Ratings and Reviews by Denk

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.

This is the sequel to "Out of the Limelight" and just as the first game, it is recommended to find the leaflet with the instructions online to get the backstory. However, the most important is probably the commands VOCAB and INFO. VOCAB tells you the required format for talking to characters.

This game takes place 3 years after the first game. You are still working as an actor and during a play you see Rosenberg on the balcony. But you killed him in the last game(?)!

Part 1 is mostly a detective game where you are looking for clues and travel between locations you discover are important. Part 2 has more the style of a "treasure island"-game where you are trying to bring down a criminal gang who hides in a monastery on an island. So you will have to avoid being killed by thugs etc.

The game has a lot of good, fair puzzles but as always with old PAW games you should expect some guess-the-verb situations and that the game can be unwinnable without telling you.

Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: 6/10)
The PAW parser can handle more than 2 words but mostly 2 are sufficient but not always. Sometimes I wonder why a command did not work but I suppose adding more possible commands would eat up RAM too fast. For instance, the game apparently understand the word POUR. But in a special situation I was going to pour something, the required command was PUT OBJECT1 ON OBJECT2 even though the game often responds to such commands with: You cannot wear object1. When you get used to playing PAW games, you get a better understanding of these problems and can usually figure out the right command within a reasonable amount of time.

Atmosphere (Rating: 8/10)
The descriptions are good considering it is a PAW game with a limited amount or RAM. You don't need a lot more text to get in the right mood.

Cruelty (Rating: Cruel)
As most PAW games from this period, you may overlook an object you will need later and you can't go back and get it. Instead you must load an earlier save or restart.

Puzzles (Rating: 8/10)
Some very nice puzzles, all very fair. Most were of medium difficulty plus the added difficulty of guessing-the-verb sometimes.

Overall (Rating: 8/10)
Certainly one of the better PAW games from when homegrown 8-bit text adventures where at its best.

I played this game online at Eamon Remastered where you can either play with your own character or a demo character.

This RPG is quite original in the sense that you are cursed with the sword Hellsblade, so that you attack all beings on your path with the sword, whether they are friends or foes. First you need to find a way to control the blade and later get rid of it, so that the world will be a safe place once again.

The game is a classic Eamon adventure, so there will be lots of interesting treasures and weapons to pick up, which you can then sell or use in other Eamon adventures. The game is very much about combat and exploring, finding keys, secret rooms and tunnels but there are also a few real puzzles included. Hints are included in case you get stuck.

The writing is good and the game is well designed. I have played a lot of Eamon games lately and this is one of the best I have tried so far. I can certainly recommend this.

This game should be played with a C64 emulator, then it is a very short and primitive but charming two-word parser game in the style of early 80s single load text adventures. The use of colors on C64 add to the charm so if you play the TADS port I think you can at least subtract one more star, so the TADS version is not really recommended.

There hardly is any story: "An important scepter has gone missing from the royal throne."

You simply have to find the scepter. There are a bit of randomized combat which is not everyone's cup of tea but works okay and your chances of winning has to do with the weapons you have and armour.

You don't have to solve all puzzles to complete the game and it can be completed in around 40 turns so it is very short. But if you enjoy small, primitive two-word parser games, this is an okay game for a short while.

This game is an old school treasure hunt written by Campbell Wild, the creator of Adrift. If you expect a lot of verbose, beautiful prose you will be disappointed, as this is primarily a game, not a story. But it is a game with a lot of good puzzles which are (usually) well implemented. I think the main problem of this game is, that it is extremely easy to put the game in an "unwinnable" state and you won't know it until much later. I started over and over again, because I just wanted to beat it, but in the end I had enough of restarting when I reached 620 points out of 1000. Even for 1999 (the publication year), this game is more cruel than most games (for comparison Winter Wonderland (IFComp 1999 winner) could not be put in an "unwinnable" state). With a bit more thought this could have been a really good game. No testers are mentioned, which kind of explains it. Even the technically best authors need testers to find the bugs and design flaws in their games.

Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: 7/10)
ADRIFT 3.8 parser is nothing special but in most cases it wasn't a problem. A few times, I thought I was encountering a guess-the-verb situation but I simply tried an alternative solution which was not accounted for. So this isn't really a parser issue but a design issue.

Atmosphere (Rating: 6/10)
The descriptions are sufficiently detailed for a puzzler like this, but could be improved.

Cruelty (Rating: Cruel)
As mentioned above, it is far too easy to end up in an "unwinnable" situation without knowing it. Many contemporary games did not have this problem in 1999.

Puzzles (Rating: 8/10)
The puzzles are pretty good, with a bit of humour thrown in.

Overall (Rating: 6/10)
I enjoyed it quite a lot for a while, but in the end the constant need to restart or load a very old save became too frustrating.

I was intrigued by the title of this game in the 90s Adventure Probe but couldn't play it because I did not have a ZX Spectrum. Now, many years later, a C64 version is available (made with DAAD) so I finally get to play this one.

In this comedy text adventure you control the electron Edmond as he has crashed his orbital in the city of Electronz. The game is a puzzle fest seen from the perspective of electrons, where protons and neutrons are buildings and a graviton is a dog breed etc. So a lot of funny references to beginner particle physics. I am certainly a beginner in that field. Some of the puzzles are based on light physics or word-play but don't expect the physics to be close to the real world. For instance, Edmond is called an electron and starts out having positive charge, which makes him a positron and therefore antimatter but he explodes if he touches antimatter, not the other way around. But such details are not important as this is a comedy and should not be taken too seriously.

Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: 6/10)
I played the DAAD version, not sure how close it was to the PAW version. Some untraditional choices but the author makes up for it by guiding the player in several situations. For instance, there were sort of "containers" in the game but you couldn't "PUT OBJECT IN OBJECT". Instead you might EMPTY OBJECT IN OBJECT or FILL OBJECT WITH SOMETHING, stuff like that. But the author tells the player upfront about the commands CHARGE and EMPTY and the fact that SEARCH and EXAMINE are not the same. Some guess-the-verb situations along the way, which probably is unavoidable for such a "big" game, considering it is an 8-bit single-load game.

Atmosphere (Rating: 7/10)
Funny writing which fits the game theme.

Cruelty (Rating: Tough)
I noticed a few places where the game can become unwinnable but it will in most cases be obvious that what you did was irreversible.

Puzzles (Rating: 8/10)
The game is crammed with puzzles, and there were several good, fun puzzles. A few of them involved word-play but they were solvable to me except for on one, despite that English is not my mother tongue. As with most old text adventures, finding the objects are part of the game so remember to search and examine everything.

Overall (Rating: 8/10)
Everything considered, this is a good old-fashioned puzzle fest with good puzzles and some funny writing.

This surreal sci-fi game is very short and straight forward except the main puzzle but it would be a spoiler to say more.

Fine for a 5 minutes diversion.

Ok, so this was hilarious. Sometimes I am impressed with some people's ability to be funny. This was also the case here. Sure, not all jokes were funny but even those that weren't, still fitted well into the story.

This is a choice based game which keeps track of your endings. There appear to be 10 endings. I think I encountered a single bug as it seemed that I reached a natural ending but I wasn't told and couldn't restart. No big deal though I had to refresh my browser which meant the "ending tracker" was reset.

The best ending was also particularly well hidden. Not extremely well but enough so I first found it after several tries. The game is quite short so it is no big deal to start over and try something else.

I give this game 5 stars as it is mostly hilarious and I kept on playing as I wanted to see the end.

Brief description: Awesome story in a primitive system - done very well!

