Ratings and Reviews by OtisTDog

Continuing a string of Western games, I decided to try this one from 1995 -- the dawn of the hobbyist era. This distant origin is immediately evident when one sits down and begins Spur; its comprehensive failure to invite players to actually, you know, play is a shock to modern sensibilities.

The action begins in media res with the protagonist in the middle of a showdown with someone named Roy Heffer. It's kill or be killed (ending the game) in the first three moves -- there doesn't seem to be any way to de-escalate the situation or otherwise escape the necessity of gunning down this man, whose conflict with you is of vague and uncertain origin. This inevitability becomes clear after a dozen quick restarts, so... goodbye, Roy.

As a player, you might feel that at least you have the justification of self-defense, but local law enforcement seems to disagree. Within about ten turns, they'll arrive and haul you to jail (ending the game). Per the walkthrough, in that time you're supposed to figure out that you can (Spoiler - click to show)recruit the town drunk to move the dead guy's body, giving access to the dead guy's wallet. How you're supposed to figure this out without consulting the walkthrough or source code is not at all clear, but it's an essential step.

Following that... wait. You know what? I was getting ready to go through the list of every problem encountered, but there's really no point. As far as I can tell, this work is entirely composed of gameplay problems. It demonstrates just about every bad old school habit I can think of: withholding information from the player that is easily available to the PC, zero flexibility in overcoming obstacles in other than a single prescribed manner, limited time access to critical objects that the player has no reason to expect will be necessary (or even present in the scene), lack of explicit description of a key exit from a room, a described but inaccessible exit from a room that should go to a key location, an inventory limit that irritates due to its pointlessness, moon logic solutions to key puzzles, and more -- and that's all within the first 50 moves. (50 consecutive moves, that is -- hundreds of cumulative moves across sessions.) After using the walkthrough to get through the first handful of mind-reading exercises masquerading as puzzles, I gave up hope of encountering an actual playable part and just followed it through to the end.

All of those flaws are excusable in a game from 1995, since the model of near-constant frustration established by commercial producers was the only model anyone knew or expected. That doesn't, however, make them justifiable -- or fun. (For those who've read my review of Spur's contemporary Christminster: Boy, howdy, does that seem like a player-friendly paradise compared to this.)

Spur is written in Hugo, a language that never seems to have quite caught on. Any system needs its "admirable example" to encourage interest among prospective adopters, but this work does not fit the bill. That said, the source code has been made available, and perusing that was significantly more amusing than the game itself. (Favorite line, which seems exceedingly unlikely to be encountered without knowing about its existence: (Spoiler - click to show)"Clown-killing asshole," he mutters, before wasting you.) It was the source code that prompted the title of this review; for some reason, there seems to be an awful lot of attention to detail paid to being able to kill almost every living thing the PC encounters in the game universe. (Also because (Spoiler - click to show)pretty much everything the protagonist does is more along the lines of scoundrel than hero.)

The feature that stands out most positively about Spur is its innovative response to the >SCORE command, which relates the current state of progress in a kind of summary of the action so far. The way it's phrased seems to imply that there might be other ways to handle certain aspects of the scenario, but that's illusory -- the source shows that very little variation is possible. Still, it's a neat effect that I haven't encountered elsewhere, and it's one that might have broader applicability to story-forward games that don't provide a numeric score.

I can't recommend this game to play, but it is worthwhile to examine as a target-rich environment of solvable problems. The gap between its current state and a potentially fun version isn't really that large, and one could make an exercise out of identifying the shortest path to get there. It's also a solid Hugo implementation of a fairly complex scenario, so if you're interested in trying Hugo you can probably get a good feel for how well it fits your style within 20 minutes of skimming the well-organized source.

I've been on a Western streak for IF lately, and The Song of the Mockingbird is one of the more prominent entries in that genre. Arguably, it is responsible for kicking off the largest wave of Western works in the hobbyist era of IF -- fully a quarter of all titles listed under that genre in IFDB follow Mockingbird's publication in 2021, when it placed 3rd in IFComp and tied for second in that year's Miss Congeniality vote.

