Reviews by OtisTDog

This game is small, but there's good reason: It was submitted as an entry to the Commodore 32 Contest, which challenged entrants to create a Z-code game weighing in at 32K or less (the memory size limit of the fictional Commodore 32 computer).

The competition was created to showcase mInform, a minimalist library designed to replace the Inform 6 standard library. I'm not sure what the point of mInform was (other than the standard engineer's motivation of "because I can"), but mInform can be used to create quite functional games, as author Robert Street demonstrates with Turning Point.

The introduction of this piece sets up a backdrop of interstellar war that comes across with all the excitement of a USA Today news blurb. As the action starts, you are standing on the oddly-placed bridge of a starship as the Captain (whom you are a clone of) issues assignments to handle various problems on the ship. You are shortly assigned to investigate a "disturbance" which turns out to be a firefight with an alien infiltrator.

It's actually not a bad setup, but the execution as a story leaves much to be desired. Though the 32K limit leaves precious little room for exposition, much of it is wasted on an unnecessary and frivolous detours(Spoiler - click to show) -- the fact that the PC is a clone of the Captain, and some backstory about an accident the Captain had which has caused him to take a more juvenile mindset. Neither of these has any relevance to the plot that I could detect, and good editing would have trimmed them out.

There is also a tendency to use humor when justifying restricting the player's actions. While the jokes are amusing, they do not fit with the serious and straightforward quality of the puzzle design.

Regardless, the writing is good enough to create an engaging atmosphere without unduly taxing the player's willing suspension of disbelief, and it is complemented by solid (if basic) programming technique and better-than-average puzzle for such a short game.

It's about a 15-minute diversion to win, and any new authors who are better writers than coders can use this as a benchmark for basic functionality.

IF author Sean Barrett's brief homage to Douglas Adams on the occasion of his death (one of several produced as part of the DNA Tribute Speed IF) is an excellent example of what short-form interactive fiction can accomplish.

Using just three locations, a handful of objects, and two non-interactive NPCs, Mr. Barrett creates a brief but engrossing experience combining elements of Adams' Hitchhiker and Dirk Gently universes. Fans of Adams' work (such as myself) will appreciate the attempt to render Dirk Gently's unique worldview faithfully, while those unfamiliar with the underlying novels will probably still find themselves drawn into the puzzle that Barrett presents.

While the piece has a cliffhanger ending (and is unlikely to be continued due to intellectual property laws), it provides a satisfying and well-balanced dose of exploration, problem-solving, and humor. The puzzle is just the right level of complexity for an introductory sequence, requiring the player to begin coming to grips with the uniqueness of the game universe but not requiring mind-reading.(Spoiler - click to show) The manner in which the obvious solution doesn't quite cut it, and the humorous game feedback it generates, is perfect for easing the player into greater effort of puzzle-solving without presenting the frustration of a dead-end brick wall.

Though I doubt The Sofa at the End of the Universe would live up to Mr. Adams' preferred level of diabolical complexity in interactive fiction, it is a fitting tribute to the most highly-regarded "crossover" IF author in the field's history. Adams fan or not, I recommend this piece.

Submitted as the first chapter of a six-part work proposed by the Segment Mini-Comp, this incredibly brief piece is under-implemented, uninspired, and did not encourage me to continue on to the next chapter. It seems like what might result from 30 minutes of sketching out an idea in code, then calling it quits.

Skip it, and see Mr. Carbol's Spring Cleaning as a better example of what he's capable of.

Earth and Sky is a popular piece that is probably most notable for two things: introducing the superhero genre to IF, and successfully founding the first serial adventure in the medium. [edit: After writing this, I realized that the Frenetic Five series probably has a better claim to both of these distinctions.]

An IF Comp entry, Earth and Sky takes no chances with the recommended timeline for gameplay; it seems impossible that you might not finish within the allotted two hours. Its relatively linear story -- usually a big turnoff for me -- is compensated for by the fact that this story is fun to read and still somehow offers a sense of freedom. Rather than feeling railroaded by the plot requirements, you feel swept along by the fast-paced events you are involved in; instead of feeling pushed, you are racing to keep up.

Like the early Lone Ranger or Flash Gordon serials, this work is unapologetic in its use of cliche conventions and its cliffhanger ending. It has no need for apology -- indeed, it shows us why those cliches exist in the first place, and the authors have delivered on their promise for more in the game's two award-winning sequels.

Though I haven't felt the urge to replay the game since I first tried it a few years back, this is a fun one that's well-suited to a lunch-hour diversion, or as a friendly introduction to the form for an IF newcomer.