From an IF viewpoint Google Forms is very primitive as it apparently can't store information in variables - at least that is my understanding from the author's design choices. Nor can you save your progress except for the text you have entered along the way is remembered by Google if you ever logged in. To account for this, the game is designed such that if you note down keycard codes, objects found etc. you can skip big parts of the game when you restart. In addition you can go to part II and III with links near the beginning in case you have already played part I and maybe part II. In practice this works very well.

The game is a sort of thriller mystery and starts out well with perhaps a common theme (well, it is very hard nowadays to come up with something completely new): An abandoned ship is found adrift and you will land on the deck to investigate...

Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: N/A)
No parser. However, several puzzles are parser-like as you have to type the right keyword so that the solution is not given away through visible choices.

Atmosphere (Rating: 9/10)
The game starts out good but the atmosphere and tension increases in part III. Really good! First parts 8/10 in atmosphere, last part 10/10.

Cruelty (Rating: Merciful)
You can never ruin you chance of success and if you die there is a sort of "undo" (often named "rewind")

Puzzles (Rating: 8/10)
Interesting and fun puzzles, some easy and a lot medium. There were a few I wasn't very fond of: Solving a complete crossword was too hard for me as English is not my mother tongue. Luckily, the embedded walkthrough provides the full solution to it. Also, a couple of puzzles required knowledge which many would probably need to solve via the internet, which is not in line with the plot as there is no internet connection available. (Spoiler - click to show)I am thinking of translating Russian and the city in the picture I could not recognize.

Overall (Rating: 9/10)
Starts out good and the final part is just excellent with some psychological themes that fits well into the story.

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.

This is what you get if you cross a Scott Adams adventure with an abstract math/physics adventure. The parser is primitive but consistent (verb+noun, only 4 letters of each word matters) and fast (running an Atari ST emulator at 32MHz - at 8MHz the text is slightly delayed). However, a z-code version exists.

Most puzzles you don't need to understand 100% to solve, as you will usually have an idea of what to do. For instance, you may come across a Riemann Zeta Integral. If I ever learned about it, I have forgotten about it, but knowing it was an integral was sufficient to have a hunch of what to do so I did manage to solve the corresponding puzzle.

For me, the difficulty level was just right but I think some of the optional puzzles I could never have solved without some knowledge of e.g. superconductors and electromagnetic fields. Luckily, being an electrical engineer helped me a lot here. However, if you allow yourself to google the concepts you come across, you will probably have a chance of solving all puzzles anyway.

Overall, a highly enjoyable and original game.

Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: 7/10)
Primitive but consistent, fast and has several synonyms for verbs. My only caveat on the Atari ST is that there is apparently no LOOK / REDESCRIBE command so if you want to see the location description again, you must leave the room and enter it again.

Atmosphere (Rating: 8/10)
The surreal atmosphere is very convincing. The writing is terse as can be expected from a game which originally was an 8-bit game.

Cruelty (Rating: Merciful)
I don't think you can make the game unwinnable.

Puzzles (Rating: 9/10)
Some fun, fair puzzles, though the perceived difficulty will depend very much on your scientific background, thus it may seem unfair to some people.

Overall (Rating: 9/10)
A surprisingly fun game, considering it was designed in 1983. Some scientific background may be needed to enjoy it fully.

(played online with the old clunky WebRunner for Adrift games - refresh your browser!)
First a heads-up: Notice the command VOCAB. It lists 12 words. These verbs/prepositions are more than necessary to complete the game, when applied on the right objects / directions. So even though a few of the commands are not common nowadays, please look at this VOCAB list and you will find that the game isn't that hard after all.

Now on to the review, starting with a disclaimer: I beta-tested this game. I should also mention that this is a VERY short game but if you don't use the VOCAB command, it may take a lot of time to solve it. It can theoretically be solved in seven moves though.

You play the role of a German tank driver during WWII and you are approaching Kidney Ridge when you are attacked and all your crew mates are killed. You must now escape and flee the area. I must warn you that the descriptions of your dead crew mates are a bit detailed.

If you want excellent puzzles, this game isn't really of much interest. However, if you find the detailed descriptions of all the machinery and weapons interesting, I can tell you that it is well researched and described.

You may also find a challenge in getting 100 points as you can complete it with as little as 60 points. I managed to get 95 points. And you can disable the turn counter if you think it is too frustrating to die over and over until you find a way out of the tank.

An interesting game if you are in the mood for a short game from a different perspective.

This is a very funny, puzzly, one-room parser comedy. However, it is also very hard and in the version I played, I had to work around a bug.

I rarely give a game with a significant game breaking bug five stars. In this case I made an exception because I realized that it was a bug and managed to work around it. Also, the author should be working on a 3rd version and I completed the 2nd version after having given up on the first version. So I think it is a shame if such an excellent game will be forgotten because the author didn't fix the bugs in time for ParserComp, even though the author is of course "responsible" (no one got hurt I suppose). In addition there are some other bugs which may require you to restore an earlier save, but they are quite obvious. So save often.

So if anyone found the game disappointing during ParserComp I understand.

I just think that this game is a real challenge: You start out with some rather easy puzzles and they gradually get harder, really hard. The hard ones are only very subtly clued but they are clued. But if you do not notice the clue you may have to start over to realize it - not sure, didn't investigate that issue.

Unless you are in a hurry, you might as well wait for the third version which hopefully takes care of those bugs and you will be playing an excellent parser comedy, assuming you love hard puzzles. However, knowing that there are bugs will probably make you notice it and quickly experiment to see what is triggering that bug. To me, the puzzles were great and the humor very funny so it was worth it to work around that bug.

Mild content warning: This game insinuates some adult situations.

This game is a one-room comedy parser game with a limited number of moves, multiple endings and you don't need maximum points to get a good ending. I managed to get 45/60 points before I gave up after starting over many, many times. Later I came back and reached 54/60 so the game is quite addictive.

Parser:
This is more or less the standard Inform parser which is always good unless the author by mistake ruins it. In this case it is good too. Also, there were no apparent ambiguity problems which can easily occur in a one-room game with many objects. The parser is as good as needed.

Atmosphere:
The writing is successfully humorous and gives the intended atmosphere I would expect.

Cruelty rating: Cruel
This type of game must be cruel. This is a game with a limited number of moves and you must learn from your mistakes by starting over and over again.

Puzzles:
There were nice, well-clued puzzles. If I had managed to solve all of them I would probably have given an even higher puzzle score. But as I don't know the unsolved solutions I can only evaluate the ones I solved.

Overall:
Everything in this game plays well together, resulting in a higher total score than each of the individual categories above. It is a well implemented, fun one-room comedy puzzle game where the goal is to get as many points as you can. Unless you get very stubborn and want to reach maximum points, there are not countless of hours in this game. But asking for more content is never a valid criticism but a compliment. However, in a competition like Spring Thing I think the longer game should win if I am equally entertained as long as it lasts. But rated as a short game, this was my favourite game in Spring Thing 2022.

This is a very well done game and one of the longer ones in ParserComp 2022, where you take the role of a studying teenager who is unravelling a mystery in the small, English town Houghton Bridge while you really should be studying. There will be indications of something supernatural (no more spoilers!). The story is overall pretty good.

Parser:
I never had a problem with the parser. Either the Adventuron parser is often improved or the author's programming skills play a significant role.

Atmosphere:
In some areas the atmosphere is decent whereas it is even better in others, e.g. creepy. Overall, a fitting atmosphere.

Cruelty rating: Merciful
There are multiple endings but you can apparently always reach some of them. I don't know if being locked out from some of the endings increases cruelty(?).

Puzzles:
All puzzles are fair and meaningful. The difficulty is around "medium", some a bit easier some a bit harder.

