Reviews by Bernie

This game certainly feels like the first work of the author, and a first work with little beta-testing. Implementation errors about, from guess-the-verb moments to doors showing up closed even after you've opened them. Most of the game is also guess-the-direction, since the exits aren't mentioned in the room descriptions.

I played this game because it was in someone's recommended list, and I was intensely curious, -- since it had such a low rating -- what made it recommended. While I can't say I'd recommend the game (the implementation errors are just too many) the author does show promise. The appearance of the game's only real NPC, the cat, sparked my imagination. I am, admittedly, a huge cat-lover, so I may have been biased in this regard. However, the cat's actions and dialogue hit just the right note: exactly what I'd expect my own dear cat to sound like, could he speak. The end-puzzle also showed some imagination, and I hope the author will continue her work in the genre.

In this jaunty romp, you play a space hero/detective investigating a mysterious letter. You must solve a series of puzzles in order to meet your contact, who will presumably take you to the person who has hired you for the investigation. The author mentions in 'about' that he was heavily influenced by Douglas Adams, and portions of the game are a clear reference to the old infocom Hitchhiker's game. However, the game is far from derivative and the jokes throughout are fresh and entertaining.

Likewise, the puzzles are goofy, but sensible in the context of the game. They are also easily solvable with a bit of patience and exploring, but challenging enough to be interesting. The game does feature an inventory limit. However, the author also includes the command 'objects' which will list where all the moveable objects you have interacted with are currently located, which lessens the frustration of dropping inventory objects as you juggle them.

The only real drawback of the game was a few of the parser responses when I was trying to solve one of the puzzles, which made me wonder whether I was trying the correct solution and just hadn't found the correct verb. (As it turned out, I was attempting the wrong action.) I also got a bit frustrated when the game seemed to disallow a certain logical solution to a puzzle for no reason. (Spoiler - click to show)I really thought I should have been able to stand on the stove, but the game just tells me 'There's no need to refer to that in the course of the game.' Likewise, it tells me that the work-top is not something I can stand on. However, being a vertically challenged soul, I have proved otherwise in my own home on numerous occasions.

Overall, the game is highly recommended. I'm thrilled that I happened to stumble upon it on someone else's recommended list and I hope the author writes the sequel as promised.

This piece of speed-IF centers around a fish wearing a robotic human suit. To handle the restricted nature of a speed-IF game, the author restricts the commands to a set of buttons in your suit. This does help ease the frustration present in so many speed-IF games when the game fails to respond to most commands. In this game, the parser explains that you are hyper-focused and directs you to use the controls in your fish-suit.

I added a second star to the game for the game's absurd humor, which I found amusing during the five minutes that it took to play through the game's various endings.

This game is a sequel to Legacy of Alaric (by the same author), in which your mission is to save a boy named 'Alaric' who has been captured by dwarves and imprisoned in a castle. Unlike Legacy of Alaric, it is not possible to finish this game without solving all the puzzles. Like many of these older games, there are many places where you can die suddenly and without warning and it is possible to put the game into an unwinnable state without warning.

Most of the puzzles aren't too bad, but a few are downright weird and poorly clued, and one absolutely requires reading the author's mind. (Spoiler - click to show)You have to 'say law' on the bank of the moat in order to open a trap door. Apparently this is somehow clued by the sign. Unfortunately, even the simpler puzzles often seem more complex because of parser troubles. For example, "Tie Rope to X" yields a different result than "Tie X to Rope", and both forms of the command must be used to successfully manipulate the rope. Likewise, if you attempt to use an object that is in your sack, you will always get a failure message such as "you cannot do that", which can lead you to believe that a solution doesn't work when, in fact, you simply have to take the object from your sack and attempt the action again.

My original intent was to play the puzzle through without a walkthrough. However, once I reached a puzzle that I was sure I was solving correctly, I finally gave up and consulted the walkthrough. Sure enough, I was correct but the solution had to be attempted three times in order to work. I valiantly re-stashed the walkthrough and attempted to continue, only to be stymied by a locked door that would not let me "unlock door with key". I consulted the walkthough again, which seemed to confirm that I needed to do exactly what I had attempted to do. Just as I was about to wrote the game off as a case of flawed programming, serendipity struck and the command I had been attempting finally worked. After a bit of experimentation, I discovered that one must attempt to "open door" before being able to successfully "unlock door with key". Grrrr. I perused the rest of the walkthrough, determined that the game was not going to be playable without it, and gave up saving poor Alaric.

