Reviews by Denk

In this Quest game you are trapped in a room, remembering a few spell names. You have to escape somehow. This game has a lot of good stuff going for it. The idea of limiting the commands to the spells is fine, except some other commands are needed as well and you have to guess which commands, making it a fight with the parser. For instance, it is not clear if you can use put, insert, but get, open and examine seems to work sometimes.

The game also appears buggy as you can find an object several times etc.

With some beta-testers, I think this can end up being a really nice game. For now, I gave up on completing it as I never knew if the game became unwinnable due to the obvious bugs. So I encourage the author to get some testers, polish this game some more and announce it when it is ready.

Thanks to Tabitha's poll on games with few ratings, I gave this short game a try. I haven't played many games about vampires but such games seem to be quite popular now, especially what could be called symbolic vampires: People who suck energy from others. This game still stays on the supernatural path, though it may all be intended as symbolic in the end anyway.

The graphics and sounds add positively to the game. Certainly interesting.

This game requires an ZX Spectrum emulator like Fuse, which I used.

EDIT: Be aware that this game uses a few stereotypes which could feel quite offensive and I believe the game would be better without it. However, the game still has a lot of good things in it and it would be simple to improve it in a post comp release, which I hope will happen, as it is otherwise a nice game. My original review below is unaltered.

This is a really neat VERY old school parser game for the sake of puzzles. They were fun to work through. I almost solved it in 1 hour and 50 minutes but had overlooked an obvious connection to a location so had to peak at the walkthrough. So the puzzles are definitely fair but if you are not used to the simplistic PAW parser (? I think this is a PAW game?), you will have to get used to it first. So it actually does accept up to four words when it makes sense, e.g. USE X ON Y.

Most importantly, typing L will ruin the game, but if you ramsave once in a while you can just type RL to ramload again. Instead use R to look around (Redescribe).

The entire game is relatively well implemented, considering it is a PAW(?) game. The atmosphere is cute despite some horror elements. A very nice feature is the VOCAB commands which tells you ALL the verbs you need to know and typing HELP toggles between 4-5 different hints. They were a nice addition which I applied, so I did not really need the walkthrough except when I missed a room connection :/

Overall, a very fun retro experience!

Being an alien disguised as a human isn't always easy. In this game you must study humans. You get a few choices where I recommend to do the "wrong" thing, as there are some funny responses to that - you will usually (always?) get to do the right thing afterwards, following a rather linear but interesting plot, with a drop of sad realism too. A thoughtful game with some nice humor. Well done :)

Ok, I am obviously an outlier here, though five people gave this game 8 or 9 during IFComp. However, I did not play this game during IFComp. Instead I found it as an entry in the Short Game Showcase 2023.

So I expected a very short sci-fi game, which it was. It delivered a very smooth experience on my phone and I was in the mood for a short and simple but yet interesting game. Sure, there are no puzzles but I liked the story and the user interface and graphics were great. There is a sort of moral choice at one point and the ending was interesting.

I think this showcases the Strand engine well for choice based games, which still seems to take into account location based gameplay though I am not sure. However, I do know it can be used for parser games as well.

In general, I rate games based on what I feel when I complete the game as I believe in subjective ratings as enjoyment, being impressed etc. is all about feelings which are always subjective. The game gave me very much what I was looking for at that particular time and I enjoyed it a lot.

Goes straight to the heart. In addition it is also a very good game which drew me in. Not sure if the memories were 100% true or partly fiction but they could all be true so in any case thanks for sharing.

It has a lot of things in common with Repeat The Ending. However, the game element/puzzles are more traditional and puzzly in LAKE Adventure. But their stories are both very impactful and sad.

(Played online with Parchment)
Inspired by Rovarsson's review, I decided to try this old game from 2007. This is an atmospheric 1-room game where your task is to prevent the Count from entering and survive the night.

The writing is good, the introduction story is interesting and so is the ending. There is also a twist (sort of) halfway through this game.

