Ratings and Reviews by OtisTDog

[EDIT: Note that the author has been in touch with me regarding the technical issue described near the end of this review, and it is almost certainly something specific to my non-standard setup. You shouldn't expect to encounter it yourself.]

Detritus (2025), which is not to be confused with a title of the same name from 2013, is this year's IFComp entry by author Ben Jackson. His entry last year, The Den, came in 2nd overall and 1st for Miss Congeniality, and I anticipate similarly high rankings for this polished, high-quality work.

With its slick graphical interfaces, soundtrack, multimedia effects and compelling sci-fi story, playing Detritus feels like playing a commercial-quality offering from yesteryear. This is unabashedly a game, rooted in exploration of a mystery but also requiring juggling certain resource management demands. It offers both easy and normal modes; in my experience there was enough leeway on normal mode to make it worth choosing that, because the additional tension that it adds contributes much to the mood.

Though it takes some time to come into its own, the story does not disappoint. I found it to be far superior to the young adult tale told in The Den, though it does not explore the questions that it raises in any particular depth. (Spoiler - click to show)I admired the key twist, which integrated certain beats that I had taken as merely for style. I certainly didn't see it coming, but like any good twist it immediately reorganizes what came before into a new and coherent whole.

Jackson's prose does a marvelous job of painting the scene. Looking back from the vantage of a few days, I remember most of the action very much like a film. I think this could easily be adapted to a full-scale videogame -- it's its own pitch!

I encountered one technical issue that is relatively minor, and may be specific to my environment. (I'm only mentioning it because there doesn't, as of this writing, seem to have been an update posted to the IFComp website since the time that I downloaded the game.) Certain portions of the game present a nine-button, 3x3 keypad for manipulation. In my browser, for whatever reason, the last button in each row was being shown on its own row even though there was plenty of horizontal room. Since the spatial arrangement of the keys is significant to the puzzles involved, I found it easiest to copy their arrangement elsewhere for reference. In all likelihood, this issue will be fixed shortly -- perhaps even by the time that you read this review.

You won't want to miss this one.

The answer is a short but sweet wordplay puzzler from an author who is clearly familiar with many of the amateur era's most famous works.

After playing this one on my own for about ten minutes, I put it aside so that I could suggest it to my play group. We all had a lot of fun with this well-fashioned game that seems to have drawn inspiration from a whole range of titles, but most resembles Counterfeit Monkey (to which overt homage is paid) blended with the array of magical devices seen in Metamorphoses (plus perhaps bits from Junior Arithmancer's framing story, The Impossible Bottle's iconic centerpiece, and the learn-magic-to-escape-the-room structure of Suveh Nux).

The puzzles fall into two main categories: deducing the function of various magical devices and then using those devices to craft the items needed to escape the room. Both of these types were well done. I don't know how long it might have taken me to finish the game on my own, but the group was able to do it in about 45 minutes.

The game is a bit poker-faced in the beginning, though there are definitely clues to get one started. Once the function of each machine is worked out, there is plenty of fun to be had in trying out the various implemented transformations. As with Counterfeit Monkey there are many more of these than are necessary to reach the end of the game, so a good part of the fun is just playing around. The game has no score, and I don't think that there are anything like achievements set up, so this is purely for one's own amusement.

Gameplay was 100% bug-free, and none of us spotted a single typo, so this work appears to have been very well tested. There is still room for improvement in player friendliness, however, due to uncharacteristically finicky interactions in a few places. (Spoiler - click to show)(We must have typed >PUT X ON TABLE a dozen times. It would be nice for this to automatically reroute to >PUT X IN CHAMBER instead of just disallowing it.) If there is to be a post-comp version, then an achievement system might encourage a more thorough exploration of the possibility space that the author has created; my sense is that we saw only a relatively small portion of it.

This would be a great game for introducing people to parser IF if you're prepared to help them get used to the conventions of the command prompt. Players both young and old are sure to be charmed by Weldon, the world-weary talking rabbit who occasionally provides light hints to nudge you on your way.

I extend my thanks to author Lance Nathan for producing this smart little gem and sharing it with all of us mere players. I certainly hope to see more games by Mr. Nathan in the future.

Long ago, in a review of Zombies (1999), I wrote:

I was struck by the way this piece is framed -- it made me think about the possibilities of throwing a mini-game like this into the midst of a standard IF work... In this case, the game is turn-based, which might work with the "stop-and-think" nature of IF instead of against it.