Written as the original implementation of Inform neared maturity (this work uses version 5.5), Spiritwrak is an old-school epic of a size and complexity comparable to the larger Infocom titles.

It seems that Daniel S. Yu, the author, firmly believed in the adage that "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." This work treads a fine line between those paths, starting with a premise rooted in the climax of Infocom's Spellbreaker and playing like something that came right out of its development team. As Duncan Stevens notes in his SPAG review: "[T]he magic system is suspiciously reminiscent of the Enchanter series, and the humor captures the Zork style." However, Spiritwrak adds a heavy layer of originality to the geographical and mythological framework created by Infocom, allowing it to stand as an achievement in its own right.

Spiritwrak is extremely difficult. Even for an old-school piece, the puzzles can be brutal. Some puzzles are arguably fair but lack what would be considered the minimum reasonable hinting by modern standards. Other puzzles require feats of mind-reading of the type that would have sold a lot of Invisiclues­™ back in the day.(Spoiler - click to show) (For example, can you guess how to hide behind some curtains when the "hide" verb is not implemented and opening them results in you immediately shutting them again? Can you guess the significance of a small boat's name, or which of the many topic-poor NPCs might be able to tell you about it? Can you guess that using your triplication spell on a certain item won't actually triplicate it, but instead produce variations of it that contain plot-necessary items?) A few puzzles appear to be virtual -- they halt progress like a designed puzzle but are probably due to flaws or limitations in the coding. This last group is especially frustrating because, in a game with so little hinting, it's easy to think you are missing key items or actions when in reality you have the right idea and everything you need(Spoiler - click to show), but are not holding the right objects "directly", i.e. in the top level of your inventory.

This is the kind of game that requires you to take notes, to draw maps, to learn by dying, to spend significant time pondering dead ends and red herrings, and to continually second-guess what you thought were solutions to the puzzles you've solved. For old-school aficionados, it's heaven! For everyone else, be prepared to seek hints -- though I highly recommend you do so via rec.games.int-fiction or IFMUD, as the "hint" files you can download here contain copious spoilers that are impossible to avoid.

Interestingly, this game claims to be released under the GNU Public License v2, which means that anyone should be able to expand and improve it. Unfortunately, however, it is not distributed with the source code (as required by GPL), and I was unable to locate the source online. If anyone else happens to come across it, please leave a comment here -- it would be interesting to explore cleaning up some bugs, making certain key descriptions of objects and action slightly clearer(Spoiler - click to show) (especially the brick puzzle in the endgame), and implementing an in-game hint system.

Toeing the Line is a product of Speed IF Autocratic Fist, which tasked authors with producing a discourse on the theme of hubris using an improbable combination of "vestigial tail, environmental policy on ferret populations, phlogiston, a pink parasol, sudden undeath, or crappy madlibs."

The author, Gregory Weir, seems to have mostly ignored the overarching theme in favor of crafting an experience that combined as many of the random seed elements as possible. To my surprise, he does a creditable job of doing so in this strange and silly piece.

Though much of the gameplay is mechanical and not particularly rewarding, Weir does an excellent job of pacing the short play experience. The brief introduction provides all the characterization and backstory that is needed to make the restraints placed on the player's action reasonable, while leaving most of the specifics of the situation undefined. The new player has just enough turns to familiarize himself with his equipment and the surroundings before the main action begins. Weir shows a deft touch in his descriptions, painting broad strokes of mood and style with compact and clever writing.

While it was disappointing to find how little could be done in the main sequence, it captures the frenzied mindset that would no doubt prevail in that situation. The result is much the same regardless of how many points the player scores, and the entire experience seems far too short -- a mere glimpse of what I quickly found myself wishing was a larger experience.

The coding quality and attention to detail seem significantly above-average. This, coupled with the writing expertise and intuitive feel for pacing, makes me very interested in seeing what Mr. Weir can produce in a longer development timeline.

One of four entries for Speed IF 12, The Hose was produced by formerly prolific author Peter Berman in 2000, his most productive year (at least in terms of works released). Challenged by a premise in which the narrator must prepare a special surprise in honor of the undefined Chuck Schmendiman, Mr. Berman crafted a short tale featuring frustration, revenge, and beautiful flanges.