This game is an old Commodore 64 text adventure. For anyone who is unfamiliar with these old types of text adventures, they're a different breed from today's modern interactive fiction adventures. These old text adventures feature sparse descriptions and clunky parsers. These old games revolve heavily around puzzle-solving, and the stories that underlie the games are usually cliche' excuses to go on a quest.

However, these gems hold a soft spot in my heart, and I imagine that I am not alone in this regard. In an era before graphic computer games, this was the only way to experience epic adventures outside of a good Dungeons & Dragons group. Furthermore, the puzzles in these adventures could be deeply satisfying. Thus, I have gone on a quest to unearth a few of these ancient gems.

Once you get past a few parser problems, this game is cute and playable. It's charm mostly lies in its nostalgia, so I recommend it only if you, like me, crave one of those cute early games. In the game, you play an adventurer who is looking to free a captured heir. The goal of this game is to get to the island where the boy is being held prisoner. (Apparently the game was part of a series, and later games involve rescuing the heir.)

I was delighted to find that I could finish the game without solving all the puzzles and gaining the highest score. I had to resort to a walkthrough a few times, mostly for parser troubles. Most notably, the game requires you to "Take [item] from sack" (I spent 10 minutes attempting to get things out of my bag by "taking" them, taking them "out of", and "emptying" the sack.) Also, the game does allow you to talk to NPCs, but does so through the command 'Say to [NPC] "[Hello]"' Although a few of the puzzles seemed unfair, upon replaying the game I realized that all the necessary puzzles were clued in some strange way. Interestingly, many items go completely unused in the game and several puzzles that contribute to your score seem pointless. I will also warn that there is one occasion of sudden, unclued death; there is also a small maze at the end, but I found it to be easily navigated even without mapping.

I have been playing through many of these old games, and can say with authority that most of them are too frustrating to play for even ten minutes. It was wonderful to find one that I can finally recommend as playable from start to finish. In fact, I plan to play the next installment without the aid of the walkthrough.

As my quest to continue uncovering forgotten IF gems continues, I discover that I must sift through lots of gravel. Sadly, this game falls into the "gravel" category. You begin the game without any purpose or guidance. Even after 20 minutes of playing, I could not discern a goal to the game. The parser doesn't recognize "look at" or "examine", or almost any verb other than "take" and "look". Throw in a few typos and overly verbose snarky responses from the parser and you have a game that is not worth picking up.

This is an old commercial IF game and is easily one of the most cruel IF games of all time. Many of the puzzles are desperately unfair. After spending about 20 minutes freezing to death in the blizzard, I finally opened a walkthrough and discovered the following first two moves: E, DIG (to find a garlic),

Dig? Why? There's absolutely no reason to dig. Nothing in the description indicates a reason to dig, let alone a reason why you might come up with garlic as a result of the digging. Numerous evil puzzles abound in the game. You will die repeatedly while attempting to solve them. Repeatedly.

So why 3 stars then? Because the game's cruelty is almost fair. The puzzles are so difficult to solve that you begin trying *anything* you can think of. And, yes, that will reasonably include digging in random locations. In fact, if I had been able to save my game using my emulator, I would have spent more time playing this game. It's the type of game that inspires true ambivalence: you hate the puzzles, but love them when you solve them. And despite the sinister nature of many of the puzzles, the game is fun to play and most of the puzzles are fun to solve.

The game is long. Even playing all the way through with a walkthrough in hand took me over 30 minutes. (Okay, I didn't make it all the way through even with the walkthrough. I took one extra action at one point that made the game unwinnable. Have I mentioned that the game is cruel?) Solving it completely may take you a year or a lifetime. But you'll gain eternal bragging rights and the assurance that your intellect is truly superior.

This game is clearly meant to be the introduction of a larger game. However, there is no "Housekey, Part 2", and Part 1 contains nothing to make it worth playing. You are instructed from the beginning that you left your key outside and need to retrieve it. However, there is no barrier to getting outside, so the game can be ended almost immediately. Additionally, there are only three rooms in the house, and most of the objects in the rooms are indicated as "unimportant". The game feels like someone's first IF programming experiment. Although it is able to be finished, the under-implementation of the game leaves it unrecommended.

