Reviews by Bernie

This game was an entry into the Chicken Comp. Naturally, it features a chicken. Unfortunately, the only other thing it seems to contain is an uncrossable road and zooming cars. With only three implemented objects and almost no implemented verbs, I couldn't find anything to do. If there is a point to the game, I couldn't find it.

Normally I don't give such a simple and short game 4 stars, but the logic behind the single, unique puzzle was perfect. As the game's description says, you are stuck in a room with 69,105 keys. If you can find the one unique key, you win.

The game is nothing more than a short logic puzzle. It's the type of game that I enjoy playing with a cup of coffee over breakfast, and that I will give to my 13 year old son. It will take less than 10 minutes for most people to play, and is recommended as a diversion during that quick break from work.

This game is a piece of speed-if written for the Hourglass Comp. Like all speed-if, it suffers from a bit of under-implementation. Unlike most speed-if games, there is a genuinely good game written here, and it's a shame that the author didn't finish it.

You play a hero trapped in a morgue by an evil mastermind intent on blowing up the city. ("Hero" as in James Bond, not Superman in spandex.) You must free yourself and stop him. The game is written with a tone of urgency -- aided by a giant clock counting down the seconds until detonation -- that pulls you into the game and spurs you to action.

The first puzzle is a guess-the-verb type that borders on obscure(Spoiler - click to show) "lean" is the necessary verb, and is completely unclued, but the rest of the puzzles are straightforward. However, as indicated by my review title, the game has only two endings, neither of which is an optimal ending. (Spoiler - click to show)There is no saving the city for this hero. Either you will run like a coward or stay and be blown up. I spent a large block of time searching for the optimal ending before finally discovering a set of hints for this game from the author, indicating that he had run out of time and been unable to create a good alternate ending to the game.

Nevertheless, the game is fun to play up until that point, and its ability to create a sense of urgency makes it worth a look.

On my quest to play old text adventure games to discover lost gems, I have played several very frustrating games. This game was one of the less-frustrating C64 games that I have found so far. The game has a large vocabulary (by ancient IF standards) and has a parser that allows prepositions. The parser does still manage to be frustrating occasionally, but is much less so than most of its counterparts.

In this game, you are enjoined to spend the night in a supposedly haunted mansion. You arrive with your camera to take pictures of evidence of the haunting. The game has a large but logical map and is full of puzzles, mostly of the locked door variety. Although many of the puzzles were readily solvable, a few were obscure enough to send me scuttling to the internet to google a walkthrough (which I have added to the listing for the game). The game also suffers from a bit of logical trouble. For example, you are given an axe at one point in the game, but can only break one particular door. Thus, the player is forced to run around trying the axe against every available obstacle. Likewise, one puzzle is clearly one of balancing an object on a scale, but there seems to be no clue about what the correct object should be, forcing the player to run through the inventory trying objects. The game has a move limit (presented as a time limit) and does have a few instances of instant and unclued death.

That said, the game is more fair than many other old C64 games. Although there is little to recommend it to players other than the nostalgia of playing an old C64 game, it is one of the better games to turn to for a nostalgic game that won't make you tear your hair out in pure frustration.

As a staunch puzzle-lover, I find no greater joy than discovering an IF game that presents unique puzzles. The puzzles in Adventurer's Consumer Guide are both fun and fair (with the exception of, possibly, one puzzle that sent me to the walkthru). The game inspires trust, so that when you feel stuck you will be generally willing to walk around and try various things rather than resorting to a walkthru, especially since the various things you will try will have logical and often hilarious results. In total, it probably took me about 4 hours to solve the game.

The game has a light-hearted tone, poking fun at dungeon-crawling cliches. I did notice a small number of typos in some room descriptions and occasionally I was unable to locate objects I had dropped. This may be due to the fact that the author eschews the verbs "examine" and "search", which results in the "look" command dumping an enormous amount of information in certain instances and makes the "inventory" command a bit unwieldy at times. Although I did miss the ability to examine objects more closely, the lack of this ability didn't detract from my enjoyment of the game. And I must give the author significant credit for creating a puzzle game without using the standard "search" and "examine" verbs.

This game is modeled on the L. Frank Baum book by the same name. You play a young girl who has been whisked away to a magical land and must get home again (apparently L. Frank Baum was lacking original plot ideas by this point in his career.) The land of Merryland, like Oz, contains many interesting and unusual creatures that can be 'looked' at.

