Ratings and Reviews by Ghalev

In Dunric’s 8k Adventure, prolific (fringe?) IF designer Paul Allen Panks endeavors to cram a fantasy text adventure into fewer than 170 lines of BASIC code. I can’t comment on the writing in this game because there isn’t any. In very-old-school fashion (many Scott Adams titles would seem lush by comparison), the game’s 25 locations are sparsely implemented, barely described, and mostly empty ... but moving around and mapping the tiny world provided me with a genuine, if brief, sense of exploration, and the game’s few details are well-chosen to evoke a basic, unassuming trad-fantasy atmosphere. In my own imagination, these simple details took on lives of their own, and without prose to manhandle my mind’s eye, I still saw (for example) the game's forest cottage with clarity, and paused to wonder who might live there. This world isn’t much, but the arrangement is easy to explore and map, and the spare setting taps neatly into the cultural common ground of stock-fantasy imagery.

8k Adventure offers only an unadorned, skeletal game design: simple exploration, a few hit-point-chewing fight sequences, and a very basic puzzle structure of find-the-item-that-lets-you-move-onward. It is both easy and forgiving. If you've felt weighed down by prose-heavy works, this bare-bones game, unencumbered by meat or sauce, might lighten your palate pleasantly. Skeletal it may be, but dem bones (dem bones) gonna walk around.

Tiny, slight, fast, and easy: 8k Adventure makes only the humblest of promises … but it keeps them.

This fantasy title has a simple, janitorial premise: a messy wizard’s tower needs a good cleaning, and you’re just the chap for the job. “Spring Cleaning” is both easy (I, a certified meathead, got a perfect score on my second try), and fun. The imagery is spare but funny, the puzzles easy and few, and the atmosphere well-suited to its apparent design goal: a farewell nod to the late E. Gary Gygax (achieved with a brief sprinkling of references to his work, from bending bars and lifting gates to the infamous random harlot subtable of the old Dungeon Master’s Guide). It’s a cheerful five-minute whirl with a gentle touch of nostalgia.

The game’s disappointments are mostly technical, due to the “Speed IF” nature of the work. Synonyms, in particular, are in thin supply (trying to call your sack a “bag,” or trying to refer to a stack of newspapers as the “papers,” will bump your head against the parser). Similar parsing and phrasing issues were frequent distractions in my otherwise-enjoyable plays through … my hope is that the author will be encouraged enough by the game’s fans (I count myself happily among them) to create a followup release with the necessary spiffs. With a fresh coat of bug-fixes, this is a game I’d happily recommend to my gaming buddies.

A friendly micro-game, Earth and Sky is a genial teaser for a superhero tale explored in later installments. This game sets modest goals for itself: introduce characters and long-term motives, then provide a short-term conflict to get the juices flowing. It sets merrily about the task, and the whole thing flows so smoothly that I didn't mind at all that much of the game consisted of following instructions given me by NPCs. Tiptoeing around spoilers, I will say I was fascinated to see how ... amiable the game felt despite the grim dangers implied (and depending on your choices, briefly explored) in the narrative. Given the easy temptations of a more fashionably gritty approach to the genre, this game won an extra measure of my respect for balancing perils and pleasures. In tone, it's more akin to The Incredibles than an issue of a modern comic, and I mean that as warm praise.

I went looking for a bit of fun playing with superheroes in IF, and this game both satisfied my craving and fixed my gaze hungrily on the next installment. Earth and Sky is very brief (less than 30 minutes for some players, I'd expect), and, within its chosen scope, very satisfying.