In this game, you wake up as a zombie and look for things to eat. A promising premise, to be sure, but this game was a submission to a one-hour comp and thus is very short. There's one room and three objects, and although the premise is amusing, there's not enough in the game to make it entertaining.

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.

This game is completely story-less; it's a series of clever logic puzzles. I *LOVE* logic puzzles, especially tricky ones. In fact, a few of these had me tearing my hair out and I can't remember the last time I've had so much fun.

The goal of each puzzle is clearly stated in bold-type at the beginning of each puzzle, and stated again upon using the command "look". So, for example, the goal of the first puzzle is to get all the characters to ring a gong on the same turn. There are four characters in each puzzle (Een, Twee, Drie, and Vier). The trick to the game is that upon typing a command, Een will execute that command immediately, Twee will execute that command on the second turn, Drie on the third turn, and Vier on the fourth turn (hence the clever title of the game). There are 8 total puzzles in the game, and it is possible to move between puzzles if you become stuck. Unfortunately, I encountered a fatal error in the seventh puzzle and had to exit the game. However, I enjoyed the other 6 puzzles enough to award the game 4 stars.

For any like-minded puzzle-lovers out there who enjoy a bit of logic with their morning coffee, this game is highly recommended. The concept is original and a few of the puzzles are quite challenging. After solving each puzzle, the game tells you how many turns you took to solve the puzzle and the fewest number of turns in which the puzzle can be solved, which gives the game a modicum of replayability for anyone who wants the challenge of finding the optimal solution. The end of each game also offers the opportunity to display the actions you took so you can record your solution for later analysis. A hint for anyone playing it: Glulxe has a scrollback feature that is accessed from a button at the top of the screen. It's highly useful for discovering which actions are cued up for each character.

This is a simple classic '3 lies and a truth' logic puzzle. Unfortunately, the clues and solution are stagnant rather than changing with each restart of the game, so the game is only playable once. Also, the game is completely winnable by accident which obviates the puzzle, and thereby the single bit of fun the game can provide. Indeed, upon my first play, I accidentally won without even realizing that there was a puzzle in the game.

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.

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.

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 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.

To quote the game's walkthrough this is a "short game, even by speedIF standards." Unfortunately, saying much more would be to ruin the game entirely. The author took a large risk with the game and people who take the time to try the game will either be amused or annoyed. I fell into the former category, but I'm sure some will fall into the latter.

In this game you play a health inspector looking to bust a Chinese restaurant. This game is Speed IF and is therefore very short, and the puzzles are very simple. However the writing is cute and the game rewards you for examining objects, making this game a potentially good short game for an IF novice.

One very remarkable aspect of this game is that it continues even after you are dead. Unfortunately, this piece of Speed IF, like so many, suffers from implementation troubles. Although overall it is cute, by performing the most obvious action (Spoiler - click to show), dropping the peanut for the elephant, I unwittingly made the game unwinnable. There was no warning from the game and many moves later I finally consulted the walkthrough, only to discover this fact. Like many Speed IF games, this one is sparse in description and objects. However, at least one main object (Spoiler - click to show)the pidgeon(sic) seems to be completely unimplemented.

In this very short game, you play a health inspector from the future. Like any piece of Speed IF, it's a very short game. Unfortunately, the rooms in the game are so sparse that there is very little to examine and almost nothing to explore in the game. You can only do what you have been sent to do and nothing else, making the game feel dull. The four required actions in the game could be considered four "puzzles", but they are such regular actions that most players will perform them without thought.

I met my husband when I joined the mime club back in college. (Yes, really.) So naturally this game's title caught my attention and I had to give it a try. Although I'm bummed that the game does not feature any white-faced and silent denizens, I must confess that I love the game nevertheless.

The game is science fiction and takes place on a moon of Jupiter. The 'pantomimes' are clones of people. The author does an amazing job of creating a strong atmosphere and a fascinating universe. Much of the game is spent in dialogue, and there are few puzzles. Normally, this is not my type of game. I vastly prefer games with heavy puzzles that keep me thinking for a while. (Although I must admit that one puzzle in this game had me searching the internet for hints and walkthroughs.) However, the snappy writing and dark humor of the game instantly hooked me. I found myself playing through the entire first half of the game without solving even one real puzzle, but not caring one bit. Learning about the world and attempting to put together the puzzle of what was happening in the game easily replaced the thrill of solving more traditional puzzles.