In all likelihood, Arthur DiBianca, author of Operative Nine was completely unaware that the above statement existed. It nonetheless pleases me to see that the idea -- one that far exceeds my own technical ability -- actually had merit.

This is another limited parser game by DiBianca, who is one of the most prolific (if not the most prolific) authors in this functional subgenre. As he once explained in a short interview, one of the reasons that he likes to use the limited parser format is that it makes his games more accessible to those new to parser IF. His experiments have consistently proven that limiting the options for player input in no way limits the amount of fun that the player can have.

In a limited parser game, the reduced instruction set available for commands generally keeps the search for a solution short enough to maintain a brisk pace, which produces a fundamentally different feel to these as compared to traditional parser works. The simplified solution space also creates a fundamentally different basis for effective puzzle design -- the author must figure out how to anticipate (or create) gaps in the player's intuition and require solutions that don't seem obvious even when they are plainly in view, metaphorically speaking.

When done right, the solution eventually comes to the player like the flash of insight informing a clever geometry proof. Failing this ideal result, the author can at least be certain that the brute force work to discover the solution is manageable. DiBianca is especially gifted in hitting that "just right" mark, and in anticipating just how far to take things before boredom and/or frustration set in. As someone who generally dislikes pure logic puzzles, I admire DiBianca's skill at dressing these up in mini-games that make solving them feel like play instead of work.

Although this game at first seems like something in the spirit of Spider and Web, DiBianca's playfulness comes through in short order, and the player will quickly discover that the only significant actions to be performed are moving around and playing the mini-games presented through the "PQ-807 microcomputer" available from the start. A tutorial game shows one the ropes, and then the first puzzle (opening a door) must be solved.

DiBianca's inventiveness is on display here as he deploys about a dozen different mini-games ranging from simplistic to devilish in difficulty. I didn't have to consult any hints to reach the end, but I did get through one or two of the puzzles only via what felt like blind luck in stumbling onto a solution.

Someone who loves logic puzzles could probably fly through this game in 30 to 45 minutes; I lost track because I was having too much fun to pay attention to the clock, but it felt about the regulation two hours. I was especially glad to see that the penultimate puzzle (Spoiler - click to show)actually consisted of several different mini-mini-games combined into one challenge, since the difficulty had only been increasing until that point. (Among DiBianca's many talents is an excellent sense of pacing.)

This game is solidly fun, and I give it extra points for breaking new ground -- something that grows ever-rarer in an art form now in its fourth decade. With any luck, Operative Nine will inspire similar experiments in the future.

This game categorically defies expectations. It starts out giving every sign of being a hack job by a first-time author desperately fighting a losing battle against Inform 7's seemingly infinite layers of complexity, and I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it is. The remarkable thing is that, in the end, author Laura (no surname given) won that battle.

Countless new authors come to the world of interactive fiction with grand visions of making a sprawling epic of a game that does everything. Grand worldbuilding! Sorting hats! Combat! Conversations! Multiple endings! Crafting! Nailbiting tension! Reversals! Philosophical beats! Timeloops! The meta! This is impossible. It can't be done, especially by a newbie... unless, apparently, they are stripped down to their absolute core and all concerns about polish are tossed aside.

A large number of player actions in Mooncrash! take the form of a >CHOOSE verb (i.e. the affordance that is the heart of the choice-based paradigm), which seems to have been simply bludgeoned into place, crushing all built-in conversational verbs in the process. That verb -- plus >EXAMINE, basic movement, >TAKE, >PUT and a handful of specialized attack verbs -- are the only commands that will do anything for the player. Other verbs remain but are irrelevant since they do nothing useful.

Many works in recent decades have proven that this is enough. Superluminal Vagrant Twin, The Little Match Girl 3: The Escalus Manifold, practically the whole catalog of Arthur DiBianca... all of these feature essentials-only command prompt interaction that keeps the action moving by limiting the player's choices to the handful of options that are relevant at that point in the unfolding story. The author's execution at this game design level is very adroit; each scenelet has one easily-apprehensible mechanic, and the spaces in between are handled with quick-to-read prose decorated by hefty sprinkles of narrative glitter fashioned from RPG tropes (both tabletop and computerized).

The prose is absolutely essential to this game's success. As noted author Amanda Walker says in her intfiction.org review of the game, it "needs to be purple and is suitably lilac". Given how rough-hewn the program side is, one might expect the writing to be similarly crude, and the opening paragraph certainly does little to challenge that expectation. As one progresses through the story, however, low expectations are challenged with bits of imagery and beats of action that suggest a raw talent for the craft of IF, one that grew significantly even over the course of creating this game.

