Ratings and Reviews by Dominic Delabruere

Well, that was embarrassing.

I wrote a review of this game earlier, and had to rewrite it after a couple folks pointed out to me that the game is rather larger than I thought. If you think it has only two locations, look further. If you think it has only three locations, keep going. The game actually has an ending. I originally gave two stars, but now I'm giving four. And only one of those at most is meant to make up for my mistake with the last review.

All in all, it's a fairly polished and lovely vision of the divine. The player character is a god, or perhaps the original god, exploring his/her kingdom. The prose, including parser errors, is cleverly and beautifully constructed with all the trappings of religious reverence, mystery and vision. It's interactive scripture that draws on the most fantastic images from Abrahamic and Vedic texts alike.

So, four stars for polish, some mildly clever mechanics, and stellar prose. It misses out on the final star because it's too easy to play without realizing there's more to do than is immediately obvious(Spoiler - click to show), and because the ending falls too neatly into the old "It was all an anesthetically induced hallucination" trope.

"Dinnertime" is a single puzzle that presents itself as a sort of allegory for a fundamental problem of the human condition -- how to eat without killing oneself. The solution is a little odd(Spoiler - click to show) and basically identical to the solution of a minor puzzle in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But it's worth the few minutes you'll put into it because of the cheekily bizzarre descriptions and responses.

I hesitate to call this interactive fiction. It has a much lower level of interaction than "mainstream" IF.

I'm not sure precisely what I was thinking of when I wrote this short experiment, but the point is that I think interactive fiction can be very poetic, and I would like to read more interactive poetry in the future. I wrote this during a break from "Buried In Shoes".

I made "Somewhere" as a sort of exercise during a break from writing this, so this is essentially my first whole work of interactive fiction.

Violet is deeply implemented, contains challenging-enough-to-be-fun puzzles and a fine hint system, and tells a really charming story. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. This is the sort of greatness to which I aspire as an author.

Though its simple - if effective - implementation left me with an odd feeling that something was missing or incomplete, the immersing illustration of questions of perception presented in "9:05" compels me to recommend this title to interactive fiction players at all stages. If this story is a joke, perhaps there is truth in jest.

This story's setting was beautiful, and the story was riveting, although I must admit I'm still rather confused about some of the details. There were one or two moments scenes in which I became stuck while playing this - it took me forever to notice the existence of a certain location, for example, but I've never been very good at puzzles in interactive fiction. The implementation was generally smooth, and the prose was polished and stylish. Overall, it's very fun to play. I recommend it.

Interactive fiction players who have gone underground Infocom's "Zork I" are sure to find both an odd familiarity and a terrifying element of the unknown in this story, and others will find the story just as intriguing. Masterfully developed and deeply haunting, "shrapnel" weaves elements of history and science fiction into an unforgettable though short piece.

As of the writing of this review, "Candy" is not at all finished and very buggy, but holds some interest. What little there is in this game presents a fun satire, most notably of societal encouragement of eating disorders, in a fairly rich (if currently tiny) environment. Were it finished, I would recommend this game.