The only thing that keeps the game from 5 stars is a slightly buggy implementation in certain places. For example, at some point you enter a location at a key moment for a certain NPC and the description fails to note the obvious, stating instead "[The NPC] is here." And at some point while attempting to solve what I thought was a puzzle, I was greeted with the response "The couch is closed." There are also some elements mentioned in the room descriptions that are not recognized by the game. However, although the bugs can be a bit distracting at times, the game is highly recommended.

Ok, I'm not afraid of profanity. And I don't mind when a game uses profanity to convey the thoughts and actions of a character, even the PC. However, I AM offended when the game's meta-dialogue -- such as the hints -- use profanity. Perhaps the author was attempting to make the meta-dialogue consistent with the voice of the PC, such as in the game Violet. However, I suspect that the snarky bits were probably a reflection of the author's sense of humor.

So let's pass my annoyance off for the moment as my difference in taste. In fairness, the game does warn you from the beginning that it contains adult content and I'm sure that some people will find the game's tone hysterical. I must confess that although I wasn't a fan of being able to choose "Shut it, Grampaw" as a dialog option, I did find the description of Professor Yeboeha so cute that I read it aloud to my husband.

However, from the beginning the game's implementation was frustrating. Upon examining the room, I don't get a list of the professors. Only by examining the professors can I get a recap of who is in the room, and only because the game gives me choices on who to examine. After eating an object, it still appeared in my inventory. After taking an object, it wouldn't show up in my inventory. Another object that I dropped disappeared completely from the room. And when I began an action clued by the game(Spoiler - click to show) (spinning), I ceased to be able to move from room to room.

These bugs made the game completely frustrating and unplayable. The "hint" system contained absolutely no hints about the game, and the download didn't contain a walkthrough. I noticed that someone else gave the game three stars, so apparently someone managed to play through without hitting these troubles. Personally, I recommend finding something else to play.

In this game you play a young child searching the playground. This game is small and short, with four rooms and four puzzles. The writing in the game was cute enough to make it an enjoyable 10 minute diversion, and although I encountered a few tiny bugs, none of them were substantial detractors. One puzzle does break a bit with IF convention (Spoiler - click to show)by giving a different response to the same action, but somehow repeating the action was natural enough in this game that trying it a second time is almost natural and makes the puzzle fun rather than hard.. The final puzzle made me smile. As I wandered about the game poking and prodding objects, trying to get a winning screen, I finally had an ah-ha moment, the type of moment that makes me feel smart and makes a game feel fun.

In this game, you play a dinosaur looking for dinner. However, other than the unique pc (the response to the command "i" was cute), the game is unremarkable. There are only four rooms in the game and three puzzles, all of which are very simple. I should warn future players that one puzzle breaks with standard IF convention(Spoiler - click to show) by delivering a different result the second time an action is attempted. I solved the puzzle by accident when I tried a different verb, as will most players.

Although the simplicity of the game makes it a good fit for young IF players, the writing is a touch gorey and might not be appropriate for some younger players. For example, the sentence "You sink your teeth deeply into its flesh and start tearing out the meat from its carcass" would amuse my son but horrify my daughter.

"Short" is a bit misleading. The walkthrough contains only 20 commands. However, the puzzles can make the game take a substantial length of time.

Generally, the puzzles are fair and since there are few objects to manipulate, a simple trial and error will begin to put you on the right track for solving most of them. However, the parser does create troubles, and since I've never programmed a game I don't know whether they are the fault of the author or of the system. (Spoiler - click to show)The big trouble comes from the verb "throw". The game recognizes "throw at" but not "throw to" and the general verb "throw" results in the pc simply dropping things. I was fortunate that I tried "throw at" immediately after "throw to", otherwise I never would have solved one of the puzzles. After encountering this trouble, I spent a heavy amount of time fussing with alternatives for "drop out" in an attempt to solve another puzzle. Such parser issues can definitely throw even a seasoned player off track.

