Reviews by OtisTDog

Playing Hoosegow for the first time in 2026, I am struck by two things. First, this game, first published in 2010, is extremely impressive by the standards of its time. Second, it seems a lot less impressive by the standards of today. That's not to say that this is a bad game -- I enjoyed playing it! -- it's just that the threshold of excellence has continued to increase over time.

This work is implemented in Inform 7 6G60. Those of you who are familiar with the evolution of I7 over the years may recall that 6G60 was prior to the implementation of the responses system. As a result, authors Ben Collins-Sussman and Jack Welch had to make use of an extension to ease the process of replacing library messages. This is done to very good effect, giving the game a consistent voice that does much to create its engaging mood.

Mechanically, the game suffers from certain small issues. Other reviewers note various guess-the-verb problems, and I definitely encountered some myself. The uneven implementation is a real mark against by modern standards; if one thing seems to have improved since the era in which this game was produced, it's the commitment to consistency in a game's interactions with the player. This leads to various points of unnecessary and undesirable friction, e.g. (Spoiler - click to show)you can get a look out the window by simply going >WEST, at which point Muddy will lift you up, but commands >MUDDY, PICK ME UP or or >MUDDY, LIFT ME or >MUDDY, BOOST ME or similar aren't recognized. Similarly, although the NPCs are well-done, there is some inconsistency in their implementation, e.g. (Spoiler - click to show)to get Muddy to modify the warrant, it's necessary to >GIVE items to him, but >SHOW FEATHER prompts only a hint response that is superfluous once the plan is understood.

Some issues are practically glaring. Although the game has a score, scoring appears to be partially broken in that it is not possible to score the alleged maximum of 24 points. Two of the single-point awards can be obtained only via mutually-exclusive methods (Spoiler - click to show)(i.e. driving the deputy out via sound or smell), but it would be necessary to score both points in the same playthrough to get the maximum. Another point is programmed such that it requires a specific action that is by default overridden by another which accomplishes the same goal, meaning that the player has to enter the same command (Spoiler - click to show)(>OPEN DRAWER WITH KEY) twice in order to obtain it. Thus, a score of 22 out of 24 is functionally a perfect score. Likewise, a lopsided five-point award is given for (Spoiler - click to show)opening the can of beans, but this seems technically unnecessary to reach the best ending, so some player's may be further confused by their point deficit at the end.

The overall story is sufficient for the game's purposes, even if some of the details don't really seem to jibe. The real story is the escape-the-room plot, but its conclusion is muddied by the way that the player is urged to stick around for a more dramatic ending. This drama is handled very abruptly, with some emergency backstory tossed in to increase the sheriff's villainy level and give a sheen of justice being served to the best ending. This fell a bit flat to me, since the PC and his accomplice are complete scoundrels and apparently guilty of the crime for which they've been jailed. I can't decide whether this awkward ending is the result of last-minute expansion of the plot or last-minute curtailment of more ambitious plans. The lack of final polish throughout suggests the latter.

Despite the above criticisms, I (to repeat) did enjoy this game, and I would recommend it. Its real strength as entertainment comes from its all-embracing voice and its characters -- as Rovarsson's review notes, every character is a treat. Unfortunately, the substantial number of nits to pick are the difference between good and great, so this one's ending up at a very high three stars instead of the solid four stars that it wants to be.

(Final note: This game was released under the Creative Commons license, so the way is open to write some further adventures of Rick and Muddy.)

This game came to my attention via tags linking it to Spider and Web, which is one of my all-time favorite works of IF. It didn't sound quite as interesting, but I've enjoyed a couple of spy-themed works lately (like Moonbase Indigo and Zodiac), so it seemed worth a shot.

It wasn't.

This is probably the "best" of any game I've ever rated as 1-star. It functions, after a fashion. It can be completed, and in fairly short order. The spelling and punctuation are satisfactory. The premise seems sufficiently promising. Unfortunately, it lacks any aspect that would make it a worthwhile play experience and thus qualifies for my "no redeeming qualities" criterion.