Overall (Rating: 9/10)
The story plays very well with the puzzles and the implementation is close to flawless. As a consequence, the resulting game is better than the individual parts. Very much recommended.

I played version 1.1. The game has been updated later. This game is more an unfinished demo than a complete game. It ends quickly with a cliff-hanger where only a small portion of the plot is revealed with the message: "To be continued in the next one." The game has what is sometimes called a "limited parser" which means that the game deliberately only understands a few but general verbs. On the other hand, it tells you upfront which verbs are understood.

In most locations the following verbs are understood: "Inspect" (instead of examine), "Take" (get not understood), "Drop", "Go north"(south/east etc. cannot be abbreviated) and "Use". Later on, you can also "attack", "interact" etc. but the parser is not traditional. For instance, you must type ATTACK WEAPON (replace WEAPON with the weapon you want to use).

I managed to get to the cliff-hanger ending mentioned above. You can also arrive at some quick endings but the one mentioned above is probably the main ending. Even though the game is unfinished and some objects etc. are mentioned but not implemented yet, the game was very intriguing.

The user interface + graphics & map was very impressive with rain and lightning in the background. On the other hand, the parser was extremely primitive but well defined so it wasn't a big problem though abbreviations would have been nice. Another drawback is that you cannot save and restore your position.

Parser:
Having a limited parser is a fair design choice as the understood verbs are revealed. However, even for a limited parser, it is very primitive. You can't just type N but you have to type GO NORTH. Also, you don't have a single letter for examine, you have to write INSPECT OBJECT each time (replace OBJECT with the noun). Several natural combinations of verbs and nouns were not implemented but gave an error message instead of a generic, meaningful response.

Atmosphere:
The writing was very good and combined with the multimedia (rain and flashes and a status-line where your health is shown), this was highly atmospheric.

Cruelty rating: Tough
You can't save and restore which becomes frustrating if you want to see the other endings. Combined with an inventory limit of four (please increase this in the final game) objects this really needs to be fixed in the final game. But I am not sure if the game can become unwinnable. Probably.

Puzzles:
I didn't solve any brilliant puzzles but those I found on my way to the ending were quite standard but not bad.

Overall:
I would very much like to play the game when it has been completed. For now it was a taste of what can be expected, which was very intriguing. I hope the parser will be improved some.

This game is a sort of sequel/prequel to the IFComp winner "The Impossible Bottle" (TIB) by Linus Åkesson. It is an authorized sequel as Linus Åkesson selected the prize from Mathbrush which would be a game made by Mathbrush in the same universe as the winner's game. Mathbrush has done this before with success and once again it is a success.

Whereas TIB had some surreal mechanics with respect to space, The Impossible Stairs has some surreal mechanics with respect to time. Don't take the "science" too seriously. I don't think I have ever seen a story/movie/game about time travel where there were no plot holes, unless the past couldn't be changed. So don't expect a fully consistent time travel game (I don't think they exist) but a game with fun, semi-logical puzzles.

Parser:
I never noticed any parser problems. On the other hand, the game did not require an advanced parser. So it was as good as needed.

Atmosphere:
Mathbrush hits the happy-go-lucky atmosphere of TIB spot on.

Cruelty rating: Merciful
It seems that the game can never be unwinnable.

Puzzles:
The surreal logic of the first game TIB is present in this game too. This game could be completed a lot faster than TIB and the puzzles were also easier, though some of them were a bit tricky. Overall the puzzles were good.

Overall:
This game is a great sequel/prequel to TIB. Don't expect it to be as good as TIB (hardly any game is) but it is still a worthy prequel/sequel with some good, original puzzles and excellent implementation. Further more, it is written in Dialog (still only a few games are written with Dialog) and if you play online, the user interface of a dialog game is really neat.

DISCLAIMER: I beta-tested this game months before release but not the final version. After ParserComp ended, a post-comp release became available from the ADRIFT site (www.adrift.co).

I always rate the last version I've played. So this review is based on the third release (2nd bugfix) during ParserComp 2022.

In this game you have to spend the night in a haunted house due to a bet. Roughly, this game is about hunting and killing five monsters without getting yourself killed.

Parser:
The parser is decent most of the time though I noticed a few problems such as different responses when the player uses the word "it" instead of the noun. However, "it" seems to be working in most cases. Other easy improvements would be to make the books in the library be referred to by their titles in addition to "leather book" and their full 'names' such as "witch hunt book" as well as "witch hunt", "witch" or "witch book" which should have worked too.

Atmosphere:
The descriptions are thorough but not too long and gives a good atmosphere, especially when the player is hunted by a monster. As my mother tongue is not English it may be that I overlook some grammatical errors etc.

Cruelty rating: Tough
You can get in unwinnable situations if you release a monster and meet it in the wrong place without the items needed to kill it so save often. However, it will normally be obvious when this happens.

Puzzles:
The puzzles were overall fine and fits with the setting. A few of them stand out by being better whereas some of the others are "well known classics" and hence not so original.

Overall:
The gameplay is fun and the monsters can almost be killed in any order. A few niggles: I think there are too many doors to open (most are not important to the gameplay) and the implementation could be better. In this 3rd release (i.e. 2nd bugfix) I saw no serious problems though.

This is a fairly simple and easy game but still entertaining. You have to carry out a list of tasks given to you by the boss at a storage company. It has a few supernatural elements to it and some surprises.

Parser:
The parser understood all expected commands.

Atmosphere:
The writing is a bit brief but fine for a game like this.

Cruelty rating: Merciful
According to the game, you can never put the game in an "unwinnable" state.

Puzzles:
They were fairly easy and nothing special, though the elevator puzzle was a bit more original and a little harder.

Overall:
A nice game, takes an hour or so. I was constantly curious about what the underlying plot was. Everything was well done, except for a minor bug (at some point I managed to get inside the freight elevator but couldn't get out)

DISCLAIMER: I beta-tested this game and I have a passion for old school games UK style, especially games by Larry Horsfield (found my way back to IF through Axe of Kolt in 2016)

I have come to realize that this kind of game is only for a limited group of parser players. The big emphasis on hidden objects (LOOK UNDER and BEHIND, X WALL etc) is not everyone's cup of tea. It has some advanced puzzles too but this is a significant part of the game.

This is the fourth sci-fi game where you take on the role of Mike Erlin. This time you have to investigate a research base where the crew has gone missing. There is an inventory limit but you will soon find a rucksack so it is hardly a problem. I think the game would be even better without e.g. inventory limits but it doesn't really bother me as you will quickly find the remedy.

Parser:
I think that the parser is pretty good, though there may be a few bugs/guess-the-verb issues I haven't noticed, which can happen in such a big game.

Atmosphere:
I think the writing gives a thrilling atmosphere. It isn't world class literature but that isn't the point. After all this is a game that is here to entertain.

Cruelty rating: Cruel
If we take the zarfian cruelty scale literally, I would say that the game is cruel as you can proceed without having found all objects and then you can't get back without those objects so save often (multiple save files). Then it is probably not a big issue but you should be aware that this might happen.

Puzzles:
There are a several good puzzles in this one. But you should know that finding objects might be 20% of the puzzles. Besides examine, you must search, look under, behind and move stuff.

Overall:
This is a game where story and puzzles go very well together so the final product is better than the individual parts. But as mentioned at the top, this game is not everyone's cup of tea as finding objects (LOOK UNDER, BEHIND etc) is a big part of the game.

PS: During ParserComp 2022 a very buggy version was available for online play. Fortunately, these serious bugs have been fixed. Looking forward to a better web player for Adrift - I hope...

This is the sort of game that Spring Thing was originally intended for: A large puzzly parser game that takes a lot more than 2 hours to complete (unless you follow the walkthrough from start to end).