Although the opening text seems somewhat drab, Mr. Berman's prose quickly starts sketching a believable universe. Some of the techniques he uses are instructive. For example, he immediately presents the reader with the challenge of understanding "extemporous hose technology" -- the secret to Schmendiman's success and the focus of the narrator's career. Also, by repeatedly mangling the name of Schmendiman in a vaguely derogatory manner (Schmendrick, Schmindleman, etc.), he subtly establishes the players distaste for his employer (and the task at hand) without being required to justify the emotion. In the description of the main item, he establishes the narrator's dissonant admiration for the products of Schmendiman's genius. It's a remarkable job of mood-building in a few dozen paragraphs.

However, this piece slips into two-star territory due to the lack of coherence in the central puzzle. The unusual dream imagery brought to mind the technique used in Planetfall, in which the dream sequence is a metaphor providing hints for the major puzzles encountered by the player, but this was apparently not the purpose of it.(Spoiler - click to show) Instead, it is a timed guess-the-verb challenge, during which you must perform an optional action to gain an "insight" that will advance the plot. The player need not do anything after waking up to see the plot advance, which happens in a way not credibly related to the dream action. The dream imagery seems to have been chosen solely to meet one of the "bonus" items in the speed IF premise.

The end sequence is abrupt, and the narrator's success seems out of proportion with the level of dislike established beforehand.(Spoiler - click to show) I would expect more dramatic tension than non-specific job dissatisfaction to motivate blowing up the whole lab! Better puzzle design and a little more editing would have gone a long way here.

This very short piece is labeled by the author as his first speed IF (Speed IF 17), and it may have been his first published work. Several self-deprecating remarks in-game demonstrate a lack of confidence that was probably justified at the time.

The premise (racing the clock in a building wired with bombs by terrorists, on New Year's Eve) is very ambitious for speed IF, and it sets up anticipation that would be difficult to satisfy with a full-fledged game, let alone something rattled out in a couple of hours. However, the more pressing problem is the author's flat writing, which does nothing to generate interest or involvement.

While the piece is functional as a program, the short plot is basically nonsense. The game can be "won" in a very short series of moves, and the very limited two-room, three-object, 1-NPC implementation makes it relatively easy to discover the winning path, even if nothing about it is comprehensible. One of the objects is stolen from Emily Short's Metamorphoses, something which really does not belong in a piece with this premise unless the author were taking it in a very surreal (or possibly sci-fi) direction.

I will say that, some minor errors aside, the author does appear to have a basic grasp of some of the mechanics of programming and puzzle design -- what's missing is the creative narrative to tie them together. I would not shy away from other works by this author to track his progress as his skills mature.

Another speed IF entry -- this one for PAX East 2010 -- that gains tremendously by throwing away most of the random seed ideas and developing a small set of them into a more coherent narrative.

You play a conference attendee who is struggling to get the last open seat at a one of the overcrowded panel discussions. Competing with you is an antithetical antagonist, whose interest in the panel is unclear. You start out empty-handed, armed only with your wits, determination, and a handy portfolio of famous spells from classic IF.

An engaging and witty comedy puzzler that won't take too long to solve, this piece does a good job of blending old and new in an interesting way. There are some minor-to-significant flaws, as might be expected for a first release of speed IF, but none that should inhibit your progress for very long.(Spoiler - click to show) (Except maybe one... be sure to "rezrov crowd" at some point.)

By all accounts, the IF-related portions of PAX East 2010 drew significant interest from attendees who did not know much about the field. This, in turn, sparked dreams of a resurgence of mainstream appreciation for IF. Such a hopeful mood permeates Ms. Morayati's piece, which ends on a "gooey" note of optimism on this theme. As the number of member reviews on IFDB passes the 1,000 mark, I find myself hoping right along with her.

How about: 'What was the chicken thinking as it crossed the road?'

This short piece can't seem to decide if it's an 'interpreter abuse' type of game implementing Freeway(Spoiler - click to show) -- at which it fails since you can only go one direction -- or an actual attempt at humor. It does a better job of the latter than the former, but not enough to make it actually funny, though I might qualify it as mildly amusing.

It is competently put together as a program; I encountered no bugs. Based on the 'bad' version of the ending, it seems that the author was aware of the work's artistic shortcomings, but decided to release it anyway.

Given the number of other titles by this author with better ratings, I think it's safe to skip this one. As a warning to anyone else who wants to try it out: Gargoyle is not the best client, since the game expects a fixed-width font. You'll either have to download a different interpreter, get Gargoyle to use a different font, or (as I did), copy-and-paste the descriptions to a text editor to see the intended representation.

[edit: I've upped the rating to two stars because the major problem I had (text rendering in Gargoyle) was a function of my interpreter, not the work.]