I had to consult the walkthrough to solve one of the puzzles (Spoiler - click to show)(the puzzle of how to get the prisoner to talk to me), and although the solution is something that seasoned players might try, it's definitely not something that a first-time player would think to do. I *might* have tried it eventually, but consulted the walkthrough instead so I could get on with the rest of the game.

And upon consulting the walkthrough I discovered that there wasn't a "rest of the game". I generally don't mind short games. I just wish the game had told me in the introduction that it was short. There is nothing noteworthy about the game except for the puzzles (with the exception of the response to xyzzy). Thus, the fun of the game lies solely in solving the puzzles, and if I had known this I would have stuck with the game longer before turning to the walkthrough.

Like many of the old C64 games, this one can hardly be called "fair". At least once in the game, looking at something a second time gives a second result, and you frequently die unexpectedly. The two-word parser can be downright frustrating at times and the game doesn't obey modern IF rules. It took me forever to realize that I could "Go Cabin" and "Go Bed", for example.

But the game retains all of its original charm, complete with cute graphics and quirky puzzles. And once you begin to get the hang of the parser and accept that the game doesn't play entirely fair, you begin to enjoy the simple treasure-gathering adventure in the game. If you're looking for a C64 game to bring you back to the nostalgia of your childhood, this is a good bet.

First off, this is NOT the infocom version. This is a version for the C64 with a two-word parser. It's tough to play a game with an old parser. Words such as "give" and "eat" are removed and a big part of the game becomes figuring out how to accomplish tasks using commands the parser will understand. (Spoiler - click to show)I struggled to figure out how to turn the gun on. It turns out that the command "on gun" does the trick. The game also suffers from a general lack of direction; it's tough to figure out exactly what the goal of the game is.

The game does know the word "help" and generally responds with unhelpful quips like "This is no time to be quoting Beatles tunes." There is also a basic maze in the game. Also, a note to anyone who might play this game in the future: the phrase "We're not Arcturian Megadonkeys, fellas" means that your inventory is full. Since that response first occurred when I attempted to pick up an Arcturian Megadonkey steak, I was convinced that the game was bugged until I happened to drop another item.

I'm left with the nagging feeling that I might have missed something in this game. I wish I could have gotten farther.

In this game, you play the same scene as several different characters. After my first play through, I enjoyed the story but was disappointed that there were no puzzles to speak of. (I'm a puzzlephile!) However, I did play the game back through a few more times to see if I could substantially change events. Except for the choice at the end of the story, I found that I couldn't really change the arc of the story. I tried leaving important objects behind, showing objects to people, and engaging in all sorts of ill-mannered behavior. All of this was thwarted.

(Spoiler - click to show)Even having Frank choose a coke instead of a bud didn't seem to alter the events of the story. I attempted to get Frank drunk, but could only manage to get one beer out of the fridge. Even though he drank the entire thing, the game insisted that he still had a beer to drink every time I tried to snag another. I also tried to have Frank catch Jeanie taking money, but that didn't seem to work either.

With a game that lets the story happen from multiple viewpoints, it would be fun to have more control over the events. However, I did enjoy the fact that the different characters remembered the conversation in slightly different ways and noticed different objects. And the story was a good one, worthy of the title of 'interactive fiction'.

This old-school IF game is really more of a maze. The pc refused to pick up any of the objects in the game, so I'm not sure that they serve any purpose other than random decoration. Exits are not labeled (hence the 'maze' aspect) and going the wrong way causes you to die in strange yet rather unamusing ways (such as running into a lamppost or being sat on by an elephant). I patiently played through as much of it as I could, but got stuck at some point when the game gave a blank response to the command "west". I confess that I didn't replay through completely to make sure that I didn't miss a turn in the maze; I just couldn't justify spending any more time with this game.

This cute game is very brief (about 20 minutes). You've been presented with a new pet velociraptor and must keep him from destroying your apartment. The puzzles are fairly easy, with the exception of the final puzzle, which may not be obvious to everyone. The premise is original enough to make the game an amusing and short diversion.

The game is brief and the puzzles are easy. But for fans of the Hitchhiker's Series, it's worth playing this brief (10 minute) tribute to Douglas Adams, who died in May 2001, around the time this game was released. The game does a terrific job of preserving the personalities from the book, and the ending will stir anyone who was a fan of Adams.

