoiler - click to show)committing infanticide, the author better have prepared that ground pretty carefully to leave me with anything more than a sense of revilement and disgust.

Unfortunately, Mr. Wilkin does not. (Spoiler - click to show)The protagonist's home life is shown to be plagued by a drunken, abusive father, but, without minimizing the tragedy of such a situation, it must be pointed out that countless people have lived through similar unpleasantness without being driven to a sudden killing spree.

To make this piece work would have required a) much deeper characterization and backstory for the PC, so that the reader is left at minimum with a sense of pity for him, and b) a substantially more well-thought-out mapping of things happening in the PC's fantasy world to reality. The insult of the baby's death is further compounded by the fact that, apparently, it was unrealistically posed by the author as inexplicably unattended on a city sidewalk in the real world.

In my view, everything past the reading room calls for some well-developed conceptual framework to support the PC's delusion as he flees the asylum. I don't care what that framework is, it just has to attempt to make internal sense of the PC's actions. Does the PC know the shopkeeper beforehand? Does he have some unreasoning fear of babies? Is the victim who takes the form of the dragon someone significant to him?

None of that supporting framework is present. It seems that, akin to the "lazy fantasy" setting that frames the game's opening, it concludes on a "lazy psychothriller" note.

I initially gave this piece two stars, but, upon further reflection, discounting the problematic story leaves only the multiple programming errors, guess-the-verb challenges, and weak puzzles to define it. As such, I find myself left with only a lingering sense of distaste that marks this work as belonging to the "better off avoided" category.

This short piece wouldn't be out of place as an entry in IntroComp, because all that really happens is an introduction to a significant new character and plot development in the story world Müller has invented for this series. The attention of Mr. Blask seems to have improved the overall quality of the result, though the final product is still lacking in distinction as a work of interactive fiction.

As with the original entry in the series, what stands out most are the unrealized possibilities present in the setting that has been created. What little exposition there is hints at a sprawling vision of the Clockwork Boy universe in the mind of the author, a vision that does not seem to naturally fit with the mechanics of IF and which would probably be better served as a straightforward written tale.

Throughout both this work and its predecessor, the elements required by interactive fiction seem to have served only to interfere with the communication of the story that the author wants to tell. Puzzles feel grafted on and are not integrated into the telling of the story. Locations remain so shallowly implemented that they are little more than painted stage backgrounds for the intended events to transpire in front of. NPC dialogue is not implemented in depth, and what's there is so terse and direct that it offers neither the sense of discovery nor the sense of a living conversant.

I say all of the above not as mockery of the author's continuing sincere efforts but to point out that the work required to implement this story as interactive fiction may not be worth it. Think how much more story could have been told if the coding effort required to make this IF were simply put aside!

That said, if there is to be a Clockwork Boy 3, I strongly suggest that the author spend some time considering how to make the medium of IF work for the story instead of against it. The challenges are surmountable, and it would be a true shame if the rest of this vision never materialized in any form.

Intrigued by the announcement that a sequel to a story I'd never heard of had been released, I thought it might be interesting to check out the original.

This turned out to be more challenging than I expected, as the provided download link does not function (apparently due to a bad permissions setting on the file). A little online sleuthing led me to a working download link over at IFWiki, however, so I was quickly off and running.

Playing the role of the clockwork boy alluded to in the title, your apparent task is to reunite your "parents" (a human King and a fairy Queen) who have separated during the long period between when the game begins and the last time you were wound up. The introduction led me to much speculation about what I might encounter: a substantial backstory to discover about what happened while the PC was "off", extensive NPC interaction in resolving the royal dispute, strange and subtle differences between the human lands and the world of Faerie, perhaps even puzzles about how to keep the PC from running down. Instead, I soon discovered that there wasn't much to recommend this work, which, although founded on an interesting premise, offers only a simple, mechanical experience as interactive fiction -- one which does not take advantage of the possibilities offered by its setting.

Implementation quality is fairly low. NPC interactions seem to follow the ask/tell/show model, but the only responses provided appear to be for asking about a small number of topics. The handful of puzzles, such as they are, consist of an arbitrary arrangement of interrelated obstacles that make little sense within the context of the story. Descriptions are flat and generally reference many objects that cannot be interacted with.

In a matter of minutes, I had seen the extent of the tiny world (fortunately just 7 locations, as many room descriptions omit the list of exits) and, while I could see what would need to be done to advance the plot by assisting the queen, I found myself stymied while trying to get a critical item from one of the two minor NPCs. I had a strong feeling of what was necessary, but the game just would not respond to any of the expected commands. Frustrated, I looked for some assistance and found it in the form of the ClubFloyd transcript of a playthrough of this piece.

While my hunch about the solution was correct (including the idea, the verb, and even the required syntax(Spoiler - click to show), which not-so-fondly recalls the era of two-word parsers), the command simply doesn't work in the version I found, so I was forced to read through the remainder of the transcript to see how things played out. The few minutes of gameplay that I missed as a result were on a par with what I had already experienced, and the plot winds up so quickly from there that I didn't lose much.

While I can't recommend this piece as worth one's time as a player, it is obviously the product of a sincere (if minor) effort springing from a well-conceived (if not well-developed) seed idea. I remain curious enough about the sequel to try it, especially given the fact that it was produced in cooperation with another author.

Calling this work a game seems to miss the mark; instead, the overwhelming impression I got was that it is the result of the author's studied effort to learn Inform 6.

In a beginner's shop class at school, the focus is on learning to use the tools to create something basic and functional but not necessarily aesthetically pleasing. This thoroughly pragmatic product is in exactly that style -- a simple scenario, solidly constructed.

I would like to add "with no frills" to that description, but that would be inaccurate. There are, in fact, several frills -- a built-in hint system (which is ridiculous overkill in this context), plus several hidden items and joke responses to non-obvious behavior. The thing is, unless you are perusing the supplied source code, you are unlikely to encounter most of these details; clearly, they were implemented more for the author's amusement than the players.

Even though I don't believe this was a serious attempt to create something entertaining, Perilous Magic is instructive for the aspiring author and worth reviewing simply as a case study to compare the playing experience vs. the code supporting it, especially when it comes to deciding which interaction elements matter enough to be worth the implementation cost. That's a design skill (not a coding skill) that seems hard-won for many authors, but which quickly makes itself evident in the best examples of IF.