The puzzles are fun but never really hard. The parser is good despite being made with Adrift 4, though I noticed at least one instance where the word "it" could not be used to solve a puzzle and so I had to rewrite the command using the noun instead of "it". Also, there could have been a few more responses to commands where the player tries something other than the intended solutions to puzzles.

But overall a very entertaining game!

This game is among Infocom's finest. A sophisticated parser where you can order several robots around makes some original puzzles possible. It is hardcore sci-fi with only little human interaction, so that may not be everyone's cup of tea. But if you are into tough but logical puzzles, this is really good. According to sources, this game has the difficulty level "expert". I didn't find it so hard, unlike many other Infocom games, but that is probably because I like the genre. The game has very high replayability. It has two difficulty levels and for each level you will probably start out receiving a low rank, but by replaying, you can receive the best rank, i.e. rank 1. To reach the highest rank, you will to some extent have to optimize your moves, to have few casualties and to solve the game in few cycles. I regard this as a very good game.

Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: 9/10)
A very sophisticated parser where you can give orders to multiple "characters" (robots). Lacks modern synonyms like X, Z and g and you cannot "undo". A good thing is, that you do not need to type more than six characters of each word, which is a very suitable limit.

Atmosphere (Rating: 9/10)
Though you mainly interact with robots, they have different personalities, not least Poet, and when humans arrive their presence it adds a layer of time pressure.

Cruelty (Rating: Tough)
It quite quickly becomes obvious, that you are not going to solve the game the first time you try. And the first many games you play, it won't really make sense to save your progress, as you will learn something new almost every time, and to complete the game you will probably have to start over and optimize your moves some. But the time limits are obvious. Had there been no time limits it is possible but not very likely, that the game could become unwinnable.

Puzzles (Rating: 10/10)
Excellent puzzles that requires multiple play throughs to figure out in order to provide a challenge. I also like the meta-puzzle of minimizing casualties and the number of cycles taken to finish the game.

Overall (Rating: 10/10)
One of Infocom's best. Some tough but logical puzzles with well-hidden hints. Some might find the lack of human interaction a bit sterile but each robot has its own personality so it didn't bother me. And humans will appear at some point. Very good!

This game is a "limited parser" game in that you are given all 11 verbs up front so you don't have to guess any verbs. Well, at one point in the game, you will have to come up with a verb yourself, but it will be obvious when this is. However, the parser is still a bit picky, so you will have to use capital letters when referring to person's names, book titles etc. Also, whenever you want to type words instead of single letters (single letters could be H, N, S etc) you must first type "f". But you will quickly get the hang of it.

The game starts out when you are standing outside Walter Donovan's house because you received a letter. First step is to get inside. There are several puzzles - some easy and some quite clever ones too. You will find notes along the way until you understand Walter much better.

Despite the very simple parser, the game works very well with good puzzles and an interesting story. Another technical issue is that you can only have one save state. However, you can work around this by copying the "file_di_gioco"-folder so you do not overwrite older save states.

Overall recommended if you like puzzly parser games with a moving story.

This is the fourth Barry Basic game and "as always" it is fun with nice puzzles and simple but charming graphics.

You are eleven years old and are going to the beach with the class to find seashells and some more interesting stuff will happen.

As required by the TALP competition, it has an in-game tutorial the first 10 or so turns, which can be turned off if needed. Everything was technically well done.

Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: 7/10)
The game can be completed with two-word commands but understand more than that. The parser was never a problem.

Atmosphere (Rating: 8/10)
The graphics are simple but atmospheric enough. The writing is terse but sufficient.

Cruelty (Rating: Merciful)
I doubt it can become unwinnable.

Puzzles (Rating: 8/10)
Fairly easy but fun, including some spell puzzles.

Overall (Rating: 9/10)
A really good introduction to new IF players (the purpose of the TALP competition) but also fun for more experienced players though it is quite easy.