Reviews by Aintelligence

This is a short story about delivering candy grams to all of the classes In the school.  The adventure is different from most adventures, designed not with a gripping plot, or suspenseful, or difficult, but designed to ease beginners into interactive fiction.  
( side note: I was impressed at how non-linear the story was, letting you go in any order you wished)
There were two things though which could have been slightly better.

Firstly, the so-called puzzles were just word problems which had to be solved, and actually I thought that was a cool idea, but those were the only puzzles (except finding who to give the cards to but these are hardly puzzles) I thought that the riddles were ingenious, one relating largely to interactive fiction, but as I said interactive fiction needs puzzles which involve the use of examining objects and using them to their full potential. 

  The story includes a small middle school romance (oh those days) but all in all the story is relatively plotless and non-descript.  This I feel is almost too bad.  Sure,it's for beginners, but plot and characters are really what interactive fiction is all about, so it would have been nice to expose the players to a decent plot. 

All in all though, it was enjoyable and a good example of interactive fiction originality.

I'm going to say right now that I really enjoyed this adventure. It's short- only two or three rooms- and few puzzles, but it's very well developed and maintained to keep a little horror in the main character. I will also say that the story is rather confusing during parts, but In my opinion, this adds significantly to the story. It's designed so that you are in constant 'fear' and in complete bewilderment, not knowing why things happened or where the heck you are. I mean come on, you're in a mysterious lab with frightening beasts, locked doors and other instruments, so it's bound to be a somewhat creepy story with unexplained happenings.

Critical breach is very linear, short and simple though. Puzzles are obviously aimed at the beginner so don't expect too much. What the story does have though, is fairly well done. The beginner will be pleased with the variety of tasks needed to complete the adventure, from finding a way to 'escape' the mysterious beginning to doing simple puzzles, and using the limited tools to solve problems. This adventure gives a toolbox of activities which will be needed for future, harder adventures.

It's no zork, but critical breach is perfect for the IF beginner