Reviews by Denk
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Puzzly comedy in the early 90s UK hobby style (PAW / DAAD), May 19, 2023I 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.
Very short with 1.5 puzzles, May 18, 2023This 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.
Being funny is an art, April 15, 2023Ok, 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.
Excellent use of a primitive system, April 12, 2023Brief 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.
Very short Douglas Adams inspired game, April 2, 2023This 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.
Short parser game with easy puzzles (mostly), March 30, 2023This 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.
Short CYOA document, great humour, March 26, 2023I 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.
A modern classic, March 25, 2023The 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.
Small amnesia puzzler with a twist, March 13, 2023This 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.
Interesting murder mystery despite a few niggles, March 8, 2023The 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.
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