This game would have qualified for at least two stars if there were any indication of sustained effort on the part of the author, but there is none. More than anything else, Code Name Silver Steel is just plain lazy in its production value. There are probably a dozen or fewer significant interactions, maybe twenty objects, and not quite a half dozen rooms. After finishing, I was surprised to see that it was published in 2017, and that it was written using Inform 7. The 3-star average awarded by the handful of registered players made me assume that it was written in Inform 6 about twenty years earlier.

The overall scale and complexity of this work is probably no more than twice what would be required to implement Cloak of Darkness. If I were going to recommend this work to anyone, it would be on similar basis, i.e. not as something to play, but as a basic scenario to implement as a test of capabilities (though in this case authorial capabilities instead of system capabilites). This game could be done well enough to be worth playing -- why not give it a shot?

[After writing this I remembered One Night in San Francisco, which is a close cousin to this game. See that for a somewhat improved implementation of the same basic idea.]

Author Marshal Tenner Winter seems to have made something of a personal cottage industry out of adapting modules from the Call of Cthulu RPG into interactive fiction. This work is his first attempt, but the "call of cthulu" tag shows that he followed The Surprising Case of Brian Timmons with no fewer than four other titles, all published in 2013. This group represents about a third of Winter's entire catalog.

The pace of production speaks to a certain hastiness and consequent inattention to quality that is abundantly evident when playing this game. The writing is of lackluster quality, and implementation is extremely minimalist in nature. Scenery items are frequently missing, significant bugs abound, and tone and mood are almost comprehensively mishandled.

In 2013 there was already a model implementation of the core concept (i.e. an adapation of a CoC module) in the form of The King of Shreds and Patches. That title, which features a deep and carefully polished implementation -- is admittedly a tough act to follow, and its author, Jimmy Maher, has spoken about the vast amount of work required to create it. Based on the relative development timelines, I would estimate that at least ten times as much work went into producing The King of Shreds and Patches, and the difference between the two results is like night and day.

To be fair, Maher seems to have been attempting to recreate the sense of illusory freedom that is offered by a tabletop RPG, and he succeeded brilliantly in part through judicious trimming of the possibility space to reduce the burden of implementation while preserving elements of apparent player freedom. Winter's approach to adaptation seems to have been to curtail player freedom so severely that "on rails" is a generous characterization. (On a train, one would at least expect to be able to get some enjoyment from the scenery passing by.) It's a reasonable approach, but attempting to impose a linear sequence automatically undermines the emergent narrative that the module is designed to produce. The author is saddled with the task of crafting a single, coherent storyline out of the multiplex possibilities that can result from different player choices in the RPG version.

I'm sure that task can be done well -- after all, for a well-designed module any one path should be satisfactory -- but it is not done well here. Lovecraftian horror is heavily dependent on suspense arising from the slow buildup of the protagonist's understanding of the true situation. The crisis point is essentially metaphysical in nature, and arrives when the protagonist must accept a radically different order of existence, typically straining his or her sanity to the breaking point (or beyond).

You won't see that in this tale; the protagonist is beyond hardboiled and reacts not at all to the horror. Since the most interesting thing about the premise is the promise of blending horror and hardboiled detective tropes, this is a disappointment.

Infodumps are antithetical to tension, and this game lives by them. Character "interaction" comes primarily in the form of monologue. In a messy room full of books, the only one of plot significance is the only one implemented. Location descriptions are handled with minimal text that does little to evoke dread in the player.

The final sentence of the game is really the most entertaining part, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was inspired by something that happened in a real-life playthrough of the module in question. However, despite being an unexpected gem of humor, it's a poor ending to this particular story -- can you think of any other Lovecraftian tale that ends in a laugh line?

Despite its flaws, I would recommend it to any author interested in producing this type of adapation. The flaws are what make it a worthwhile study, especially when compared and contrasted with The King of Shreds and Patches. However, The Surprising Case of Brian Timmons falls so far short of its implicit animating vision that I can't recommend it as a play experience.

Hangman's Gulch, despite the ominous title, is a player-friendly old school parser light puzzler.

Although given a coat of Western genre theme paint, it is basically a short treasure hunt built out of classic text adventure tropes. The nature of the treasure at first seemed reasonably related to the fictional time and place but soon drifted into the exceedingly unlikely. This does not matter in the least -- again, it's an old school parser treasure hunt game.