In this Adventuron game you control two dogs in their search for adventure. The genre is comedy and it is well written with lots of good puzzles. Except for the beginning you can change between the two dogs whenever you want. The story is good, the puzzles are good, the writing is good and the implementation is good in most cases. The game contains adaptive hints and a walkthrough. I only have minor things to criticise and overall I enjoyed it a lot.

However, this is a difficult game, at least some of the puzzles are difficult but also fair. Difficulty is a very subjective thing but I liked the challenge.

Parser:
The parser is mostly a two word parser, or at least, often no more than two words are required. The game tells you upfront that you don't need to TALK TO anybody, just BARK and the game will take care of the rest. Stuff like that. The author has made more than two words required in a few logical places. However, as Adventuron started out as a verb noun parser (at least most Adventuron games were written like that) it seems that the parser can be a little misleading once in a while when more words are required. For instance, the game might tell you that something is not a container but if you put the right object on it, it might work anyway. But mostly a very helpful parser. I only encountered one serious guess-the-verb situation which isn't much in a long game like this.

Atmosphere:
The writing is very good and suits the game very well. The story also makes good sense. The writing is usually funny without being "too much".

Cruelty rating: Polite
I don't think this game can become unwinnable.

Puzzles:
There were a lot of good, meaningful puzzles. Again, this is a long game with lots of puzzles so I could give a few of them a bit of constructive criticism but overall, pretty good. However, some of them are difficult which may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Overall:
A very good game, quite polished with very few rough edges which may be addressed in a post-comp version(?). As it is, it is still worth playing.

In this game you are going to steal gold from an alchemist. This is a fun little game which experienced players can probably beat in less than an hour. It was written with PunyInform so I decided to play it with a C64-emulator (VICE) using the Ozmoo interpreter.

Parser:
There were responses to most commands and the parser was nudging me in the right direction if I should rephrase a command.

Atmosphere:
Nice writing (not too brief, not too verbose) and a nice setting gives a fine atmosphere.

Cruelty rating: Tough
The game can become unwinnable it seems but you are more or less told when it happens so you can load an earlier save.

Puzzles:
For experienced players this is an easy game. The map you find in the game was quite original, whereas most of the other puzzles were more standard.

Overall:
A short but entertaining game, though it is quite easy. And everything worked well with the Ozmoo interpreter including the ASCII-map.

(Played on Windows - can run on Mac using Wine somehow)
This rather new game from 2020 is a very good old-school puzzlefest with minimal story and a good parser (Infocom-like, no undo).

Following a heated discussion with your old college professor, you are pushed into his "Time Manipulator" and sent to another time an place. You are told to find some evidence of where and when you are before you return. The first step is to figure out how to operate the Time Manipulator. After that, you can travel to many known more or less historical places.

All the puzzles are fair, though I needed a single hint from the author to complete the game. And I needed one more hint to get the best ending. However, the game has been updated recently, so that the best ending is better hinted. If you type AUTHOR while playing, you will get his contact information. Jim replied very fast in a friendly manner, so you don't need to worry about that there isn't a Walkthrough available in case you get stuck. Many of the puzzles are about handling different mechanisms, though more traditional puzzles are present too. From a logical point of view, you may sometimes wonder, how a clue for one time period is to be found in another time period. But that isn't really the purpose of this game. The purpose is an entertaining puzzlefest. Some might find some of the puzzles too easy but for me, they were just right.

The game has an inventory limit. As in many games with inventory limits, there is a remedy for that problem, though your inventory limit will not be infinite. While playing this is not a problem at all, as you can have your objects in a central place. Only when you reach the end of the game, which objects you bring might be important. However, in the newest version (February 1st 2021), It is pretty well hinted which objects you should bring (or at least how to figure it out). I encourage you to find the best ending (maximum points) as it is more fun than the easier ending.

Jim's style is such, that most location descriptions mention what was once in the location and that most of it is gone when you arrive. Thus, there will only be a few things necessary to examine in each room. Thus you don't need to examine countless of scenery objects. I like this approach. However, you may sometimes need to look behind or under objects too.

NPC's are extremely rare and it could have been fun with a few more NPCs, which could also be a little more active.

Nevertheless, this was an entertaining game I recommend if you like old-school puzzlefests.

(Spectrum version reviewed - legally available from http://www.zenobi.co.uk/ )
Jack Lockerby was one of the most prolific homegrown authors on the ZX Spectrum and c64. Luckily the ZX Spectrum versions have been made available by John Wilson, who owned Zenobi Software and the right to distribute these games.

The Mines of Lithiad is definitely one of the better ones. As it is made with PAW, it is often possible to use 4 words, similar to e.g. PUT BALL IN BOX or GET PEN FROM BASKET. However, whenever two words are sufficient to describe the action, you should stick to two words.

The plot: Cavilan, the last surviving dragon, has chosen you to rescue her egg from the clutches of the Master and his band of Orcs.

Once you are past the introduction location, the game starts out with a large area with mostly empty locations. Though several of these have the same location description, it is not at all a maze, as the map is very logically laid out. I guess the main purpose of this map layout is to make it a bit challenging to solve a specific puzzle within a time limit. Here, I should add, that there are a few real time elements. These real time elements are very rarely a problem, especially as you can save as often as you like quite quickly with a free ZX Spectrum emulator like Fuse. So even if you don't like real time elements in IF, I recommend that you try this one.

And if you dislike inventory limits, you should know, that you can find a solution to that quite early in the game, so that isn't a problem either.

Once you are past the big opening area, the map becomes more standard with lots of fun puzzles, some original as well as a few classic puzzles.

I never had serious guess-the-verb problems but I needed a hint for two puzzles. They weren't unfair, so with more patience, you might be able to solve it without hints.

Very entertaining, certainly one I can recommend.

(.z3 version reviewed - also available on vintage computers)
It has been 31 years since the classic ZX Spectrum game "Retarded Creatures and Caverns" arrived and now John Wilson has finally made a sequel, this time in Inform 6 using the PunyInform library so that it can be published as z-code for modern IF-players as well as the retro-community. There are still only a few PunyInform games out there, and I have only played a few before this. My impression is, that PunyInform maintains the "good parser feel" of Inform without sacrificing something crucial. The only "speciality" seems to be, that you cannot UNDO. However, in this game you are not told what is inside a container when you open it. You must SEARCH it (or LOOK IN it) if you want to know. This was the default behaviour of earlier PunyInform versions but could be changed by the author.

Back to the game:
Once again we follow Algy as he returns to the castle some 30 years later to gain gold and glory. There are several references to the first game but you do not need to have played it to play this. Still, I would recommend that you play the accessible Adventuron version of the previous game first, as it is a good game and it has a decent parser (not all Adventuron games have such a good parser - perhaps Adventuron has been improved significantly over the years). With this sequel, John Wilson has captured the feeling of returning to a place many years after, which adds something to the game.

Return to the Castle (RttC) is a relaxed comedy (fun but not hilarious) with some good puzzles of medium difficulty, which is what I prefer. Everything was well done and I enjoyed RttC very much.

The difficulty level has often a big impact on how much I enjoy a game and therefore also the rating. To me, the difficulty level was just right. Others may find it too easy or too hard. However, a walkthrough is now available so everyone should be able to finish this game. Recommended to all puzzle lovers.

(z3-version)
This game can be played independently of the first two games. This is the first PunyInform game by John Wilson that I have played. I have tried other games by John Wilson, but this is clearly the game with the strongest parser. You are never in doubt if the game understands commands like LOOK BEHIND or LOOK UNDER 'object' and the game understands commands like GET ALL FROM BIN (fictive example).