There is hinting about a deeper story, one that perhaps justifies certain hard-to-explain aspects of the situation presented. (Spoiler - click to show)(The main villain and the Four Winds are originally a group of friends from a universe more like our own? Or maybe they're all avatars of a group of players in a computer game, just like the protagonist?) Are these hints even consistent? Does that question even matter? If you're only in it for the fun, then the answer is no. The story provided is a half-finished sketch that lets one fill in the blanks with the ideas that seem right according to fit and preference.

This is one of those games whose main strength is that it continues to surprise on the upside all the way through, even when taking the completionist route and trying to see every ending. It really does delight, and intrigue, and satisfy. If the author considers refining this game into a post-competition release, my own advice (of quite dubious value) would be to go in the direction of "less is more" by learning to remove unneeded default actions entirely, and also to take some cues from authors of "limited parser" games such as the ones listed above about how to better set player expectations in accordance with that style. There is some danger that doing this would dispel the air of earnest sincerity that is a substantial part of the game's charm.

Although the quality of the initial segment will vary somewhat depending on the results of the factional alignment at the start of the game, anyone spending two hours with this game is certain to get past the initial poor impression, so it will be interesting to see how it fares in the competition. Even if it places low in the rankings, I would strongly encourage the author to spend some time genuinely studying the available tools (and to seek help and advice on the forum) so that the next attempt can better fulfill such a sweeping vision.

On first starting this game, I was strongly reminded of Rover's Day Out, due to the split-level reality of the action taking place. However, as play continued my thoughts turned more to the early chapters of Homestuck.

The minimal challenge to be found in Moon Logic comes primarily from dealing with the "helpful" automation that attempts to interpret what the player means to do based purely on the chosen verb and the object context. As one might guess, this is only sometimes what the player actually wants to do. Soon enough, anyone playing this will be learning how the automation thinks and trying to anticipate its foibles to accomplish one's objective.

The main action involves exploring the immediate environs of Zork's classic white house. It's an impressive bit of work, both looking and feeling like you are interacting with a world model engine as complex as would be found in a typical parser game. (There's even nested inventory!) I find myself very curious about the technical underpinnings of this work and hope that author Onno Brouwer will provide some details in a post-mortem after the competition.

The player familiar with the original on which this spoof is based will recognize the NPCs and locations, often modified from their inspiration. Although the setting and emulated display strongly encourage the sense of playing the original, actual gameplay frequently diverges from expectations. Perhaps the greatest feat accomplished by Brouwer in this work is creating something fresh that is also a parody of Infocom's first game.

Along with the main progression of plot action, there is a second progression involving the UI itself. Billed as featuring the latest in "artificial incompetence," the simulated game proceeds to live up to that moniker by imposing visual effects over the basic text window. At first, these are fun and amusing, but by the time it gets to the point where (Spoiler - click to show)the text orientation rotates every few seconds, I was looking for the off button. (Fortunately, Brouwer has provided one.)

At the end, the game delivers a ranking in the old school style -- one based not on points but on turn count. Presumably, fewer moves results in better rankings; if not, then the ranking I received (Spoiler - click to show)("'Me, too' adventurer") is a bit of metacommentary. Achievements are also tracked, pegged to turn count instead of point value, making me wonder whether there may be more to be found than I saw in a single playthrough.

This isn't a deep game, but it is a fun short experience that mixes a bit of potential nostalgia with a demonstration that much more is possible in today's technical environment. It's well worth the time to play.

This is a horribly broken game, so broken that I have to issue it a one-star rating... but I wish it wasn't.

The title of this review is a somewhat compressed line from the game itself. The NPC to whom you would be speaking at that point is Dr. Polter, one of a handful of significant NPCs in the game -- the others being a mute and unsanitary ice cream vendor, an enormous stag, and FDR. (Yes, that last is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The actual original, brought out of cryogenic suspension.) (Spoiler - click to show)Dr. Polter possesses a key that you will need in order to encounter FDR. It's a bit tortuous to trace out the decompiled Glulx game code, but I think (based on gameplay) that you have to exhaust all of these topics in order to get the key.

It's an example of the type of nerdy, goofy humor sprinkled throughout this half-finished piece. Here's another:


> spray stag with spray
It STAGgers away wheezing, clearing your path.


I mean, yes -- it's a bad pun. Some of you laughed, though. I know it.