None of its Tab A/Slot B puzzles are particularly difficult since strong hinting is provided in the game's main text. Although a >HINT feature is implemented, the player is unlikely to need to use it, and if used is likely to be disappointed. (The only hint I got from it was a restatement of the obvious.) Most of the things needed by the protagonist are left conveniently abandoned somewhere in the newly-created ghost town in which the action takes place. Others arrive through unexpected chains of cause-and-effect, such as answering riddles or feeding animals. Aside from their unexpected outcomes, puzzles are rooted in real world concerns and amenable to straightforward reasoning; there's not a hint of moon logic to be found. A few items can be used for more than one purpose, which is a nice touch.

There are several animal interactions in this game, giving it an occasionally cutesy feel that may appeal to kids. (Note, however, that violence toward one of them -- a type considered dangerous -- is required to win.) Caffeinated beverages also figure more prominently than might be expected for a Western, with the largest point award in the game being given, surprisingly, for brewing some tea.

Mechanical quality is high, as is typical for a game published by author Garry Francis. I encountered one trifling error (attempting to (Spoiler - click to show)>READ SIGN IN MIRROR) and might quibble about some of the responses to unsuccessful actions (e.g. (Spoiler - click to show)>TIE ROPE TO JUG and >TIE ROPE TO KETTLE) as missed opportunities to provide additional hinting or allow alternate solutions, but these are minor and do not detract significantly from the overall experience, which leans minimalist and focuses on the gameplay essentials.

Overall, this game is a solid introduction to the old school style and a suitable introduction to puzzlers for someone new to the idea. It's also a good choice for someone in a nostalgic mood who wants some amusement during a lunch break or commute.

Mike Russo's entry in to 2024's Really Bad IF jam is truly impressive. It is a very short, very stereotypical fantasy game in the sense that it provides the player an objective reachable with a few minutes of exploration, and it pays off appropriately in amusement delivered.

At first, the major complaint is that it's too short. Though overcoming the minor obstacles presented is too perfunctory an exercise to constitute a real challenge, it is a perfectly serviceable micro-entertainment -- so much so that it was summarily disqualified as not being bad enough to qualify for the jam. It's not enough that the player feels a bit cheated by the game's failure to continue the scenario past the point where it stops.

"Cheated" is a loaded word. Russo only makes an implicit promise here, and one could argue that the apparent promise is just an unintended side effect of the author's naturally engaging style. However, I believe that dangling that promise is intentional -- leaving the player wanting more certainly provides the impetus to take the game up on its offer when it ends with an invitation to examine the source code.

At this point, the work transforms entirely, moving from the style of classic fantasy RPG to pure horror.

The underpinnings of this work are just... horrendous from a coding perspective. Russo assiduously avoids using any of the tools in Inform 7's toolbox for its correct purpose. With a certain malevolent genius, he implements a consistent (if consistently awful) collection of misuses, assembled into a structure that, like Frankenstein's monster, invokes a deep repulsion (if also a dread fascination) simply by functioning at all.

I've often seen it said that one doesn't have to be a good coder to create a good game; this work is a very extreme form of proof for that argument. I don't know how much the code's uncanny framework could be extended before collapsing under its own weight, and there is no reason at all to emulate the coding style in one's own work, but many a new author can probably benefit from experiencing this work both as scenario and source. The effect might be similar to watching that infamous driver's ed film of yesteryear: "Red Asphalt".

To keep the meaning of my ratings consistent, I'm sticking to 3 stars for this one in consideration of it solely as a miniature game. However, in terms of higher levels of craft, I salute this work as a standout example of a well-executed genre twist.

[Lest the above be construed as an insult to the programming abilities of this author, who holds two XYZZY Awards, I remind the reader that the whole intent of the jam was to produce bad games, and that 'Steading delivers beautifully. I am reasonably certain that the reaction of amused horror that I experenced was exactly Russo's goal, and that only someone with a keen understanding of design principles could so lovingly craft this monster. So... Bullseye! And bravo!]

This short, very smooth little game by J. Robinson Wheeler is pretty well-developed for speed IF, and well worth the play time if you like irreverent takes on James Bond. It's not quite spoof, parody or satire, but it's definitely a comedy and a lot of fun.

