Ratings and Reviews by Victor Gijsbers

About half-way through playing Sand-dancer (as I was following the rabbit) it occurred to me that this game might well be Aaron Reed's homage to Andrew Plotkin's Shade, centring as it does on a combination of fighting hostile elements and surreal/supernatural occurrences. This idea that was then dramatically vindicated by later events in the story, as one of Shade's central events suddenly turned up in this story as well.

The resemblance is nevertheless relatively superficial: where Plotkin's main interest lies in playing with knowledge and narration, Reed is far more interested in the motivations and choices of characters. In Sand-dancer, the fight for survival quickly turns into a meditation on the protagonist's past and future. Compared to the length of the game, the characterisation is deep, although it must be said that almost all of it is done through non-interactive text dumps. This means that the story is engaging, but perhaps not ideally suited to explore the possibilities of interactive storytelling. There are some choices that have an effect on gameplay, but they lack dramatic import. (Spoiler - click to show)The important choices in the game are, of course, which characteristics you wish to get from the animals. Although it is a need idea that (for instance) a courageous character now dares to do things he would dare before, the actual effects are a little underwhelming. I mean... I'm in danger of dying here, but I am afraid of spiders? I can now smell gasoline? These sequences are fun, but it's hard to take them seriously as important character developments.

The entire work is suffused with elements of U.S. culture, mixing popular entertainment, lower-class life in the nation's more desert-like regions, and native American culture. This makes it somewhat hard for people not from the U.S. to follow what exactly is going on. (It took me very long, for instance, to understand that "the res" referred to an Indian reservation. Which is apparently a place where they have high schools? My ignorance here is enormous, so accept nothing I tell you about the story as true!) Lest this be read as criticism, I actually applaud this move towards more culturally embedded works: it makes the reader learn more, or at least realise his/her own ignorance, and the real world is after all an interesting place.

Finally, a few words about the gameplay. As we can expect, the game is smooth and well-implemented (although attempting to open the rusty tin can with the can opener could have done with a description), we have a helpful in-game hint feature, and the puzzles are always logical. There were, unfortunately, certain points in the game where I had to retry random actions that used to fail, because it was not clear to me where my new-found powers would come in handy. (Spoiler - click to show)That courage would help me with the spiders: yes. That it would help me reach the control room: no. That scent would help me with the control room: no. However, this is a relatively minor quibble, since the game is not large.

Sand-dancer has a good story, an interesting gloomy American atmosphere, and adequate puzzles; it is a recommended read/play for all.

As a game, Mariel is a competent and polished, but by no means remarkable. This short story haves you wake up in an unknown hospital after a traffic accident; you're first task is to escape from what is functionally (if not literally) a locked room. The rest of the game is a little more inventive, including a nice variation on one of the most famous scenes of Anchorhead, but there is nothing that will blow you away either in terms of puzzles or of story.

Mariel is in fact more interesting as the example game that accompanies GerX, the German library extension for Inform 7. You can look at the source code and see how the weird combination of English code and German prose works, and how technical details of the German language are managed. It seems to be relatively elegant, actually. There is also a 50-page PDF file which acts like an Introduction to Inform 7 in German that uses Mariel as the running example.

The Ascot is a Choose Your Own Adventure game of a particularly restrictive type: at every point, you can only choose "yes" or "no". However, for a game that has choice so obviously at its centre, The Ascot is surprisingly linear: most choices will either stop the game immediately, or have only small effects on the order in which you see things or the contents of your inventory.

The story of The Ascot involves escaping a curse, fighting an evil monster and gaining treasure, none of which is very innovative, although it is brought with zest and flair. More importanly, there are several possible endings and getting to the best one is not easy, but is rewarding. Not hugely rewarding, but rewarding in the sense that you'll think: "That was a neat puzzle!"

If you have not seen the best ending, you haven't really played The Ascot. ("Have I seen the best ending?", you wonder. If you wonder, you haven't.)

Also check out my original competition review and the reviews linked on the IFWiki.

Will Conine is probably a young author; at the very least he is an inexperienced one. The Hangover has all the marks of a first game attempted with enthusiasm but little knowledge of how a good game is crafted, including a lack of synonyms, guess-the-verb problems and room descriptions that don't change with the state of the world.