Consciously modeled after old-time serial adventures for the cinema, Mockingbird claims to be episode 12 in an ongoing series, and it makes significant reference to events from (non-existent) recent episodes that directly inform the plot arc embodied by this work. To summarize: the hero, "Boots" Taylor, has fallen in love with the beautiful performer Rosa, who has been abducted by the scurrilous Black Blade -- a local villain whose most recent dastardly plot the hero was not quite able to stop entirely -- and he means to free his love from the clutches of this evildoer.

The only complication is that Boots doesn't have his gun, which was stolen by members of Black Blade's gang the night before. Right off the bat this work eschews some of the most elemental tropes of the Western, in the process creating much potential for action in the medium dry goods puzzle-solving mode so familiar to parser IF. It's a clever setup, and it works really well when backed by author Mike Carletta's engaging prose.

After overcoming an initial ambush in an arroyo, the action moves to the abandoned ranch that the gang is using for its hideout. Carletta does an excellent job of conveying a fairly complex space here, one that features important three-dimensional elements. The hero (via the player) must use his wits to overcome the trio of remaining gunmen protecting Black Blade and the hostage Rosa, who is in the house at the center of the ranch, always tantalizingly near but out of reach across a no-man's land of open ground that offers no cover for the hero. This mid-game is on the whole extremely well done; my one quarrel with it is that a key item is "hidden in the scenery," i.e. only disclosed after the player chooses to >EXAMINE a particular item in the room description. (Spoiler - click to show)(It's the branding iron, found in the stables only after (Spoiler - click to show)>EXAMINE RAFTERS.)

A minor rant for the benefit of would-be authors: (Spoiler - click to show)Although this "search everything" style is a classic old school parser trope, it's really the weakest form of puzzle (if you care to dignify this type of obstacle with the name), since it forces the player to lawnmower everything in sight, usually with at least three verbs: >EXAMINE, >SEARCH and >LOOK UNDER. I don't generally have a problem with this type of activity when there is a payoff in cases where nothing is found, i.e. when the author uses the descriptions yielded by the activity to further exposition, mood, etc., or when it's an integral part of the scenario (e.g. a forensic investigation). (In such cases, the activity becomes interactive storytelling instead of just drudgery.) Otherwise, it's still mostly OK so long as the author has taken pains to cover every mentioned noun with corresponding objects. (I don't exactly like it, but I accept it as fair.) Far worse than either of those approaches is a spotty object implementation that doesn't cover all mentioned nouns but still expects you to be investigating them routinely. Parser errors (e.g. "You can't see any such thing."), even inventive replacement versions, are never entertainment when repeated with frequency. The point of a parser error is to train the player to not do that in this game, and an author penalizes the cooperative player when making the applicability of parser errors inconsistent. If you want to hide items, better to hide them "in plain sight," i.e. as part of some tableau of objects about which the PC reasonably might not perceive every detail at once. (Key word: "reasonably." Having to >EXAMINE a table or the like to see what's on it is ridiculous and thankfully does not occur in this game.) Failing that, some gentle prompting to direct player attention (e.g. in this case perhaps the rafters occasionally creaking in the wind) or eventual automatic disclosure (e.g. the PC "happening" to spot something after so many turns) is called for. An author never ruins any genuine puzzle by directing players' attention to the components they need to solve it.

Once entering the endgame, the plot is resolved in short order -- regrettably, too short of an order. The game hints so strongly about what the player should be doing that it might as well be pure cutscene. The larger problem with the climax is that it hinges on a twist revelation that the player can't meaningfully absorb, resulting in a wedge being driven between the player/PC identity so carefully nurtured to that point. It turns out that (Spoiler - click to show)Black Blade and Rosa are one and the same, and though this doesn't seem to matter to the protagonist (whose undying love for her is proclaimed but not explained) Rosa, apparently unable to live with her recent past, is about to (Spoiler - click to show)commit suicide by dynamite.

