Ratings and Reviews by Sharpe

The Lighthouse's Tale is yet another Twine "game" that isn't a game but is instead a (very) short story.

Since the prose was so good, I really don't want to discourage the author with a strongly negative review of their first interactive fiction. If this was another one of those click-through collections of sentence fragments—"Darkness. You're falling. Flash of light! You hit the ground. Get Up."—I would have really unleashed a scathing tirade. I'm so sick of those.

At some points, it did feel just a tad bit like the author was flexing vocabulary muscles before a vanity mirror making what would otherwise have been a good, descriptive passage sound a bit sappy, a bit forced.

I rated The Lighthouse's Tale two stars instead of one for its use of complete, well-written sentences. The highest I've ever went with one of these not-games is three stars, and that was for the incomparable, award-winning Ex Nihilo, a work that's in a whole 'nother ballpark from The Lighthouse's Tale.

All that said, I'm not the best person to review this type of literary work and its for that reason that I omitted my rating from the game's average. Apparently, there are a number of Twine fans who like this sort of thing, but I'm certainly not one of them.

I want interactive fiction where interactive means something much deeper than just "click, click, click, click . . ." I want a game. I want to have fun. Sure, teach me what you want, impart your message to humanity if you must, astound me with your linguistic gymnastics or glamor me with flashy text graphics to the brink of giving me a seizure, but if at the end of the day it isn't a fun IF game, then I'm passing.


—Richard Sharpe

This review started as a question that can be read in the spoiler below and in further comments. Now that I've completed the game, I'm back to write a review. :-)

Despite being short, this game has tons of re-playability. It's basically one big puzzle, the goal of which is to slay the classic monster under the bed. The only problem is, you take the role of a child—no machine guns or proton packs! :-)

Under the Bed is well written. It makes sense. There are no sudden, unexpected deaths or frustrating quandaries that leave one wondering what the author was thinking.

On one hand, none of the non-player characters are interesting and there is next to no communication or interaction with them. However, there doesn't really need to be. It would have been cool, but the game is fun and entertaining without character interaction. Like I say, this game is distilled into a single, multifaceted puzzle. There's very little window dressing to hide that fact and that is clearly the author's intent.

There are several possible endings, but there's only one way to truly accomplish the goal: slay the monster. It can be done and I had a lot of fun figuring out how to do so. I'd recommend fans of any genre of IF give this game a try.

I gave this game four stars because it was fun and well-written. If I could have rated it 4.5 stars, I would have done so. It would easily rate five if it were fleshed out more and if a few minor glitches were fixed (glitches such as (Spoiler - click to show)the monster retreating into the closet while the player and/or the blacklight is in the closet, and being able to apply the detergent to the sword at any physical location in the game).

Great game!


—Richard Sharpe


Here is the question that I posed before writing this review (contains spoilers): (Spoiler - click to show)I found four endings but was unable to slay the monster. Is there a way to do so?

I couldn't find a use for either the sword or detergent, though I tried to leave, pour, spill, and empty it in the closet. Opening it didn't work either. Standing in the closet holding the light didn't work as the game seems to ignore that you're inside the closet when the monster enters. I took the sword, put the sheet under the bed, the detergent and blacklight in the closet, and turned on the blacklight when the monster appeared. It went in the closet and disappeared.

If The Sleeping Princess was written by a child, it was a child with an A-level high school writing ability at least.

The story progresses logically and there are no sudden deaths or tasks that require clairvoyance to complete. This is actually the first IF I've ever completed all the way through. I did it in about twenty minutes between classes at school—college, not high school. ;) It was really fun and simple, not some punishing experience that frustrated me enough to quit. I stuck with it and was glad I did.

There was only one thing that confused me. The first hallway in the game, it goes south. When the player first enters, it's not explicitly stated that the player can go further south, though it does tell the player they're in the north end of the hall, so it can be inferred; I just didn't. I thought the only ways to go was back into the starting room or into the boarded-up room, which cannot be entered at first. So, I burned a hint there, but it didn't help. Thankfully, I accidentally tried to go south and it allowed me to do so.

Other than that, I'd have liked a more lengthy ending. More fanfare. More about what happens after waking the princess. More "happily ever after." However, that's not a big complaint; the story wraps up nicely leaving little to be imagined.

Two thumbs up!


—Richard Sharpe

Here's the first passage:

you wake up in a dungeon with a thief in the same cell as you do you...
>trust the thief
>don't trust the thief

Ouch.

It gets worse from there. I'm not entirely certain if Dungeon Escape was meant to be satire or not. I really don't think it was, though.

If it were . . . we get it already. There are a whole lot of bad interactive fiction games out there with horrible writing, no plots, flat characters—or characters with absolutely no description at all, like in this game—and choices that are completely random with sudden death around every corner. However, this is just one more in a long line stretching across the Internet's horizon. So, as a satire, this game fails on all levels. It is not amusing in any way.

Satire of this type can work; however, this one most certainly did not. This is not "hilariously" terrible. It's just plain terrible.

If it truly isn't a satire, then this writer is probably very young and I applaud what's likely his first IF. Good job on having the attention span and tenacity to actually complete the game. That's a major accomplishment and proves that one day, you'll become a good writer who can create fun and interesting IF if you stick with it. Other than a lack of capitalization and constant run-on sentences, Dungeon Escape is probably as good as anything I could have written in in the fourth grade, and that's a huge complement if you're in the eighth grade or lower.

All that said, there are signs that Dungeon Escape is, in fact, a satire, so I don't think this was just a very young writer. For example, the author consistently used apostrophes correctly, as well as quotation marks. There are a few complete sentences, usually if an exclamation mark or question mark is needed, and in those rare cases, they are used correctly. That tells me the run-on sentences are probably intentional.

As far as I know, I tried every combination of choices and none of them lead to an ending other than death or waking up at the start of the game.

Dungeon Escape is a complete waste of time. Thankfully, I was totally board and had nothing better to do than randomly click on games and review them.


—Richard Sharpe