Exacerbating these problems is the prose, of which this is a typical sample:

"You have a horrid hangover and no asprin in the apartment. This is your bedroom. Your ill-loking bed takes up most of the space. You have a closet and a bath robe on the floor. you should really take your robe and put it on. Its a good place to store things. To the east is your bathroom and to your west is the rest of your apartment."

According to other reviews the game is not finishable due to a bug; I can't speak for that myself since I never came that far.

We can safely conclude that the author should not have entered this game in the IF Comp, where it naturally generated harsh criticism. More constructive criticism could have been gotten outside of competitions.

Also check out my original competition review and the reviews linked on the IFWiki.

Dead Like Ants is the only game I know of that uses cylindrical coordinates rather than compass directions, which is logical when the protagonist is an ant living in a tree. More interesting than the physical environment, however, is the social environment of an (anthropomorphic) ant colony, with its lack of individualism. If ant colonies produced literature, it might look like Dead Like Ants.

The game is short and polished, and combines atmosphere and message into an enjoyable package. The gameplay, however, is definitely on the slight side: it consists mostly of exploration, but the exploration becomes predictable rather quickly. Nevertheless, it is recommended.

Make It Good is an excellent detective game. It is both a lot of fun and an absolute must-play for anyone interested in puzzle design.

The player is cast as an alcoholic down-on-his-luck police inspector who has one last chance to show that he can still solve a case. A man has been murdered in his house, and the protagonist must search the house and the garden for physical clues, must talk to a number of NPCs, must call on his reluctant assistant to analyse clues, and must, finally, make a successful accusation.

Now most of that may sound rather standard for a detective game, but this game is far from standard. First, the puzzles are simply excellent. Discovering clues is only the beginning--you'll have to think creatively and psychologically manipulate the NPCs if you want to get anywere with them. Second, there are some interesting plot twists, and your ideas of how to find the murderer will change during the game, which will in turn impact what you want to do with the clues and the NPCs.

Make It Good is a hard game. You will not solve it on your first attempt, and probably not on your fifth either. It is true compliment to the depth of implementation and the amount of possibilities that the game remains fun to play for almost the entire time span needed to solve it--and I heartily do recommend you to show some perseverance. I myself took a look at a walkthrough after I had solved all the major puzzles and the only thing that remained was the somewhat tedious process of putting all the details right. This seems to me the right strategy: you are depriving yourself of a great gaming experience if you look at the walkthrough any earlier.

The final stages of playing the game are a bit tedious, though: you'll still be doing small things wrong, and each time you'll have to restart and go through all the steps again. Given the overall excellence of the game, this is a relatively small complaint, though.

My other complaint is that the story does not make perfect sense at the end, even though it presumably has to if I have to be formulating and carrying out the plan that takes me to the ending. That, however, is a major spoiler, and should only be read by those who have finished the game.

(Spoiler - click to show)Surely the maid will retract her confession when she sees during her trial that there is no evidence pointing to Anthony? It seems to me that unless there is also some hard evidence pointing to Anthony, the whole scheme will not work; and in those endings where the maid confesses, there is no hard evidence pointing to Anthony. Certainly not the kind of evidence Joe wants before he arrests him.

The epilogue hints that the vicar has seen you, and that you are going to be arrested because he has told the police about it, right? But he has been telling lies himself in order to cover up for Angela, lies which are inconsistent with him seeing you. Would he really endanger Angela by accusing you, thus reopening the case while at the same time taking away Angela's alibi?

In Ralph, you get to play a dog looking for a bone he buried a long time ago. In the garden. You can bet the family will be happy with your attempts to find it.

The main problem with Ralph is that the final solution to the puzzle doesn't make sense. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the actions you do will result in you finding your bone. So why do them? In the end, this game is only solvable because it is very short and you can simply try out everything until you have done what will turn out to be the right actions. But this is hardly satisfying.

Ralph was nominated for best individual PC in the 1996 XYZZY Awards. Partly this will be because a dog as protagonist is not often seen, and is certainly more interesting than a nameless adventurer; but there is also the fact that Ralph's personality emerges from the storyline. Nothing really special, but I can imagine that it made a favourable impression in 1996.

All in all, this game is not bad, but it certainly not a classic either.