Reviews by Denk

This very short game was inspired by a true story experienced by Douglas Adams. First when I reached the end did I remember having read about it long time ago. Great idea to make such small funny anecdotes into games. Would be fun to see more of this type of super brief games.

This is a puzzly parser game very much in Garry Francis' usual style. You must cheat your way into the King's Ball as that would be great for your bakery business. The game is fairly small, around 15 locations, and well implemented which we have come to expect from Garry Francis despite a few uncritical bugs. I played the z5-version where undo was available.

Parser: 8/10
PunyInform games usually have a good parser. This game is no exception.

Atmosphere: 8/10
Terse but sufficient which is very fine for a game like this.

Cruelty rating: Merciful
I don't think you can bring yourself in an unwinnable situation in this game.

Puzzles: 7/10
Most are easy, except one detail which was tricky but still fair. However, you must examine EVERYTHING like many old school adventures, not just the most obvious objects in a location. Many modern players may not be used to this. Typing HINT will also tell you this.

Overall: 7/10
A fun game with some okay puzzles.

I had never heard about this game, perhaps because there is zero coding behind. It is an old fashioned CYOA "book" - simply a page with numbered paragraphs. You start at paragraph 1 where you get to choose what to do, which tells you the number of the next paragraph to read.

You play as a secretary bot with the task of investigating a murder. There are several endings despite the document is fairly short. Overall it works pretty well for several play throughs. What is most important is probably the humour which is silly in a good way. Quite entertaining and fun.

The premise for this game is excellent, whether you are religious or not. You are travelling back in time to find out what the mark of Cain was. The game mechanics are also great with many recipe puzzles which reminded me very much of the potion brewing in Gnome Ranger so good stuff! The game has a built-in hint system which answered all my questions. To begin with, I wanted to solve all puzzles by myself but at some point I became impatient because I was very eager to read the ending so I was less patient than usually. So I looked at the hints a few times. However, I never felt the game was unfair though at some point you need to refer to a part of some machinery which was in the protagonist's plain sight but wasn't mentioned unless under very specific circumstances (the spout) so that small bit could be improved.

Parser/Vocabulary (8/10)
Pretty good parser with a few strange responses but that happens rarely.

Atmosphere (9/10)
The writing is really good without being too verbose.

Cruelty: Merciful
I think you can never bring yourself in an unwinnable situation in this game.

Puzzles (9/10)
Great, satisfying puzzles.

Overall (9/10)
This may become a modern classic. It is a great game.

This is a fairly small but fun puzzler. You start out in a waiting room with a barred door and only direct access to one more room. The premise, which you will understand later, is an original take on a more common plot. The writing is terse but I think that is fine for this kind of game. So if you like puzzles and small games, this is a nice diversion for perhaps an hour or less if you are experienced in puzzle solving.

The fact that Adrift 4 games now can be played very well online with the Parchment interpreter has given me new energy to play and review these games. I played this quite a while ago though.

This is a pretty good mystery game where you must find evidence on who is the killer at a party, otherwise you will become the main suspect.

The game has a few issues but nothing critical. The only "puzzle" I didn't like was that I had to:(decrypt with www.rot13.com)
CHG GUR OBBXF BA GUR NCCEBCEVNGR OBBXPNFRF
Before I could do something hardly related. That wasn't very logical.

Otherwise, puzzles were fair and the game includes a walkthrough if you get stuck.

The game may require that you have a bit of experience with text adventures, but if you have that, there are no real technical problems. For instance, books couldn't be referred to as a book, e.g. GET BOOK wouldn't work, you would have to type e.g. GET RIGGING BOOK. Not really a problem as you will quickly find more books and you would have to be more specific on which book you want to read anyway. Stuff like this may annoy some, but not me. Also, the game accepted the use of "it" in a few places. However, sometimes using "it" gave a different response than using the noun, which is of course a problem but that didn't happen very often (may happen often in Adrift 4 games, I am not sure).

Despite these few niggles, it was quite entertaining. I hope to play more of David Good's games soon.

I have tried to beat this retro style Glulxe text adventure several times but got away from it, despite the highly atmospheric graphics and music. However, I recently completed the bigger ambitious "Andromeda Awakening - The Final Cut", also by Marco Innocenti, which Andromeda 1983 is based upon, though there are several differences in the puzzles. Still, a puzzle which prevented me from completing the game earlier, could be solved quite similar to how it was solved in "Awakening". Sometimes when I have been stuck, I am sometimes disappointed but this was not the case here. The game has only few but brilliant puzzles, both some easy ones and some tough ones.

Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: 8/10)
I understand that the author wanted a simple parser like the non-Infocom games in the 80s but there are left some modern conveniences in the parser as it would be too much trouble to remove them. So a better parser than intended!

Atmosphere (Rating: 10/10)
Perhaps the best thing about this game is the atmosphere. Brilliant pixel art and C64-like music tune full of suspense. The text is brief but sufficient.

Cruelty (Rating: Merciful)
It is my impression that the game cannot be unwinnable but it might be possible to deliberately break important objects - I didn't investigate that.

Puzzles (Rating: 8/10)
Some pretty good and fair puzzles, both easy and tough puzzles.

Overall (Rating: 9/10)
This is a short but very good game if you like games with a retro vibe.

This is a short game for day two of #EnigMarch and was made in seven hours but is surprisingly fun despite having no testers. I did find one "game-helping" bug so it became too easy to reach the ending but the bug has now been fixed so it seems to be solidly coded.

Subsequently I managed to finish the game in the intended way. This may be a simple game and the puzzles are fairly easy but it is well written and highly entertaining.

NB: I always rate games relative to their length so rated as a short game, this is absolutely great!

This game starts out with an atmospheric introduction which later on is replaced with some intendedly cold descriptions in a world consisting of robots. Still, there is something more underneath some of the NPCs apparently insensitive personalities.

This sci-fi game is pretty well constructed, except perhaps some difficulties near the ending and a bug that could make objects disappear unintentionally - in other words, don't put anything on the Interrogator (an object called "interrogator).
[And don't play with the Adrift 5 interpreter as this is an Adrift 4 game and the game will be unwinnable when played with the Adrift 5 interpreter due to compatibility problems]

Parser: 8/10
I had no guess-the-verb situations. My only trouble with the parser was som ambiguities. They turned out not to be important to the puzzles but the player can't know that for sure, before they complete the game.

Atmosphere: 7/10
The introduction was very well written and sets the tone but later the intended coldness of the robots take over. Still, it can become very sterile. There are some indications of feelings though, once in a while.

Cruelty: Polite
Perhaps polite? I think it is possible to run out of battery, if you don't recharge often, but it didn't happen to me, so I am not sure.

Puzzles: 7/10
Several good puzzles, though a few seemed a bit confusing, especially near the end. Near the end I needed a hint and typing HINT gave me exactly the hint I needed. So the hint system appears to be well constructed. Most puzzles are about information so TALK TO characters and ASK ABOUT is very important. But near the end it seems that the author could not anticipate all the different orders in which things could be done, so some of the responses seemed a bit off.

Overall: 8/10
Overall a good game with a few technical issues and design issues but nothing critical.

This is an interesting crime game which takes place in 1886 following some events in a theatre where you are an actor. It is one of the many Zenobi games that the late John Wilson made available through his blog. However, many of these games come without the original instructions. It is my impression I was missing some important information for this game too but still I managed to enjoy it with some help from the walkthrough on CASA as well as the small introduction that can also be found on CASA. Still, I felt I was missing some information about the characters you encounter later in the game to properly understand the plot. But 95% of the puzzles were nice and could be solved without this information.

Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: 7/10)
I am not so experienced in PAW games as I used to have a C64 in the 90s but I have started to play many with a Spectrum emulator. Luckily, the walkthrough gives some general parser advice before the spoilers: You will need both quotation marks and periods and use commands of the type (fictive example):
>say "go up. take painting. go down" to jack

So in this sense, the parser is pretty advanced. On the other hand, there were many guess-the-verb situations. Guessing the verb was to some extent part of the fun back then, so the player didn't solve puzzles accidently. However, at least one puzzle I would never had guessed even though I had the right idea (rot13.com): fvyrapr evsyr

Atmosphere (Rating: 8/10)
As most 48k Spectrum games the descriptions are short but in this game sufficient for a fitting atmosphere with a focus on puzzles.

Cruelty (Rating: Cruel)
Often you can continue until to the next "scene" without the needed objects. However, this was common back then and the game is not very long so often the player will suspect that they might be missing an object and therefore play the previous parts of the game again if they are stuck.

Puzzles (Rating: 8/10)
There were some good, original puzzles, some involving timed events as some events happen at certain times. There is a watch in the upper right corner which ticks away if you are too slow. However, if you start writing a command, the clock stops until you have finished your command. At least one puzzle I wouldn't have guessed without the walkthrough, perhaps because I didn't have all the original instructions.

Overall (Rating: 7/10)
This was an entertaining game. It was probably even better if I had understood the plot fully but I didn't. Still I enjoyed it.