Ratings and Reviews by OtisTDog

Wow.

Sometimes a work of IF is so absorbing that when you finish, it feels like waking up from a dream. You sit there, blinking, and it takes a few moments to re-orient to the real world.

Cut the Sky is one of those works.

That's not due to the setting, which is a vaguely Vancian far future environment, of the type where the line between sufficiently advanced technology and magic has been functionally erased by a succession of epochs which have left the world studded with incomprehensible ruins and wonders. It's not due to the plot, which is about as basic as they come -- a drifter's journey through a weird world in search of a goal half-imagined, half-dreamt. It's the writing, which is of a class that author SV Linwood has not previously demonstrated in published works, that makes this work shine, coupled with a deep understanding of craft that intimately supports that writing in ways large and small.

The story here is minimalism done right; everything non-essential has been left behind, correctly deemed as irrelevant. Linwood wields a virtual pen like the protagonist wields a blade (or something like it), not as a tool or even as a weapon but as an extension of will. With a flick, a location is cut into virtual existence, the few sentences slashing lines through your attention like a razor. They seem like nothing, you barely feel them -- but then the associations start to well up, and the imaginary place blooms into a bright and compelling scene in your mind.

Everything is like that. Characters are archetypes, but you know them instantly because they are made up of everything your subconscious insists they must be. Machines and creatures are evoked in a handful of words, conjuring forms that match the contours of every assumption you hold, every connotation suggested by the author's choice of vocabulary.

With respect to craft, other reviewers point out the most interesting feature of the gameplay: The story progresses only when you, the player, are satisfied with the outcome of each scene. The frequent need to choose between the commands >WANDER (to move on) and >RETURN (to replay) elevates the interactor to a role that in some ways approaches that of co-author -- as your sense of the story develops you are given the power to continuously refine it as you go. Each scene seems to support several distinctive resolutions, allowing you to pick one that matches your own sensibilities about the tale being told. It's not clear that any of these differences have an effect on the game state that creates consequences for the evolving story, but it's definitely clear that they allow the player to at least partially shape narrative elements other than plot (e.g. mood, theme) in the evolving experience of the story.

It's an extremely powerful effect, one that changes the nature of the gameplay significantly because it puts the game in the position of having to try to align itself to your intentions. The skillful writing plays a substantial part here, guiding you toward the types of interactions that the program is prepared to offer like a magician forcing the draw of a card.

It took me a while to decide on a star rating for this one -- for several weeks I've thought of it as being on the cusp between four and five stars. In the end, its landmark/king-of-the-hill status as a story about a wanderer protagonist (a definite genre) earns it the highest marks. Definitely don't miss this one... as either player or would-be author there are things to marvel at here.

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.