This is the second PunyInform game I play, and as the first one (Tristam Island Demo) I rarely notice that I am playing a game with a library optimized for 8-bit machines. Well, if you go looking for unimplemented verbs you will find them, such as SING, PRAY, BLOW etc. though such verbs can easily be implemented if the author wants to. Fortunately, the game tells you whenever you try to apply a verb not known by the game.

EDIT: The previously mentioned bugs are not present in the newest version.

The game is fairly easy and can be completed without maximum points. Thus I played it twice to get the last points. Recommended.

(browser version - port made with Adventuron)
This is a fun little spoof of The Hobbit with some nice puzzles and humour. Some of the puzzles are "pun-based". However, the "genre" 'homegrown British text adventures from the 80s' is to some extend something you need to learn how to play, just as you need to learn how to play parser games in general. To some extend you need to be more accurate about which verbs you apply in these homegrown games from the 80s. Still, some verbs and phrases became a sort of standard within that "genre". Also, do not expect a lot of feedback if you try an incorrect command. You will never know if a verb is accepted by the game unless you find that it works.

Add to this, that this was the author's first effort (though the browser port I played was first made in 2018), you must expect a few guess-the-verb/phrase issues here and there. However, there is a sort of indirect limited "hint system" in the game, though it is not clear if it is intended to be used or only if you are really stuck. I used it whenever I could, and still, I needed to consult a walkthrough a few times.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this quite a lot. If you are unfamiliar with British homegrown text adventures from the 80s, I propose that you see it as a learning curve. If you are stuck for a longer time, don't hesitate to consult a walkthrough. You will learn as you go along and you will get the hang of the style and probably solve most puzzles by yourself anyway.

After playing the demo in September, I was very much looking forward to this game. I wasn't disappointed.

The game starts as you have arrived on this apparently(?) deserted island after crashing your plane at sea. Since I don't want to spoil anything, I just want to say that the game can roughly be divided into four parts of different lengths, and that the demo only covers the first part.

The genre of this game is "Mystery". In case the exact genre of the game is important to you, you should know (Spoiler - click to show)that the game is not science fiction nor fantasy but purely realistic.

The game comes with some invisiclues and a post card. I am not sure if the post card is intended to be found inside the game, at least I did not find it, and it wasn't mentioned in the walkthrough available form CASA. So I first read it after completing the game.

I needed help with a single puzzle, and was later annoyed that I did not figure it out myself, so that puzzle was fair enough: (Spoiler - click to show)I did not realize that I would get a different response when trying to search the buckets while on the floor, instead of searching them while on the mezzanine.

However, the solution was NOT in the invisiclues. As a consequence, I read the clues for the wrong question by accident. I think the invisiclues could be improved here: (Spoiler - click to show)In the first room in the white house, there is a door to the north. It is not clear what it leads to, but I expected that there was clues for this door. Since there weren't any clues mentioning this door, I thought the door was actually "Major's office door" and read the clues for that, too late realizing that it had to be another door. I think the solution is to make some clues for the "contraption door" appear before "Major's office door", even if only giving vague hints if you don't want to give clues for it.

In the end, I had to look at the walkthrough on CASA to solve that puzzle.

Another problem was the final puzzle which had a (for me) Guess-the-verb/phrase/disambiguation problem: (Spoiler - click to show)X TRANSMITTER SAYS: "The dial of the transmitter...", which made me think that I should TURN DIAL, which works in other parts of the game. Then I tried X DIAL and was told about the geiger counter, so I left the geiger counter outside the COMMS room to avoid that disambiguation. Back in the COMMS room I once again tried TURN DIAL and got: "You'll have to specify if you want to turn it left or right." Thus I tried TURN DIAL LEFT and TURN DIAL RIGHT but that wasn't understood. I tried the same with "transmitter" and "radio". Looking at the walkthrough I realized that the answer was TURN KNOB RIGHT, i.e. the noun KNOB was required. Looking back at the X TRANSMITTER response, I see that the knob is mentioned. Still, I think the misleading responses to TURN DIAL/RADIO/TRANSMITTER should be avoided. I do acknowledge that many players will figure out the right noun as it is mentioned in the text. Still it would be good to get rid of the misleading response.

Despite my few problems, the parser is good and there were no really hard puzzles, so I think most experienced players will solve it without needing help with the puzzles. Some players prefer very challenging puzzles. Perhaps, they will find this game too easy. I can only say that I enjoyed the game a lot and recommend it very much.

Review of Demo:(Spoiler - click to show)
I just completed this free demo. I am not sure, but I think I used about 1.5 hours to complete it without hints(*). The full game should be 2-3 times bigger (I scored 34 out of 100 points). I am very much looking forward to the full game, which should arrive on the 20th of November. I have a feeling that the end of the game is going to be even better. If so, this might be changed to a 5-star review.

About this demo: The game starts as you have arrived on this apparently(?) deserted island after crashing your plane at sea. There are some fair not too hard puzzles, some more original than others, but all entertaining. Of course, the ending is a cliffhanger making you want to play the whole game.

(*):Only once did I feel stuck, and couldn't help looking at some of the screenshots. I got a single "hint" from one screenshot, but I more regard this "puzzle" as a bug. Since the full version hasn't been released yet, perhaps this might be fixed before the release. Except from this, the implementation is very good.
EDIT: This bug in the demo has been fixed.

I played the c64-version and it was surprisingly fast. I guess that is due to PunyInform and Ozmoo. I decided to play using the VICE-emulator and run it at 200% speed. However, you don't need to play around with emulators. You can just download the z3-file and play it with Gargoyle, Frotz etc. The implementation is thorough and the parser felt as good as any other Inform game - I never noticed that I was playing with a reduced Standard Library. So technically, this game is also very good.

The full game will only be $3.99 but try the free demo if you are in doubt. I am very much looking forward to the full game.

This game was written to illustrate the option in 'PunyInform' to change between the main characters. It is a fun little game, though its background shows. It is not especially well thought out and it can easily be made unwinnable. However, the player can quickly restart this short game or return to a previous save, so it isn't a big deal. However, as this game was made with PunyInform, there is no undo functionality, so save often. Besides that, the parser feels pretty much as most Inform games.

In this game we follow the two "boggits" Fuddo and Slam (many of John Wilson's games take place in a parody world based on Tolkien's universe). These characters had their first game in 1998, which simply was called "Fuddo & Slam". I haven't played that one, so I can't really comment on any similarities between the games.

In the present game, you can switch between these two characters at any time by typing "Become Fuddo" and "Become Slam". The primary difference is, that Slam is stronger and heavier.

Roughly speaking, this game is a treasure hunt. I don't want to reveal much, as part of the game is figuring out what the objective is from some subtle clues in various locations. You can get 230 points maximum, but not all points are required. Also, expect a few maze-like locations.

There really isn't a story, but there were a few fun puzzles and the parser is strong, as it is written with PunyInform. So if you are looking for a quick uncomplicated game, you might like this.

If you found this game difficult it is understandable. Much of the technical information and questions don't make sense. The author (one of them?) clearly has misunderstood one or more basic concepts, especially watts, which the author seems to think is a unit of energy, which it isn't. It is a unit of power, which is energy per time unit. Joule is a unit of energy and 1 watt means 1 joule per second.

The best example in the game to illustrate this is probably:
"Excess Discharge Error: The amount of energy required by the load, 33600 watts, was more than the batteries and inverter could supply, at 4302.7 watts and 90% inverter efficiency."