I salute author J. Robinson Wheeler's ability to create such a fluid-feeling gameplay experience. Just about everything I tried was accepted and moved the action briskly along. The only place where I got stuck at all (for maybe a minute or two) was during a pseudo "boss battle" with the story's stylized femme fatale, who (fittingly) can't be handled like the string of mooks you have to wade through to reach that point.

Like all speed IF, this feels like it could have been more, but the work as it stands is complete and contains all of the essentials. Nothing is obviously missing that couldn't be considered to be filler, and leaving so much of what's non-essential to the player's imagination probably improves the subjective experience. I noted a couple of extremely minor bugs (Spoiler - click to show)(e.g. the chain securing the scientist you're out to save lingers in the room description even when dealt with), but these are excusable in a speed IF context.

If you're in an action-plus-comedy kind of mood, definitely consider firing this one up and giving it a spin. If you're not fully satisfied with the puzzleless format, then you might check out Centipede by the same author, which is similarly fluid and fast-paced but does have a puzzle to solve.

I don't know what possessed me to fire up this little pseudo-game by author Phil Riley, whose better-known works include The Bureau of Strange Happenings and the Galaxy Jones series.

This game is horrible, but know that this is a compliment, because it was produced for a competition in which being horrible was the goal. I found myself annoyed by the various (no doubt 100% intentional) shortcomings, but I had a good laugh after growing my first zapricot and (Spoiler - click to show)finding that eating it just leaves you in the position of having to grow another one, with an ever-present hunger timer waiting to kill off the PC should the player ever stop this infinite cycle.

After telling someone else about the game, I began to realize just how artfully I had been annoyed. The way that the Inform grammar lines have been defined for >DIG (and its converse) are quite funny in that it's actually a little difficult to get the parser to be so painful for the player in this particular way. It's a guess-the-syntax problem transmogrified into a genuine puzzle for someone familiar with the system. (Spoiler - click to show)(And I have to admit that I was stumped enough by the syntax for tamping that I had to resort to a decompiler. It was still delightful because I learned something new about the way the parser's "inference" logic works.)

Wherever the design looks like it might be unintentionally bad, Riley is careful to turn it up to 11 so that you know it's that way on purpose. (Spoiler - click to show)Yes, the descriptionless room named "path" north of the garden is funny. The fact that there are three more on the way to the well is very funny given the fairly tight hunger timer.

I doubt that very many people will share the perspective to really appreciate this convoluted (and involuted) joke of a game, but it's a great joke for those who do. I can't give it a very high score as a game, because -- to repeat -- it's a horrible game by design, but I can't give it a low score, either, out of admiration for the vision to reach such depths. I'll settle on 3 stars in recognition of the author having spotted and hit the target so precisely.

I don't like "chatting around bushes," so I'll be blunt: This game is a nonsensical mess. However, it very clearly does not take itself seriously, so there's no reason for the player to do so, either.

If you're in the mood for a quick lark that feels a bit like a cross between The Horse Whisperer and You Will Select a Decision, then you could do worse than this ridiculous little vignette. The combination of spelling errors, punctuation misfires, garbled phrasing, and rampant silliness where you might expect a plot is amusing enough to keep playing until you reach the end. (This takes about 10 minutes.)

If you're lucky, that will be "end of episode 1 / good ending". If you're not, then who cares, really? Chances are good that you had enough of a laugh to make "your heart rate ace" -- or at least enough to crack a smile.

Note: The title of this review and quoted phrases above are copied from the game, as a sample of what you'll be getting into.

I suppose that the title of this review could be considered as a spoiler, but since this fact of the game world was intentionally announced by author C. E. J. Pacian as part of teaser publicity in the days leading up to its release, I'm not worried about it.

Pacian's trademark creativity is on display in this short light puzzler that starts out with an eye toward comedy but slowly refocuses on drama over the course of its plot. Nothing is quite what it seems in this world, which the interactor sees in a form doubly-refracted through the twin prisms of the player character's hefty egotism and vast ignorance. Though these distortions, are, of course, deliberate obscuration of important information by the author, they're imposed in such a playful manner that the player welcomes the friction as a chance to linger longer in this highly entertaining universe.