This game was an entry into the Great IF Toaster Contest, in which contestants were to design a game around a toaster. In this game, you have promised to cook your girlfriend breakfast if she stayed over. Alas, your refrigerator is empty and you quickly set off on an unexpected journey to find all the ingredients.

The introduction of the game warns you that it is easy to put the game in an unwinnable state. In many cases you'll get a blatant warning that this has occurred. However, you can perform a few silly actions that will also eliminate some needed objects (Spoiler - click to show)such as eating the toast. The puzzles are very fair and unique, simple enough to keep you engaged but tough enough to give you a feeling of pride upon completion of the game. The puzzles are the basis of the game and I recommend the game assuming the player likes puzzles. Those who enjoy a less puzzle-oriented game full of plot and characterization will probably find this game less exciting.

This game was an entry into the Great IF Toaster Comp. Despite the short duration in which the game was written, it is very entertaining and well-written. Only a handful of typos and some slightly inconvenient implementations reveal that the game was written in haste.

In this game, you play a dull-witted friar's assistant. As such, the descriptions of the objects in the game are often amusing and at least a few puzzles revolve around determining what the dull pc could be describing. The game is well-crafted and each object can interact with the others in a sensible way. As the pc discovers new facts in the game, the descriptions of the objects and the rooms differ.

There is more than one logical solution for each puzzle. I had trouble finding and solving the final puzzle, but found the game so entertaining that I pulled up the source code so I could see the final scene.

This game was an entry into the Great IF Toaster Contest, in which contestants were to design a game around a toaster.

This extremely short game's sole point is to have you push down a lever to make toast. However, there is absolutely no obstacle to prevent you from doing so. The game suffers from a lack of implementation: almost none of the nouns in the room descriptions are able to be examined and, despite the fact that the game emphasizes the smell of burnt toast, upon typing the command "smell" the game responds with "you smell nothing unexpected".

A simple game in which you make toast in a giant toaster. The game is quick and the puzzles are simple enough to barely merit the label of "puzzle". Upon ending this game, I was left with the irksome feeling that I might have missed something, although my score (0 out of 0) seemed to indicate that I hadn't. Perhaps it was the title of the game that left me wondering if I had missed something more fun. I played the game a second time through just to see if I could crawl into the toaster. Alas, no.

This is an adrift game written for a comp in 2003. You play an apprentice demon hunter sent to a village to rid it of its demons and thereby earn the title of "demonhunter". The game is a simple one composed of 7 rooms. Puzzles are very easy and the game is very short. During my quick play, the game did seem to be well-implemented. All the objects in the description can be examined and there were no major flaws with the exception that I managed to finish the game with a score of 6 out of 5 possible points. Granted, that might be my fault: I'm always striving to be an overachiever.

The opening description is: "U R N THE FR0NT YARD 0F A LARGE ABAND0NED VICTR0N H0USE. ST0NE STEPS LEAD UP 2 A W1DE PR0CH"

Sadly, I played a few turns anyway. Might as well give the game a fair shot, right? Besides, I've never seen a "Pr0ch" before. I walked through a few rooms and found a few dead bodies outside. When I typed "look", I got the response "THERE IS N0THING KEWL". Yup, that sums it up perfectly. Nothing 'Kewl' in this game at all. I marked it as "I've played it" and now wish I could add "and I want those wasted 10 minutes of my life back."

I haven't played many speed-if games, so they might all be a bit strange. This one suffers from the problems I'd expect from speed-if: there are few locations and the NPC responds to very few conversation topics.

At the outset you arrive in a strange room with an odd old lady who is described as being stuck to the sofa singing show tunes. (Thankfully, no show tunes are sung.) The writing in the game hints at a war between the penguins and the dinosaurs, but there is little elaboration. There is little obvious motivation in the beginning of the game, but there are so few rooms and objects that your strange task becomes obvious within a few turns.

Other than a few amusing lines of description, the game holds little value as a game. The overall theme is bizarre without being intriguing and the only puzzle in the game is solved fairly quickly.

Really, I'd like to give this game 1.5 stars. It has more charm than the Eureka C64 games that I played, and I appreciated the attempt at humor, even if many of the in-jokes are too dated to be understood.

