Ratings and Reviews by OtisTDog

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.