Here, it becomes clear that the author (one of them?) thinks that watts are energy ("The amount of energy required by the load, 33600 watts, was..."). That wasn't a big deal if watts did not play a big role in the game, but it does. It is at the core of the game, that you shouldn't run out of energy. Most tech questions concerning energy are completely wrong. This is a problem, since many may walk away thinking they learned something. But they learned something wrong, which will confuse them if they later need to learn about watts, joules, power and energy.

One more example:(Spoiler - click to show)"How many watts are required to run the loads of a kettle that uses 26880W per hour for 3 minutes?
-134.4W 1344W -13440W 8064W"

Again, the author thinks that watt is a unit of energy. If the kettle had used 26880 joules per hour, it would make sense to say it used 26880 joules / 20 = 1344 joules after 3 minutes of operation. Best case, this was a trick question (but it isn't), because, if a kettle uses 26880W, it uses 26880W whether you run it for 3 minutes or 10 hours, simply because watts means joules per second. But according to the game, the "right" answer was 1344W.

Most questions seem to hold this misconception. However, I get the impression that more authors might have been working on this game, as parts of the game seem correct, e.g. when looking into the solar panel: "The batteries currently have 1734.9WH of energy" (though it would normally be written Wh, not WH). Here, the author applies an energy unit for energy as she should.

I hope the author will be able to learn from the mistakes and update the game. I think it has the potential to be a good game for people interested in technical stuff, if all the incorrect technical stuff is corrected and the difficulty level is appropriate. Until then I recommend NOT to play it.

I'm not sure if "origin stories" is correct to apply on this game, since not all of the included stories result in how things really are, but that is part of the fun.

The content warning "Contains bad poetry" tells me that this game doesn't take itself too seriously - it is here to entertain. The title seemed at first a bit silly, but perhaps it was intended. But looking back, the title would actually be fitting for a bedtime story for a child, as it could have revealed what the story was about unlike most titles. So somehow the title makes sense anyway.

I haven't read the book "Just So Stories for Little Children" by Rudyard Kipling, which inspired this game, so I don't know how much the game has in common with that book. Anyway, I am glad Peter Eastman made this game.

I was positively surprised. The writing is really good and humorous. You do have choices but not puzzles. It is more like branching stories. I know that the number of branches can explode if a story keeps branching so it was understandable that the number of choices was a bit limited.

There didn't appear to be bad endings, just different paths to different endings. Thus I did not see any reason to try again, as I was perfectly happy with the path I took. But for as long as it took, I was entertained. A short but fun game.

I don't mind short games if they have something original and if they are interesting or ingenious or hilarious etc. But I didn't think this game has much of that, though you might find a few funny responses if you specifically try NOT to solve the puzzles.

This game is an implementation of the classical "Fox, chicken and sack of grain" puzzle where you must cross a river, except that the animals and sack of grain have been replaced with something similar. Besides that, there is an extremely simple puzzle.

Nevertheless, I briefly felt slightly entertained as I couldn't quite remember the solution from my childhood, only parts of it. Luckily, the implementation is fine. After finishing the game, there is a short list of "amusing" things you can try, which was again fine but nothing special.

I think this might be a good game for someone new to parser games, as the player will get a feel of inventory limits, examining stuff, enterable containers etc.

For anyone else, they might be briefly entertained if they have never heard of the "Fox, chicken and sack of grain" puzzle.

I liked the beginning of this game a lot. The story is on rails with a puzzle here and there, which increases immersion. After 1-2 hours (depends on how fast you are), the game turns into a puzzlefest very similar to the Bullhockey games. I have played both Bullhockey games for a while, but they couldn't hold my interest, in the long run, so I never finished those.

I think I played for four hours and got 155 points out of 400 while I tried not to peek too much on the walkthrough. So the game is definitely huge. I do like a good long puzzlefest, but for some reason, this part of the game is not for me.

Perhaps because too many similar standard objects (chairs, tables etc in most rooms) must be searched and examined, too many locked doors must be attempted to be unlocked with each key (confusing, as the game, in the beginning, can figure out which key to use) and there are too many keys to keep track of. All this becomes rather tedious with only a few clever puzzles (maybe there are some deeper into the game). Perhaps just a combination of all these things.

I think the game would be more fun if the tedious puzzles were removed and only the good ones were kept. A lot of locations could also be removed, as they seem to be there mainly for realism, which isn't necessary.

Still, the beginning is truly excellent and I wanted to see the end, so I copied the very long walkthrough into the command line (had to cut it into 25 pieces) to see the ending, as I didn't feel like playing through the whole game to see the ending.

If BF Lindsay ever makes a game with the same gameplay style throughout as the beginning of this game, I would love to play it. Also, if he is able to improve his puzzlefests, I would like to play those too. Still, if you liked the Bullhockey games, you will probably like the entire game.

This is a very well implemented game, old-school in the sense that you need to examine and search a lot. But modern when it comes to the number of endings and how much you actually can ask the NPCs about.

In this game you get to talk to a lot of people and you can ask them about lots of stuff. You might get some proposals on what to ask about if you TALK TO the NPCs, though these proposals are not exhaustive. When I first finished the game, it was without hints, and I got 35 out of 50 possible points. The ending tells you a lot about the fate of the many NPCs, so you might want ot play again to get all the 50 points. I tried to replay it once. This time I understood much more, but didn't get any more points. Then I decided to stop.

For what it is trying to be, I think this game succeeds. If you don't mind examining and searching a lot in addition to "standard puzzles" I think you will like this one.

This game is a pretty good puzzlefest, where you have to escape from the Duke's castle, otherwise, something terrible will happen to you. The author warns you that the Duke wants to rape you, in case you find that too disturbing to carry on. I did carry on. After all, this will only happen if you don't manage to escape.

So besides the above terrible act, which isn't supposed to happen, the writing is good and whimsical in a standard fantasy setting. The puzzles were quite good too and not too difficult. I needed to peek at the walkthrough twice:

1. First, because of an uncritical but confusing bug(Spoiler - click to show) - After following Ulia to the Chapel I couldn't leave but had to follow her back and forth from the chapel until she finally settled in the chapel (at least this seems like a bug to me...)

2. The second time I needed to peek at the walkthrough was because something I wanted to do in a logical place apparently didn't work, so I was thinking that might be one more implementation bug, but it wasn't: (Spoiler - click to show)I thought I could burn the spell ingredients in the fireplace but that wasn't possible. It had to be done in the brazier. At least an explanation of why it couldn't be done in the fireplace would have been good.

Perhaps these things might be fixed in a post-comp release. Anyway, they did not affect my rating. It was certainly a good, fun game, which took me a little more than two hours to complete. Recommended.

This game seems to be a test game for someone who is just starting to learn Inform. It doesn't appear very bugged, but there is almost no story, a few puzzles and then a huge maze. I mapped more than 60 rooms in the maze before I gave up. What there is before the maze isn't horrible, but nothing special either. Feels like someone just wanted to create a game real quick though.

The maze is not a classical IF maze (no need to drop objects to distinguish the locations) but it is more logical, i.e. if you go east you can get back by going west etc. Still, the location descriptions are identical so it may make it slightly easier if you drop objects at certain locations. However, the real problem with the maze is, that it does not mention which directions you can go, so you have to try by trial and error to figure out which directions you can go in each location. And I wasn't sure if it is only N/S/E/W in all locations or if I should also try NW/NE/SE/SW and up/down. It appears as if N/S/E/W is sufficient though.

If you like mapping big mazes, you might like this one.

This time travel puzzle game has some original mechanics and nice puzzles. You have to save the world from the Order of the Fiery Doom. There are several endings, though some of them are not accessible depending on what you did earlier in the game. Most puzzles were good, some easy, some a bit tricky. Except for a few uncritical bugs, the implementation was good. The writing was good too, though some of the comedic solutions did not fit so well with the writing which didn't feel like it was supposed to be funny. Still, a good atmospheric puzzle parser game.

