Ratings and Reviews by Dark-Star

Mixing references to pop culture ("goo goo gjoob"), classic literature and adding a time-travel element on top of it all, T-Zero is a very difficult work of IF to classify. It's about what you might expect to get if you were to combine a well-schooled English teacher, a mad scientist, and a professional comedian.

The puzzles in T-Zero shine like polished gems - which is a good thing as they are the mainstay of the game. "Nord and Bert" aficionados will have a definite head-start over other players, as will serious bookworms and those who paid attention in their English classes.

Nuttiness aside, the game can also be great 'serious fun' for the thinking man (or woman) with the occasional action sequence to spruce things up. Waiting patiently for the right time to come at certain places will bring great rewards...as will outrunning a giant boulder Indiana Jones-style.

From the ingenious use of certain mirrors to navigating the fiendishly nasty topiary maze (which took me over a year to beat), this game is anything but a zero!

As a rule, successful one-room games are rare enough, even in the world of IF. But J. J. Guest has proven without a doubt that to every rule there is an exception, masterfully combining a plausible plot with completely believable NPCs. You'll have to gave the tinkering abilities of McGyver in order to get rid of the weighty trinkets that your ill-mannered obnoxious pest of a companion has secreted aboard the overloaded craft, which ultimately include him (Spoiler - click to show)as well as a Saint Bernard and his batty old aunt! And, by the time you get to that point, you will be quite willing to plant a boot on their backsides on the way out!

Come take a trip on this balloon - it's a wild ride, but I guarantee you'll enjoy it!

Beginning and ending with a man on a mission, Opening Night is a brief but captivating journey through the mind of a person trying to tie up a nagging loose end in his life while he is still able.

The story begins with the protagonist outside a theatre on the opening night of a play starring his love, Miranda Lily, hoping to grace her presence long enough to give the gift of a single rose. Unfortunately, his dilapidated apparel firmly bars him from gaining entrance and some ingenuity will be required to solve the problem.

So far, so average. But once the curtain goes up on Mz. Lily...it is then that the genius and literary prose of the game begin to shine. Revealing neither too much nor too little at once as the storyline progresses, the author draws you into the mind of an embittered man whose story may well strike a chord within yourself. As the last act of the game begins, one almost wishes to reach into the screen and put an arm around the individual who has been your eyes and ears for the duration.

The long and short of it: David Batterham has pulled off a five-star literary masterpiece. I not only give a standing ovation to Opening Night, but call for an encore as well. Superb!

Theatre begins with a familiar enough premise; the player is unexpectedly trapped in a deserted old building that just *happens* to be inhabited by malevolent spirits and horrid monsters. You are then forced to wander the haunted halls attempting to both decipher the secrets of your current locale and escape with your skin. The game is inappropriate for younger adventurers due to several gruesome dead-endings and less lethal but very frightening scenes. Suffice it to say that Theatre quickly make me quite sorry for playing it at midnight with all the room lights extinguished.

While Brendon Wyber cannot exactly be credited for inventing anything new, the game itself makes up for the lack of pure originality. Guess-the-word experiences are all but absent, and the puzzles are quite logical to those with at least a few similar IF titles under their belt. Taken as a whole, Theatre is a solid adventure with a decent dose of danger.

When I first spied this title listed on a favorite IF site, I was somewhat skeptical of the premise. An IF game where the protagonist is an oafish orc? And the objective is to recover a loose pig?!

A mere half-hour later, I had soundly proven myself wrong and hadn't been so glad for the fact in a long time. Grunk's simple-mindedness on the level of Dumb and Dumber provides nearly endless opportunities for hilarity; Lost Pig can be literally a laugh a minute. Old IF buffs as well as younger children may get the most enjoyment as the game generously rewards experimenting with zany behaviour. Sing, burp, yell, light your pants on fire and see what happens!

But that's not all - Admiral Jota isn't one to write a one-trick pony. Catching the little pile of porkchops is not at all an easy task, although it's debatable whether that's due to an amazingly clever pig or just that Grunk is such a dunce! Swine-snatching aside, the superbly detailed scenery and character interaction add immensely to the game's depth, as does the system of rewarding behavior. The only ways to lose are through foolishness or carelessness (such as (Spoiler - click to show) lighting the forest on fire to drive the pig from under a bush), and the 'best' ending is a reward that takes a good deal of effort to earn.

With an excellent balance in everything from humor to difficulty, Lost Pig is an enjoyable IF romp you'll be glad you took the time for.

An island of quality in a desert of its genre's mediocrity, this intriguing little game arouses one's curiosity in a unique manner - by giving the player but a single turn in which to act. While such a thing might seem shallow at first glance, the author has managed to weave enough detail into the myriad endings that you will soon find yourself trying all manner of actions just to see what the outcome might be.

Extensive replayability value aside, the very limited game length makes it quite simply impossible to provide much of an 'adventure' in and of itself. Regardless, Aisle is a very pleasant diversion and a successful experiment.