Ratings and Reviews by Anthony Mueller

This by far was the favorite game I played from the 17th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition.

The game is fairly large to complete especially to do so without hints and walkthroughs in the 2 hours allotted judging window. Perhaps this hurt the score somewhat with judges who may have been pressed for time? I took my time with the game and played it well over 2 hours and had the most satisfying experience.

Some of the puzzles were challenging, but well clued and I never remained stuck very long. Frustrated a couple of times, but upon coming back to the game, got through those areas -- isn't that the most satisfying type anyway?

The Dog who follows you around was simply delightful and essential to the completion of the game.

The game was well written, with excellent grammar and very highly polished.

I really enjoyed the outlook and tone of the game. A kind of cynical atmosphere, where hope yet remains alive.

I recommend playing this game at its own pace.

I think that this is an overlooked gem.

A medium sized game where you are left to score points in terms of cash robbed or stolen. At least that's where it starts off, but kind of turns into something else, but I'll leave that as a surprise.

Great attention to detail. Lots of great humor.

Creative puzzles. Nice NPC's with well written conversational dialogue.

There's a lot to like in this game.

A small but clever little game, where you are a mouse who needs to find ingredients for a stew. A kind of scavenger hunt.

Nice attention to detail and well polished. Nice humor and I loved the 9:05 reference.

The game is pretty easy. 6/6 here. To score one of the points, you have to be kind of cruel.

I got a big kick out of the dark humor and the slightly cruel edge to the game. Twisted, but in a very good way.

I wasn't going to play this title, but decided to give it a shot. Playing around with Similes didn't appear to be too appealing to me at first, until I realized that these paths unlock and unfold like any other adventure where you need to pay close attention to your surroundings.

Some of the puzzles were pretty challenging, but I managed to finish the game without the walk-thru, but using the hints provided by the very thoughtful and inventive in-game hint system/(Spoiler - click to show)character. This character was called Wesson and I would have been stumped without his hints.

The game is very well polished and a very satisfying experience. While I would not recommend this game to new-comers of IF, I think that this game is overall well with checking out if you are tired of the same old cliches and puzzles.

Thumbs up here.

I really liked the rooms and the atmosphere of the game. However, it just didn't work well.

When examining items, there seemed to be descriptions missing that would clue you in, to how the items worked. You can open certain things without knowing that they can be opened. You can take things, from one room and come back, and sometimes the item is still listed in the same room.

In addition, there are some non-standard verbs that are used to complete the game. I have some experience playing IF, but thought that some of the verbs would have been difficult to guess on my own. I also ran into a bug when I played where it asked "The pistol or the squirt gun?" I would answer squirt gun and it would loop back again asking what I wanted to squirt. When answered this, it came back to "The pistol or the squirt gun?" It got stuck in a infinite loop like this. This hindered me for completing and making progress in the game before I resorted to hints.

So, I tried to complete the game using the hint system, but was unable too. I must admit that I was frustrated at this point and simply tried the actions listed on the hints, but I must have did them in the wrong order. I would try to win the game only to be killed. I suppose I could try this game again, trying to figure out the proper order, but by this time, the game lost it's fun for me. I will wait for a walkthrough of the game to see what I missed.

The game could have used better cluing, so that you would know to do certain things when.

I really liked the concept of the game and atmosphere. I wanted to like it, but was disappointed by the bugs and inconsistency of the gameplay.