Reviews by Simon Deimel

This is a nice story, a very brief speed IF. It is principally not too difficult, but the solution requires knowledge beyond the game -- surely common knowledge in the US, but for me it was not so common(Spoiler - click to show) and resulted in an annoying guess-the-verb moment: 'man, how am I supposed to warm up?' I knew the story which the game is based on, but unfortunately I did not know the original line (by now I checked it, and okay, the order of unusual verbs makes sense as soon as you know the line; probably every kid in the US knows it by heart, but they told me different tales here when I was young), so in the end I had to read the code, which luckily was available.
Anyway, a cute story and in the end a new lesson for me.

The idea of CHEATER is not new, but surely interesting; it is a big advantage if you tried to program with Inform yourself. It is not difficult once you find out the principles.
It is a very short game. I played around a bit until I found the solution, and unfortunately, despite its shortness, there were some inaccuracies.
(Spoiler - click to show)The pillar that supports the cave can be taken in a normal way. Meh. The pedestal can be purloined and will still be mentioned in the room description -- and the toaster, resting on it, will still be present in the room, maybe hovering in the air. Meh.
These things are a little shoddy and could have easily been detected with a little testing (Spoiler - click to show)(applying the commands that are required for the solution to other possible objects). Nevertheless we must honor that it is the authors first game and it is finishable. I recommend it to people who like to think outside the box.

Checking this I had the impression of reading a short story instead of playing a game, and a second playthrough with different choices just confirmed this impression: the selections did not change much and the story would return to the predetermined course soon. So in the end there is not much interactivity, and not much replay value.
The writing is okay though, despite some typos and inconsistency of the tense (most of the story is written in past tense, but some paragraphs or single sentences are written in present tense without discernable motive). The writer should have proof-read and revised the text thoroughly. Nevertheless I want to acknowledge the content of the story. I suppose it is the authors first work and it is well worth a try in my view.

It is a fun story about a scientist trying to make up some inventions. The inventions and the way how to (randomly) find them is entertaining enough. Unfortunately there is no handling of choices which already have been made, so they can be repeated over and over again; it would have been better to take them away from the list of choices after they have been chosen, because the gameplay gets confusing when the player decides to chose them for a second time and the result is just the same.
(Spoiler - click to show)The occurence of time travels does not explain this, because this aspect aims at different parts of the story.
A negative thing is that I did not find an ending... or maybe I missed it?
The basic premise is not bad though, and maybe this could be improved in a later version one day.

Basically this was probably a programming exercise, so it is centered around some common tropes such as obtaining keys of different colors and unlocking corresponding doors. It is just what an author does to check out the mechanics of an engine (I did the same and later expanded the results).

It is short and I cannot say that it is really bad. The solutions can quite easily be found and I did not encounter too annoying moments that made me give up. There is a good will behind it, it contains a story (more or less) and it is finishable. Of course there could have been more to this and it cannot be compared with the masterpieces of interactive fiction, but for a first try it is okay.

All in all a very good game with a tight story, probably influenced by the Matrix movies. Considering the short time in which it was assembled we can overlook missing implementations and little inaccuracies (there should not be the possibility to drop a tattoo, for instance). Regarding the fact that Quest was used for creating this game, I instantly tried the "use a on/with b" command when I did not find the required synthax, and mostly it turned out to be what the program was waiting for (as opposed to Inform, Quest contains "use" as a standard verb). For instance, in a certain situation I was unable to put one thing into a container, but instead could use it on the latter; or I could not enter a certain device, but use it instead.

The game contains two endings and I discovered the bad one first -- the game then mentions that there is a better ending and suggests further investigation, so replay is encouraged.

The puzzles are quite logic and once you get accustomed to the "use a on/with b" command, you can easily make progress. I recommend this game to everyone who likes a short science fiction story and does not back off from the mechanics (which sometimes may appear unusual to many gamers).

The project consists of a room and an art object to fiddle around with. There is no aim, no plot, just the art object. This is an interactive art show, not a game.
The main thing to do is to turn the wheels and get random sentences as a result, which is entertaining for at least some minutes (not a spoiler, there is not much more to do). The implementation is sparse, not very thorough outside of this context; but the actions are centered on spinning the wheels and reading the sentences. I tried to examine the parts connected to the wheels, but I did not get to know much more; the only deceisive thing to do was to spin the wheels, and that worked fine.
I would have liked some more implementations, more to examine about the wheels. An exit of the room could have been provided to leave the art show, it would have been more authentic.
I like the main idea despite the aforementioned shortcomings.

It seems to me that the writer came up with the idea of a zombie apocalypse, created a room with some items and a little puzzle how to exit it, then he created a vast area with room descriptions (and the writing is not that bad at all), and then stopped continuing. Most of the things mentioned in the room descriptions are not implemented, some exits mentioned are not further pursued. It is simply unfinished, for whatever reason: maybe the writer lost interest, maybe he did not have time anymore. It is still not justified to label it as a "beta". It should not have been published in the current state.
It is much better to have a smaller game with a tight story and maybe just a small amount of locations than an unfinished code that presents many locations and details and the promise "have a look, this is unfinished, but will maybe become awesome one day". People who visit this database want interactive fictions, not a text that could become an interactive fiction one day.

Honestly spoken, I liked the concept, although the game exclusively presents guess-the-verb puzzles. The description of the location (which is not a concrete place but an abstract concept) contains several objects, and the player has to find a way to deal with them. Some of these actions seemed arbitrary to me, so I really relied on guessing and sometimes was surprised when I got it right.
The author states in an afterword that he is aware of the aforementioned disadvantages. I think I understand the meaning of this game for the author, and I pay respect to it. In the end I did pass the week, so the game can be finished. The writing is okay. The implementations are not perfect, but sufficient, and I did not find obvious bugs.

This project is not bad in itself, but it does not fit into the category of a game; it is a collection of articles about alternate histories. It may serve educational purposes, yes, it may even be informative. If someone wants to read a number of essays, that is. But I suppose that is not what people search for in Inform projects; they want text based games with interactivity and a positive ending that can be reached. Nothing of it can be found here.