When I first tried this game, I played it online. At that time the game kept freezing and I had to restart each time. I then found that I could download the game instead, and that worked flawlessly (you must first install Quest - Windows only). Later I have tried to play it online without problems. I am just mentioning this, as some might get a very bad impression of the game if they play the online version at the wrong time.

I think the game starts out by giving standard parser players a really bad impression. In the first room, I can see a torch and thus the following attempts are probably fairly standard:

>get torch
You pick it up.
>light torch
You don't have a torch.

So even though I just took the torch, I am told I don't have it. This gave me the initial impression that the game is not very well coded. So I got sceptical and looked at the beginning of the video-walkthrough the author had made. The author played very much using hyperlinks, which reveals many of the verbs the game understands. Thus the guess-the-verb problem I had with "light torch" was quickly solved.

After that, everything ran smoothly. The game has real-time elements, but you quickly get the hang of it and it actually fits the game quite well. Some of the best puzzles are not mandatory and only necessary to solve if you get yourself in trouble.

A few things here and there could have been implemented to give a better impression. Still, this is a clever and original game I recommend.

This game starts out when you arrive on your first day as an IT intern at McKenzie & Lloyds. The game is quite original. I would spoil it if I say much more. I managed to find two different endings. Not sure if there are more, but I don't think so.

In the time of writing, there is a sort of "bug" if I play the included zblorb-file with Windows Frotz: When the game begins there is a quote. You then press a key to continue but then the first three sentences of the introduction are not displayed. However, all I had to do was to start the online version, read the first three lines there and then continue playing using Frotz. Thus it did not affect my rating. (EDIT: later I have found this to happen with other games too when using Windows Frotz. I have switched to Lectrote, which doesn't seem to have that problem)

Also, the online version has a very cool presentation: An apparent DOS-screen where you can click on seven different files, with some related but not required information and a nice demo in the style of old commodore 64/Amiga demos.

The puzzles and game mechanics are fine. This game is quite short, but enjoyable as long as it lasts. If you don't mind short games, I can recommend this one.

PS: A note on my ratings: (Spoiler - click to show)On IFDB I rate games by how much I enjoy them, not for how long I am enjoying them. Thus short games can get 5 stars if I am highly entertained as long as it lasts. This is in contrast to how I rate games in IFComp, where the longer games get higher ratings if I am equally entertained (based on the two first hours).

In this game you play the role of Sir Rodney Playfair, a gentleman thief also known as the Magpie. The Magpie first appeared in the IFComp winning "Alias 'The Magpie'" which I have played but not completed. Having solved this excellent one-room game, I feel tempted to return to "Alias 'The Magpie'", which I probably will.

This game is fairly easy but highly entertaining. If you prefer very dificult puzzles, this game is probably too easy for you, but if you enjoy easy puzzles as well, you will most likely enjoy this game.

You cannot have a Magpie game without disguises, so of course there are several possible disguises. This is mixed with Mathbrush's own conversation system, similar to his "Color the Truth" and other games by Mathbrush. Thus, the game keeps track of relevant topics and it is sufficient to simply type the topic, no need to "SAY topic TO character" so the gameplay is very smooth.

The puzzles are fun and the writing is whimsical, though I didn't experience any laugh-out-loud moments (well, except for one "easter egg"). Still, it was a very rewarding game, which I highly recommend.

This game is based on some standard apocalyptic tropes but it is done very very well. I don't want to ruin any surprises in the game, so I will only say that the game starts right after you run out of gas on the highway.

The implementation is quite good. The game is not very difficult, though a few of the more clever puzzles had me thinking for a while. The game is a horror game, though not a very scary one. However, it is possible to trigger some turn-based events, which increases the suspense.

The story is well written, though it is definitely more a game than a verbose story. So it is mainly the introduction and the endings which are verbose. The location descriptions are well written too, but some might find them too short. I found them fitting for their purpose.

Talking about endings, there are more than one ending, but only one optimal ending. It will be obvious if you reached the optimal ending. It took me 2.5 hours to reach the optimal ending without hints.

Even though the story is not highly original, the game contains some rather clever puzzles and everything is very well done. If you like parser games with many puzzles, I highly recommend this one.

In this game, you play the role of Dr. Ego, an adventurous archaeologist looking for the golden egg of Man-Toomba in the jungle. It is a fairly standard puzzle adventure with a few bugs and a few places where the descriptions could have described more thoroughly what was going on. Still, most of the puzzles were easy.

Besides examining things, remember also to "search" things. If the game had been a bit more polished and/or a little more effort had been put into the writing to make it more exciting, I would gladly have given one more star. For instance, the ending is very short. I prefer when the ending is a little longer, to give the player some sort of award for completing the game. Despite the few problems mentioned above, it was still a fun game.

This game starts out right after the player character has been fired as the village idiot. He must now find something else to do...

Lance Campbell certainly has a talent for comedy writing. More over, he has come up with a funny story and some good puzzles which are well implemented. This is quite a good game.

I did loose patience with a few of the puzzles and resorted to the built-in hints, but looking back they were probably fair. However, I would never had completed the game without help from google. I wonder if English had been my first language, would I still have trouble knowing all the different (Spoiler - click to show)horse and cat sounds?

My favourite funny quote is probably this:
(Spoiler - click to show)"Regardless, you are in a conversation with an animal now, and she is clearly waiting for you to speak to her:"
1) "Moo. Moo."
2) "MOO! MOO!"
3) "Moooooo. Moooooo."
4) End the discussion.

Anyway, this is a really funny game with good puzzles, which I certainly recommend.

This game is quite interesting. It takes place in Japan and introduces a little bit of the language and some objects. It is sometimes serious and at other times a comedy. The comp version I played in the beginning of IFComp 2020 had a few bugs. One of them was game-breaking, so I had to revert to an older save-file. But most of the bugs I could work around. Thus, my rating does not consider these bugs, as I guess the author will fix them in a post-comp version(?)

I liked most of this game a lot, both its story, puzzles and the humor. This game has several endings. However, it is clear whenever a better ending can be obtained, so the player will probably "undo" when reaching one of these less good endings. Unfortunately, the final ending was a bit confusing, and I couldn't help thinking that this game might have been a sequel to the author's other games. At least I noticed that the author has made another game set in Japan (Gotomomi). Thus "Putrid Sea" may be excellent if you have played that game first, I don't know. I have rated it without having played Gotomomi.

Perhaps if I had read all messages thoroughly several times, I could have analyzed the text to figure out what was going on with the final ending. Personally, I don't think that should be necessary and thus I rated it even though I didn't get the final ending. Still, I can recommend this game, as most of the game is easy to understand and well done (except the few bugs I hope the author will fix). You can just stop at one of the earlier endings, if you don't like the final ending.

This game made in Ink has a short but well-written fun story. It is definitely a game, not just a story since there are many ways to die. There is a sort of Undo feature ("Try again") if you die. Once you complete the game you are told how many times you died and how many people you saved. A nice touch I think. In theory, it should be possible to save 4 people it seems. However, I only managed to save 2 people. So there is definitely a game element.

Unfortunately, it has several bugs. Sometimes a choice made the game freeze. At other times I ended up in a situation with no choices so I couldn't proceed. I got the impression that the game was more stable if I closed the window each time I wanted to restart the game. A drawback of this approach is that the game then cannot count how many times I died. Perhaps it was just certain choices that made the game freeze.