Like many other C64 games, the text is accompanied by pixilated graphics that you must wait to load before typing the next command. (This is no more than 1 second, but will get annoying quickly, especially with the very large number of empty locations you must traverse.) The game features instant death at some locations, a primitive parser, and a dearth of room names. Handily, the game does list the objects and exits at each location, bringing the frustration factor down a bit.

Overall, it's not a game to bother playing. But if you feel the urge, I managed to play it using a C64 interpreter I found at http://www.ccs64.com/ I can't vouch for it being virus-free or safe to download, but it did run the games.

There are two "Eureka" games in the file, both by Ian Livingstone. In one, you wander about a dinosaur infested landscape, attempting to avoid getting eaten. In the other, you attempt to escape from a POW camp in Germany. Both come complete with C64 pixilated graphics and cheezy music, which will make you giggle. The fun ends there, though, since you need to wait for the pictures to render every time you move (only about 1 second, but enough to get annoying as you attempt to move about quickly) and the music will make you hit the mute button after about 40 seconds.

Neither Eureka game contains anything worth working through. The descriptions are sparse, the parser is limited, and the map is large and bare. The dinosaur game ends abruptly in instant death in several places.

For those who are technologically challenged like myself, I found a C64 emulator at http://www.ccs64.com/ I can't vouch for it being virus-free or safe to download, but it did run the games.

After reading a review on here, I popped open Violet to read a few quick sentences. Unfortunately, I had to surrender my computer to my husband for an appointment 10 minutes later. Violet was so well-written and interesting that I ended up co-opting my husband's computer and downloading an interpreter so I could keep playing. The game was just too much fun to put down.

The narration in the game is entirely from the point-of-view of a girlfriend, and it sparkles. Almost every command you type evokes a witty response. As I played, I found myself falling in love with the girlfriend behind the keyboard who makes clever artwork and calls me cute pet names.

The puzzle behind the game is deceptively straightforward: you need to write. There are many highly entertaining distractions and the puzzles center around masking them. The solutions to the puzzles are logical and a built-in hint system helps keep you from getting stuck.

Everything about the game shines, from the well-implemented commands and descriptions to the strong and well-developed characters that kept me glued to the game until the finish. The writing is so good that you will want to play it again, just to see more of the fun distractions and hear more cute pet names.

It's been a very long time since I've played any of these old dungeon-crawl games. I was tickled to discover that they still held quite a bit of entertainment value. You play the part of an adventurer who must gather treasure while exploring a rather vast cave.

Like any older game, this one held numerous parser frustrations. The game recognizes few verbs, and "examine" "search" and "i" are notably missing (you must type 'inventory' instead). To further complicate things, there are no room names, there is no 'undo' command, and there is at least one object that is easy to lose irretrievably if it is used at the wrong time. There is also no 'save' or 'restore'. The game instead uses 'suspend' and 'resume', but this seems to allow only one saved game at a time. Further saves overwrite the previous save. (Spoiler - click to show)It took me several deaths before I discovered that "swing knife" would allow me to attack the monsters, since the game doesn't seem to recognize them as nouns. Also, at some point I got very frustrated over a puzzle until I realized that by dropping the rope then typing "climb down" allowed me to use the rope even though "use rope" didn't work.

Nevertheless, as I worked my way through the caverns and discovered a series of twisty little passages, all alike, and worked to free myself before my brass lantern ran out of batteries, I found myself grinning. I still haven't succeeded in solving all the puzzles, and I suspect that this game will replace solitaire for a few weeks as my favorite 'bored at work' diversion.

You have been selected by your village to go to the oracle for advice. Your journey begins in a cave and you must solve a handful of puzzles before you arrive at your destination.

The puzzles in this game are generally logical. (Spoiler - click to show) I did manage to light a fire without any matches, which baffled me a bit. The game will take under two hours to play for anyone familiar with IF. The author seems to have done a good job of keeping the game from becoming unwinnable. After playing it once through, I attempted to leave key objects in inaccessible places, but the game managed to throw me back. The puzzles in the game were unique enough to hold interest, but straightforward enough to prevent any frustration. At any given time, the player is holding only a small number of objects, and a general 'try object from inventory with object in room' approach will serve to solve most puzzles.