There's no denying that this game is a mess as a program. It's also pretty messy in design, seemingly one of those play-around-while-learning-to-code types of efforts. Still, and perhaps surprisingly, the game is minimally playable and can be completed. I don't think anyone is likely to make much progress without resorting to decompilation, but the single largest obstacle is a terrible implementation of an elevator. I won't even wrap this in spoiler tags since it's more like an anti-spoiler: The key to using it is >PRESS BUTTON followed by >STEP INTO ELEVATOR. (Per the decompiled code, a special action is implemented for this.)

I have a soft spot for these neophyte efforts informed by Infocom tropes, and I'm often amused by absurdity, so it bums me out that author Sarah Bullard seems to have abandoned this game before finishing it, most likely due to frustration with learning Inform 7. If you're out there, Sarah: Join the intfiction.org forum and ask for help in cleaning this up -- I can see that you had a lot of fun ideas to share.

There is no point in even having an IFDB entry for this item, which the evidence suggests is the product of someone spending about an hour with Inform 7 before tiring of the effort of learning the basics and moving on to another hobby.

David Welbourn's "walkthrough" (a term which seems to have extra applicability in this case) is complete; I decompiled the Z-code to make sure that nothing else was hiding. The sum total of author-supplied text is as follows:

---

Room 1:

A Bottomless Void

Deep inside the void, you hear a quiet sobbing that surges from a source that you can not locate. The wailing sounds are weak and broken, almost feminine, but not quite. It seems nearly familiar, yet distant, like the relationship of the sun and the moon. Your sight betrays you, for even though you stare into this absurd reality, your concentration mirrors this realm, never fixating, and always in motion. The weeping rises in intensity, the cries assault your ears more often, and they increase in volume. A variety of strange, swirling and altering colours converge around you, and then suddenly retract, and converge once more. A ceaseless kaleidoscope of glowing lights and shifting imagery. The lament of the woman induces an abrupt pain above your right eye, causing you to close your eyes and avoid the tornado of colour, but the scene remains there, unaffected by humanity's natural hiding mechanism. You shake your head, trying to negate the invasive gaze of this indifferent scenery, but its hold never falters, and restrains you. The wails suddenly morph and alter into a distorted, masculine voice, and a strange gargling sound emits from deep within its throat. The throaty sound drones on, staying at a rather low note, but the sound does not alter, or form into a comprehensible fragment of speech. It seems as if it is waiting for you to make the first move, but you have no idea where the sound's host is, as you can only hear the low, gargling noise. Though you can't find the source of the deep, throaty sound, you decide that it would be best to look around this strange, colourful and eriee realm.

---

Room 2 (east of room 1):

Whirlwind of Dancing Shapes

You look to your right, and notice a difference from the lights that were infront of you. Over here, they seem brighter, and their glow pulsates, shining incredibly bright, then suddenly dying down, and reapeating the process over and over. Shapes also appear from the swaying colours. Though, they are not such shapes like squares or triangles. These shapes are heavily deformed, mutated and absurd. Like a smudged, pastel painting, the forms and colours are slow and sluggish, and they excrete a presence of depression and despair. You can only go back, as there is nothing else of interest here.

---

Room 3 (west of room 1):

A Dark Presence

To your left is a haven for a multitude of glowing lights that are shining incredibly dully. At first they were swaying and rushing around the space of this strange place, but the introduction of these dull, nearly lifeless lights has hindered the almost beautiful display of dazzling lights and colours. The last remaining glowing orbs finally followed suit of the now dead lights, and slowed to a crawl, finally burning out. Out of nowhere, a burst of black streams forward to where the dead orbs make rest, and coats the assorted colours and orbs, absorbing them, and one could no longer tell if they had even existed. Bubble like shapes appear on the areas where colour remains, and more of the black liquid shoots foward, staining the once majestic display of light and absurd colour. The whole left side of this alternate realm is now a giant, swirling blanket of black. The once, almost appealing, colouring of this world had been completely dissolved on the left side. The monstrous, dark and haunting sheet of black had suddenly stopped spinning and twirling, and now lies motionless. With its cease of motion, it almost seems inviting, as if it wants company to venture forth and explore its depths. You can go closer to the black ocean that blankets the entire left side of this strange realm, or you can go back and search for that voice.

---

Unless you get a particular joy out of typing direction abbreviations into a command prompt, you have now been spared any need to interact with this thing, which is not a game and does not even qualify for the word "work." (If you prefer, you can make a game out of looking for the typo that I corrected.)