Another problem is the choice-based equivalent to "Guess-the-verb" in parser games, which I call "Guess-the-solution". That is, to complete the game you just must guess the right choices when there is no way you can predict what is the right choice. And then you must memorize your previous choices so you know what to do and what not to do next time you play.

That isn't necessarily bad, it is just that choice-based games have come a long way since the early days with choices such as "Do you want to go left or right?", which is only a matter of guessing and remembering your previous playthrough. This game gives more interesting choices than "Left or Right?" but roughly, it is the same thing as the old CYOA books.

Still, if the bugs were fixed I might have given one or two more stars, depending on how well the parts of the story I couldn't get to were written. I hope the author makes a bug-fixed post-comp version. Then I would probably play again.

In this game, you play as Emma, six years old, as she tries to help her parents with some housework. Boring? Not at all. There is much more to this game than it at first appears to be. I don't want to give anything away, just want to say that this game is a serious contender for the "Best implementation" XYZZY-award next year, as well as other XYZZY categories. Very impressive!

If you intend to play puzzlefests without hints or only with a few hints, there are lots of hours of entertainment in this game (EDIT: I read that a reviewer only used a little more than two hours to solve this, so I am probably a very slow puzzle solver!). It took me more than seven hours to complete this game without hints. I see myself as a medium parser player and I did get stuck many times. But when I did, I put the game on hold and tried it the next day. Every time I did this, I managed to get a little bit further. Eventually, I managed to complete the game this way. So the puzzles are certainly fair. Most of the puzzles are also very clever and rewarding and there were no "bad" puzzles.

The writing is good and whimsical. And if you need it, there are built-in hints. The ending was fine too, though the second last paragraph felt a bit far-fetched. But that didn't ruin anything.

I regard this game as a modern classic up there with "The Wand" and other excellent puzzlefests. A "must-play" if you love puzzles!

This sci-fi game is fundamentally a glulx game and you can decide to play the gblorb-file in a normal interpreter. However, if you play the online version, Vorple is applied resulting in a beautiful and practical interface with graphics and music. Especially, the music is quite cool, though after some time you will hear the same tunes again. A drawback about the online version is, that it is sometimes a bit slow. If you think this is a problem, you can play the gblorb-file in an interpreter and the responses will be close to instantaneous.

A bigger problem with Online play is (at least in the time of writing) when you restore a saved game. The longer you get into the game (? - or the more save-files you have?), the longer it takes to restore a game. It seems to grow almost exponentially. On Chrome it took more than 5 minutes and thus I gave up and started to play the Online version through the Windows Edge browser instead. Here the delays were also significant but at least the save-games were restored eventually (perhaps a coincidence?). I understand that the author is looking into this.

The atmosphere is great, the writing is good and so is the puzzles without being extraordinary. There is also a lot of humour here and there, which fits well into the game. I regard the difficulty level as medium since I only needed a single hint. Recommended.

(Adventuron version reviewed)
Briefly explained, on behalf of his friend Bulbo, Algernon accepts a challenge in Castle Toidi. He must locate as much treasure as he can and slay as many creatures as possible, including a dragon.

This comedy is the longest game by John Wilson I have played so far (most have been short) and also the most entertaining. It doesn't have a lot of locations, but it is still crammed with puzzles. You score points for most of the puzzles and if you complete the game, you can get up to 250 points, though there is a less optimal ending with fewer points. Out of the 250 points, I only regard two puzzles of 15 point each, as unfair, as they require some hard verb-guessing and phrase guessing: (Spoiler - click to show)The verb "unravel" and the phrase "feel 'direction'" (e.g. "feel south"). And if the player types help, the former is given in a coded message.

I was stuck in a few more situations than the two mentioned above and consulted a walkthrough some more. But looking back, the puzzles were all fair except those two. With more patience, I think most experienced players could solve most of the puzzles. Though I try to avoid looking at walkthroughs, I usually end up consulting a walkthrough a few times (more if the game is really hard) when I play puzzlefests anyway, so to me it wasn't a big deal. What I do find important is, that I get to solve most of the puzzles without hints, which I did.

I enjoyed both the whimsical writing and the varied puzzles, which ranged from easy to harder and more clever. Overall, a fun game, and I am very much looking forward to playing the brand new sequel "Return to the Castle" written with Inform (more specifically PunyInform).

(Reviewing Adventuron version - other versions may be different)
This game is bigger (more locations and puzzles) than the first three episodes. There are some fun puzzles but also a few problems. Most puzzles were not problematic and overall I enjoyed it.

Regarding the problems:
* There was a verb I have never seen in a text adventure and I would never have found it without the walkthrough: (Spoiler - click to show)COMPLAIN
* Another situation where I had to guess the phrase: (Spoiler - click to show)INSERT HAND. This one isn't completely unfair but synonyms should have worked too, such as FEEL HOLE, REACH INTO HOLE, SEARCH HOLE.
* The parser is often misleading. It tells you to apply different phrases than it actually understands. Example: If you try to give something without success, the game says: "Give WHAT to WHOM?". But when it finally is the right place and object, it is sufficient to write GIVE 'object'.
* A similar problem with LOOK BEHIND. You will need to look behind objects, but if you do it somewhere it isn't needed, the game says: "Please type either 'LOOK' or 'LOOK INSIDE ..." (Even if you type LOOK INSIDE BIN you get that message) And I never needed to type LOOK INSIDE...

Despite these problems, I enjoyed this as there were some clever puzzles to solve besides the problematic puzzles.

(Reviewing Adventuron version)
I have enjoyed previous episodes but this game is far too hard for me. I enjoyed it briefly, but I quickly got stuck and took a look at the walkthrough. I got one step further, then I got stuck for a long time again, and looked at the walkthrough again and so on. The solutions to these sub-puzzles (both actions and exact verbs) are way beyond what I would be able to figure out without a walkthrough.

Add to this:
* The game can be unwinnable even if the player does nothing wrong (random element)
* The verb USE is normally not understood but suddenly required in one situation.
* The game has a two-word parser but it turns out that in specific situations, the game accepts a four word sentence to be split into two commands:
(fictive example below is not in the game and doesn't happen when using the verb PUT)
>PUT BOOK
On what?
>ON SHELF (SHELF wouldn't have worked, ON SHELF required)

Some might see these "problems" as challenges. For me, this isn't what I am looking for when I play older text adventures. Still, I intend to try more episodes in the series, since I liked the first episodes.

EDIT: Gareth Pitchford informed me that the important command WORN was given in the instructions with the original game, so my criticism that you are never told what you are wearing isn't really valid. Moreover, if you play several of the games in the series, it will become apparent that the command type LOOK 'direction' (e.g. LOOK SOUTH or LOOK DOWN) is often required. Thus, this might not be a problem if you played another episode in the series first.
---
Note that this is a review of the original game, not "The Cats Choice-Cuts Edition" which is slightly longer. I played the Adventuron version. The version you choose to play may influence the commands you can use. Here, the game understands both L (redescribe location) and X (examine).

This game has a few gameplay issues:
1. You cannot examine yourself. EDIT: If you are aware of the command WORN, this isn't a problem
2. You are supposed to: (Spoiler - click to show)LOOK UP but as you are not given any reason to do so, it is quite unlikely the player will try that. EDIT: If you have played other games in the series first, You have probably learned that LOOK 'direction' (e.g. LOOK EAST or DOWN) might be a good idea.

At first, I wasn't aware of the points above, so I found the game to be a bit unfair after having looked at the walkthrough. So perhaps the puzzles are perfectly fair (hard to estimate after I completed the game by looking at the walkthrough). Anyway, it has entertaining parts even if you need to look at a walkthrough. With the information given at the top of this review, you will probably be able to enjoy this game.