Ratings and Reviews by The Year Is Yesterday

First off, I should note that it's clear that, implementation-wise, the author knows his stuff. The help file is extensive, the endings are profuse and various, and he's clearly taken time to allow for multiple ways of achieving - or avoiding - the goal. The quality of the writing is also, from a technical perspective, high: descriptions are concise and occasionally colorful, and there are few if any errors or typos, showing that a high level of care and polish went into this title.

Unfortunately, the issue that I (and many others, judging from the mixed reviews) encountered concerns the premise itself, or rather, the tone the work adopts toward its subject matter. "About the story" promises "elements of dark humor," but I found nothing in my various interactions particularly dark or humorous. This may just be a matter of taste, but let it be said that, although I have some personal experience with the subject matter, I'm no prude. I wouldn't have minded some hilarity, even if it were in ill taste. What I got, instead, was after-school-special material, shallow melodrama.

The author's notes in the help menu may shed some light on this. He says that it originally started as a joke, replacing "You have died" with "You have survived." But somewhere along the way, whether at the coaxing of testers who couldn't stomach the subject matter or of his own volition, he decided that "it wasn't a joking matter." So we've essentially got the setup for a joke, but halfway through it becomes a moralizing tale, and it fails to leave an impression on either count. The PC's motivations for committing suicide are so banal it's almost painful, and the writing encapsulates none of the real angst of depression.

I'll conclude by reiterating what I said at the beginning: as a game, this is nicely polished and shows great care. It's entirely possible to appreciate on those merits alone; it's also possible the ambivalent tone will strike a chord with you that it failed to with me. However, I can't help feeling that the author, for fear of offending people or trivializing a serious issue, held back at crucial moments, resulting in a story that doesn't live up to its implementation.

Gnocchi. A brunette (Clare?). Violence, remorse, longing. Or maybe plain old penne. The beauty of this game isn't in the story it tells. The beauty is in the story that exists between the lines. What happened in Rome, and why does it stir up such emotions? You have only an aisle, some pasta, a woman and a trolley, and one turn in which to do something. But, as the impressive breadth of unique responses indicates, there's an awful lot you can do in a single moment. Play with it for at least ten minutes before writing it off as a novelty.

We've all heard the (occasionally justified) complaints about interactive fiction: the controls are impenetrable, the puzzles rely more on figuring out how to make the machine do what you want than actually figuring out what to do, etc. After Blue Lacuna, nobody should have an excuse not to try IF. The keyword system and extensively integrated in-game tutorial, as well as adaptive hints that never take you out of the story and two difficulty modes, make this a must-play for newcomers. Of course, the intriguing story, the living, dynamic environment, and the amazingly detailed conversations don't hurt matters. Even if you don't think you have time to devote to a novel-length IF, you should take the opportunity to explore this lush, animate environment.

The "first" IF I played, aside from some Zork as a child, and therefore my first experience of interactive fiction that went beyond mere "text adventure," blurring the lines between literature and game. To this day, the experience hasn't been surpassed. There isn't much challenge here: let the story unfold, and just try not to get drawn in by the bleak, arid atmosphere.