Ad Verbum is solely a puzzle game (no story or plot). Unlike traditional IF puzzles, the puzzles in Ad Verbum are word puzzles, mostly of 'guess the verb' form. In general, I detest 'guess the verb' puzzles, but this game succeeds beautifully by creating logical constraints for the verbs. While playing it, I found myself happily mulling over synonyms for 'take' and 'exit'. The writing in the game is very clever, and the author does an exceptional job of following the rules presented in the game, managing to give entire room and object descriptions using only, for example, words that begin with 'w'.

The game is relatively short. Most of the time you spend playing it will be spent thinking over puzzles. Ad Verbum is great for delivering the 'ah hah!' moment of a cleverly solved puzzle. It's also a terrific game for involving others in the puzzles. Normal IF puzzles are difficult to share with others, but it was simple to turn to my husband and say "I need a word that means 'exit' that begins with 's'." Indeed, my husband provided the necessary solutions for at least two of the puzzles.

This game is highly recommended as a diversion from more traditional IF, and is a must-play for any puzzle-lover.

The tag "primitive parser" says it all. This game is from the early days, and the parser supports almost none of the usual commands. You can't "examine", "look", or even "go". Instead, you type in the name of the room you would like to move to.

The premise is simple: you are solving a murder on a ship. The suspects are in different rooms and they say something to you when you enter. The game is a simple type of deductive logic game. As the opening paragraph states, NOBODY suspects the real murderer. So when a suspect accuses another suspect, you cross the accused off the list, eventually deducing the killer through process of elimination. The killer, location of the body, location of the suspects, and suspect accusations change each time you replay the game.

This game can be called "interactive fiction" only inasmuch as it has typed commands. There is no real interaction; it's only a simple deductive game, the type that I enjoyed when I was 8 and computers didn't have graphics. It's not worth playing unless you want a very brief and bugless trip down memory lane. It's about a 5 minute diversion that will remind you of your childhood in front of your Commodore 64.

This game could be classified as a less-interesting version of Varicella. In order to solve the puzzles, you will need to replay scenes over and over. (This repetition is necessary since the author has disabled the 'undo' command and limits the number of saves to 3) Once I hit my 8th time replaying the opening scene, I gave up and resorted to the 'hints' section.

This game is all about the puzzles (which the author states very clearly), so once you resort to the hints, all fun is removed from the game. The PC is unsympathetic and dopey (you must open doors before you walk through them, or he will bang into them, an event that ceases to be funny very quickly) and the NPCs understand almost nothing that you tell them.

Adding to the general frustration of the game were a few strange yet amusing bugs. For example, as I tried to hand one child a gold star, she responded "I don't want seconds." Apparently, she had already eaten all the gold stars she could. And when faced with an envelope full of gold stars, the command 'take gold star' meant that I would wrestle a gold star away from a crying child rather than take one out of the envelope.

Overall, the game's frustration factor was too high for me to finish it. I had to replay several boring turns just to arrive at the crucial puzzle point I was stuck at. I would attempt yet another unsuccessful solution, only to have to restart the game again to replay the entire first boring scene in order to get to the puzzle yet again. Being able to use the 'undo' command might have made this game more tolerable. There does not seem to be any good reason for disabling 'undo' except to make the game more obnoxious to solve. And if a game is going to be this obnoxious, it had better be really fun to play, which this one, sadly, isn't.

I love puzzles and spookiness, and have been looking for a game to hold up to my personal favorite spooky puzzle game, Anchorhead.

Lydia's Heart is not as spooky as Anchorhead. However, the setting is vividly described and the plot of the story created a sense of urgency in places, enough so that I jumped at least a few times when my husband interrupted me.

The puzzles were logical and interesting. A word of warning to future players, however, that sometimes looking in the same place at a different point in the game can yield a new item. This particular facet of the game was my one big point of frustration, since generally in IF I expect to find everything in an area when it's searched. However, I think if I'd known from the beginning that some areas could yield new items when I had different needs, I would have found the puzzles to be less frustrating. As it was, I ended up referring to the in-game hint system far more often than I like.

I'm not normally a fan of horror games, but the prose in this game was so well-written that I couldn't tear myself away. This is my #1 most recommended game to friends, since I found the puzzles fairly intuitive and fun.