The parser is primitive, but workable since the author lists the few working verbs in an accompanying text file. There are few verbs in this game and very few required actions, making it a potentially good game for young children. The puzzles are very straightforward and consist almost entirely of picking up objects -- which are clearly displayed in an "object" box at the bottom of the screen -- and giving those objects to the creatures that ask for them.

The game cannot be made unwinnable. The only snag with the game is that the objects must be given in a certain order, otherwise the characters in the game give the rather strange response "You're not royalty." Other than that, the game is short and simple. The object box makes it simple for young kids to identify which objects need to be manipulated and which characters are present. To add to the charm, the game ends when you hug your dad.

This game is based on L. Frank Baum's book "The Magnificent Monarch of Mo". Mo is a fantasy land much like Oz; it is a realm of magical things and strange creatures. You play a prince of Mo who must vanquish the purple dragon.

Of this series of L. Frank Baum games, this one is perhaps the most playable. The parser is primitive but is made tolerable because the text file that accompanies the game includes a list of verbs. The puzzles are well-clued and generally fair, even for those who haven't read the stories. At some point, you must perform certain actions in the order that they occurred in the story, but a simple trip to google reveals the order. Furthermore, attempting to take incorrect actions simply responds with "you must do this in the order of the story" and disallows the action rather than rendering the game unwinnable.

Unlike the other games in the series, this one is tough to get into an unwinnable state. At least a few of the puzzles still end up turning into "guess the verb" puzzles, even with the list. Eventually, running threw the available verbs will reveal the correct action. This parser trouble is exacerbated by the implementation of the verb "use", which works for certain objects but not for others. The final puzzle is extremely unintuitive unless you've either read either the book or the wiki entry, since it involves utilizing an object that is not in your inventory. (Spoiler - click to show)Apparently, the prince runs around with scissors in his pocket the entire time, and upon stretching the dragon, you need only type CUT STRING to win by pulling out a pair of shears and snipping him up.

Generally, though, the game is fair and interesting, a rarity for these ancient games, and thus worth a look if you're looking for a bit of nostalgia.

This is a very simplistic game in which you run around collecting members of the Oz books for a party. Each member has an item they need, and you must find the item and give it to them in order to get them to go with you to the party. The objects in the game are simple to find and clearly listed in a separate "objects" box. The characters in the game move around, but are never very difficult to find. The download for the game also includes a 'map' program that will allow you to print the map for the game.

The parser is a primitive two-word parser. However, it's something that can easily be dealt with by younger children. I'm thrilled to find a game that is easily graspable for my 6-year-old. She really enjoys typing the simple commands into the parser. For this reason, I awarded the game 3 stars.

This charming game was written in 1985 and this is entirely reflected by the parser. The game would be highly frustrating were it not for the fact that the author includes a list of verbs in the accompanying 'read me' file. (Although it leaves out the verb "board") The clunky parser also makes little sense when commanding other characters. However, once you figure out how the commands work, navigating through the game isn't too tough.

I had extreme trouble with one of the puzzles (Spoiler - click to show)the evil trees. Clearly I needed to get some help from my friend the Tin Woodman, but I couldn't manage to get to my friends after killing the witch.. I was proud of a few of the other puzzles I managed to solve despite their obscurity. (Spoiler - click to show)At some point, in order to cross the river you have to tell the tinman to MAKE RAFT. "BOAT" is completely unrecognized. However, after spending 20 minutes on a puzzle I finally conceded to being irreconcilably stuck. The frustrating part about these old games is that you can never be certain that you didn't miss some very obvious solution. Oh well, I'm content to blame my failure on the game for now :)

I would warn children away from this game, both because of its difficulty and because the command "kill" is often utilized in the game, although I believe the puzzles might parallel events in the book. (Spoiler - click to show)At some point you command the scarecrow to 'kill crows' and he is described wringing their necks. It's funny to remember how un-PC children's books were like before they became an established genre.

In this game you play Prince Charles' (from Varicella) vengeful toy stegosaurus. The writing is snappy and the game is cute as long as you've played Varicella, but probably wouldn't be entertaining otherwise. The puzzles are straightforward, although the first one ends up unintentionally making you guess-the-verb. A quick warning that Prince Charles has quite the potty mouth in this game, so it's not for the young or the easily offended.