Due to its limited parser format (accepting only nouns as commands, with an implicit >FLY TO verb), it's possible to play through the entire scenario without gaining much understanding of the game universe, but the real fun lies in trying to see through the veiled descriptions and decide what's really going on. It's this multi-level gameplay (and the story's inventively but delicately interacting plotlines) that makes Ancient Treasure, Secret Spider stand out as more than just good.

The original, produced in only five days, was terrific, and already the author has released post-competition versions to address a few minor issues that weren't very noticeable. (My own playthrough seemed 100% problem-free.) Even before these refinements, it was an excellent game to put in front of parser and/or puzzler newbies who are having trouble understanding how interactive fiction could be considered fun. For those who already know their way around, it makes a great bit of fun, sized somewhere between "snack" and "light meal" in scope -- perfect for a lunch break or a long commute.

Endymion is a work in the best tradition of science fiction, with a narrative concerning a not-quite-first-contact scenario and puzzles rooted in both mechanical and linguistic challenges.

Infocom's famous description of interactive fiction as something "akin to waking up inside a story" has often been repeated over the years, and some games (such as this one) invite that comparison on a literal level by having the story begin with the protagonist regaining consciousness. However, the more important aspect of the metaphor holds just as true for static fiction or film: Engaging with the media requires temporarily pushing aside one's own identity and adopting that of the protagonist. This allows one to vicariously feel what the protagonist feels, to experience the protagonist's trials and triumphs as though they were one's own.

That willing adoption of the protagonist's role is absolutely crucial in a puzzle game of any difficulty. Solving well-designed puzzles takes work, and players justifiably expect to be rewarded for that work. The best puzzles force the interactor to think in unfamiliar ways, to adopt a fundamentally different viewpoint than everyday life. This makes the breakthrough insight of a solution feel exhilirating, and confirmation of that insight by the game very satisfying.

Why am I boring you with this prosaic restatement of the obvious? Because Endymion absolutely nails that feeling in a manner that few games do. Indeed, in this carefully designed puzzle game, the protagonist's triumph in essence is the player's triumph; they are functionally one and the same.

The blank slate of the AFGNCAAP protagonist is perfect for the narrative, which very much feels like a late golden age short story from authors such as Larry Niven or Poul Anderson. The game design is remniscent of games such as Hadean Lands and Starcross, with the key to progress rooted in logic unique to the story but yielding to intuitions at least adjacent to everyday sensibilities.

What elevates this game to landmark status is the fabulous translation subsystem put in place to aid the player's exploration of the central mystery, that of the alien language which is quickly encountered and must be at least partially understood to reach the end. Author Daniel Stelzer significantly advanced the state of the art in IF here, crafting something that will surely be adopted by other authors in the future: a user interface that tracks the original context of all observed instances of alien words, allows the player to assign meanings to them, and produces provisional translations of alien inscriptions based on the meanings assigned.

Science fiction stories frequently portray the use of computerized translators in first contact scenarios, and Stelzer's translation subsystem is effectively one of these devices come to life and placed within the player's hands. It's a truly fascinating experience to see one's own hesitant interpretations challenged by obviously incorrect translations when encountering new inscriptions, and to try to reconcile the new data with what came before in order to replace or refine one's assigned meanings. Though I'm not a linguist, this work gave me a taste of what being one must be like -- it wouldn't surprise me if this game went viral and swept through the linguistics departments of the world's universities.

That's not to say that one must actually be a linguist in order to appreciate this game. Stelzer has released the source code for this game, and included with it is a complete translation of the miniature alien language. My own translations were significantly off in several respects, but that didn't stop me from reaching the end. Public comments by the author suggest concern that the puzzles were too hard, and if they depended on exact translation they might be. However, given that the language serves primarily to inform the game's associated mechanical puzzles, a somewhat fuzzy comprehension works well to reinforce the feel of the setting by maintaining a veil of mystery.

The capstone of Stelzer's achievement here is that the whole game was conceived and written in around five days. It's clear that the author's inspiration springs from a genuine passion for the subject matter, and I salute Stelzer for creating an experience that embodies a living spark of that passion.