Ratings and Reviews by OtisTDog

There are competing schools of thought in IF. Many in the new school believe the story is paramount, and that puzzles and other game-like qualities are sometimes nothing more than unwanted throwbacks to the primitive days of mere "text adventures". "All Roads" is the first piece I encountered that made me think the new-schoolers might be on to something.

It's been a couple of years since I played this piece, and I don't really recall any puzzles at all. They were there, but they seemed so easily solved that it was clear their main purpose was to keep the reader involved, and not to delay completion of the story. What I do recall is the very intriguing plot, which, like a dense film along the lines of "Memento", kept me both enthralled and slightly disoriented until the very end. As with "Memento", I still can't say I fully understand "All Roads", but I don't hesitate to recommend it.

When I first discovered that interactive fiction had started a renaissance of sorts, I was mostly excited about the possibility of playing the old Infocom titles again. I had tried several games before Spider and Web, and, like so many of those before it, this game started out bland and uninteresting. Like the others, it seemed to be the product of someone with far more enthusiasm than skill as either a programmer or storyteller; its most interesting feature seemed to be the title.

Three minutes later, I was surprised to find that this game had a point and was interesting. Ten minutes later, I was awestruck.

I still hold the Infocom games up as the gold standard, but this game was the first I encountered that rated a "platinum" label. Daring in its conception and almost always brilliant in its execution of both programming and prose, Spider and Web shows the true power of the medium. This story simply couldn't be told in any other format in such an effective way.

I reserve five stars for works that are not just good, but that reach the epitome of a particular genre or otherwise earn a "landmark" status. Such works are the yardsticks by which all others are measured. I'm happy to bestow my first five star rating here on Spider and Web for its sheer genius in terms of premise and construction.

Kudos to Mr. Plotkin, who well deserves his reputation as a star in the IF community.

I'm not a huge fan of one-room games, but, as others have noted, this game turns what is normally an artificial limitation into a natural extension of the premise.

The start of the game is, aside from its unusually long length, a textbook example of how to provide immersion, orientation, and urgency all in one go: The initial diary entries set the humorous tone and sketch the broad outlines of the main characters' personalities, the problem to be overcome by the player is both clear and logical, and the first steps on the path to winning are almost immediately apparent. [NOTE: I originally played this game in 2008, and I believe that the game's introduction has been substantially shortened since then.]

Most importantly, this game was fun! The mounting tension had me both typing and reading faster as the game progressed, with just enough comic relief thrown in to keep me grinning.

Though I did find some bugs, they were not enough to seriously impact the playing experience. Definitely worth checking out if you've missed it so far.