This climax could certainly work as drama, but as presented here it's just too rushed to appreciate; the result is a bad stumble at the end of what is otherwise a high quality production. Better preparation of the player's mindset would be the key here: As always, the measure of quality for a twist is how much it makes sense in retrospect given what the audience has been shown, i.e. how well it reorganizes prior perceptions, especially how it grants new significance to details that didn't quite fit the audience's operating assumptions before the reveal. Perhaps the device of (Spoiler - click to show)using each bad guy's dying words as a clue (as seems to be started with the death of Ace at the end of the opening scene) could be leveraged to better set up the intended unveiling. (Even better would be to have released some prior episodes, so that the player would be able to genuinely sympathize with the PC's viewpoint, but let's not get too ambitious with our idle wishes here.)

Ending aside, this was a very enjoyable game to play -- it took me two or three hours to complete since I was unwilling to use hints or a walkthrough (though I did end up needing one clue). That's a testament to the author's skill in crafting a fun and engaging puzzle-solving experience, and I can see why Mockingbird placed so highly in 2021's IFComp. It's certainly among the top few of IF Westerns and Western-adjacent games I've seen (alongside The Legend of Horse Girl, Like a Sky Full of Locusts, and Hoosegow), though I've tried only a small portion of Westerns listed on IFDB. I'd recommend The Song of the Mockingbird for the puzzles, if not the story, and I'd certainly tune in for another episode of the adventures of Boots Taylor.

This game is about a child "inventor" who plans revenge against a trio of bullies that ruin a favorite project. Physically outmatched by the antagonists, the PC instead devises a series of traps to use on them during a planned after school showdown.

It's a terrific premise, but one difficult to deliver in interactive fiction: The ideal freeform combination of objects to novel purposes will always be more limited to the imagination of the author than that of the player. Author DCBSupafly handles this by simply having the game suggest the type of combination that will work when the key ingredient for a trap is discovered. This gives the gameplay a scavenger hunt feel that primarily consists of exploring the available environment (i.e. the protagonist's house) in order to locate the necessary materials.

The writing is of the "adequate" class; simplistic and skimpy on details, it suits the voice of the grade-school age player character well enough but offers little other than description to the reader. Even as description it falls short, as it is frequently the case that items apparently in plain sight (Spoiler - click to show)(e.g. a rotten watermelon sitting on the kitchen counter) go unmentioned in room descriptions, and must be discovered via dedicated >EXAMINE commands. It does do a reasonable job of capturing the burbling, excited outlook of the PC, and this gives the game an air of sincerity that is its greatest asset.

As with every ADRIFT game I've tried, I frequently found the parser to be irritatingly inconsistent. Be prepared for this when starting the game, I guess. Fortunately, by the time you get sick of wrangling with the parser's occasionally erratic responses, you'll probably have made it far enough to end the game.

As Lance Cirone notes, the endgame can be reached at any point after three traps have been deployed, but there appear to be many more possible -- I'm guessing at least eight. Neither the walkthrough nor the >SCORE response gives any clue about the upper limit; I managed five (Spoiler - click to show)(a squirt gun trap, a mud trap, a watermelon trap, a pit trap and a sticky note trap) and had materials that seemed suitable for at least three more (Spoiler - click to show)(two kinds of pepper, a spider egg sac, and rotten milk). I couldn't find a decompiler for ADRIFT that worked on it, so those secrets remain for other players to discover (and hopefully share).

This game could easily have been a high two, since it practically cries out for more polish and refinement. The gleeful climax, which plays out like an 80s kids' movie, is fun enough to push it over the edge into three stars, which means I recommend it as a play experience for those in the right mood. Would-be authors are encouraged to contemplate the premise and how it might be better executed... great artists steal, right?

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.]