Ratings and Reviews by EJ

His Majesty's Royal Space Navy Service Handbook is a dystopian work-com. The setting is the military of an evil space empire led by Smurg IV (whom I'm afraid I couldn't help picturing as Emperor Zurg from Toy Story, but that's neither here nor there), but the protagonist, Sheryl, isn't as interested in fighting the rebel forces as she is in the minutiae of bureaucracy and finding out who's been microwaving fish in the break room.

Gameplay is very smooth; the game has a limited verb list, and in a handy little quality-of-life feature, it even tells you when you no longer need a particular verb to make progress in the game (though in some cases you can still use these verbs to get optional extra flavor). Once you get into the flow of the game, it really carries you along, which is great for a parser-curious newbie or an occasional parser player who finds the possibility space of a more open parser intimidating (as well as for someone who might, hypothetically, be way behind on their Great Play Marathon game list because they were busy attending their sister's college graduation).

The writing's biggest flaw is that it can be a little obvious; if I told you to imagine Office Space in the setting of Star Wars you could probably make a pretty solid guess as to the plot points and jokes it covers. But what really stood out to me was the character of Sheryl. At first, she seemed like a caricature of a petty tyrant middle manager, judgmental and focused on all the wrong things, but the game has more sympathy for her than that would suggest, especially if you chase down some of that optional flavor I mentioned earlier. And it makes great use of her (limited third person) POV on her environment. I've always maintained that one of the secrets of creating a memorable PC in IF is that no item description is too mundane to be a vehicle for characterization, and this game really runs with that philosophy. Here's what you get when you examine the office coffee maker:

A basic osmosis coffee machine that's as old as Sheryl, but it still does its duty diligently without complaint or delay despite other, younger coffee makers being promoted past it because this coffee maker still believes that faith and loyalty are qualities worth believing in even if Senior Command, in their otherwise perfect leadership, are overly-dazzled by supposed innovation that only serves to mock the old ways without actually improving anything.

You can just hear her saying this, with increasingly heightened emotion and a worrying lack of pauses for breath.

And as the game went on, I increasingly felt the pathos of her efforts to metaphorically rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Haven't we all been there, trying to focus on the petty things we can control and shut out the sneaking suspicion that they don't really matter much in the face of the explosions happening outside the window?

Upon reading that this was "[t]he most realistic and verismilitudinous text-based simulation of petting a cat ever written", I thought that might be meant sarcastically; I thought there might be something zany going on here. But as it turns out, it

Sorry, where was I? My cat sat down next to me and I started petting him and then he rolled over onto my hand, which he doesn't seem to realize makes it harder for me to continue petting him. But I'm free now, so back to the review.

Anyway, it really is just a very realistic slice-of-life game about petting a cat, with every moment of the petting session described in loving detail. I'm a bit impressed by this; I don't think I could get this many words out of the topic. It's absolutely adorable.

Admittedly, it won't be for everyone; if you're not a cat lover, there's nothing else for you here, and it's unlikely to appeal if you prefer games that are strong on plot. There is some measure of gameplay, though, with the game silently tracking how pleased your feline companion is with you and presenting you with a score at the end. (I got a lukewarm 11/18, probably in part because I did not stop to pet the cat before getting my fries out of the oven as I was afraid my fries would burn if I did.) It also has multiple endings, although the differences are of course not too consequential.

For those who are fond of cats and slice-of-life works, though, it's a very pleasant way to spend a little time, and I would certainly recommend it. But now, if you'll excuse me, my cat feels strongly that I should be petting him again.

I live in a city where a lot of the public buildings are in the Brutalist style. If you hang out with architecture nerds at all, sooner or later they'll start in on an impassioned defense of the style, which goes something like this: Making a building out of poured concrete is actually an incredibly difficult thing to pull off, so every single one of those train stations and city offices is a marvel of engineering that one or more clever people put a huge amount of effort into. And I appreciate that! I really do! But at the end of the day, my feelings on Brutalist architecture can't help but be shaped by the fact that I don't really enjoy being in those buildings.

I thought about that a lot while playing The Van der Nagel Papyrus. The things it does with Inform are very impressive, all the more so for having been done on a very short time limit. And unlike with architecture, I do in this case know enough to understand how hard this stuff is to do and admire the technical chops it must take. But as impressed as I am, the feelings I'm coming away with can't help but be shaped by the fact that I spent a lot more time feeling like I was slogging along than actually having fun.

The Van der Nagel Papyrus is set up as a classic "treasure hunt in an eccentric person's mansion" puzzlefest; the Van der Nagel mansion is about to be demolished and it's up to you to try to rescue its treasures, most notably the titular papyrus, before this happens. The details of who you are and why you're doing this are unspecified and basically immaterial. You're here for the puzzles; that's the point.

This is not to say that the writing isn't good; it's fairly spare but has well-chosen, vivid details. There's a general atmosphere of eeriness and melancholy that I think makes the moments of humor hit harder when they appear, similar to Veeder games I've enjoyed like Fly Fishing (and in contrast to the more consistent zaniness of the Little Match Girl games, which I personally don't have a lot of stamina for). But it's a garnish, and the puzzles are the actual meal. If you're enjoying them, you'll probably have a great time! If you're not, it's not really a "play with the walkthrough open to see where this goes" kind of game. (There is no walkthrough currently, but I assume there will be soon.)

Anyway, picking up the papyrus turns out to be only the beginning, as it transforms the world around it in strange ways. I did enjoy this initial phase of exploration (which takes about an hour); the puzzles were reasonably sized and satisfying to solve and the rewards of new discoveries come pretty steadily. But once that initial phase is over, the effort to reward ratio changes considerably as the game comes to revolve around a fiddly, time-consuming puzzle mechanic that I did not enjoy engaging with.

In fairness to the game, once that initial phase is over, it does tell you that you can quit, and it goes on to restate this several times. But doing so gets you nothing that really feels like a finale, either narratively or mechanically, so the "really, you can stop if you want, you're not expected to continue, it's fine!" assurances feel a little hollow.

I will now discuss in more detail the puzzle mechanic that makes up the bulk of the game by play time and why I didn't enjoy it; this is technically a spoiler, so I will hide it for the sake of people who don't want to diminish the "wow!" moment of the initial discovery, but it may be worth looking at regardless if you, like me, enjoy some kinds of puzzles and don't get on at all with others.

If you’d rather not be spoiled, I’ll just say this: The game’s considerable length is not because it has a ton of content (understandable given the constraints under which it was made), and only a little bit because the puzzles are fiendishly difficult and take a long time to figure out. It’s mostly because, once you get past that initial segment, the puzzles are of a type where actually executing the solution is quite time-consuming (and easy to mess up, and more time-consuming if you do). And that, for me, was not a very satisfying game structure—I prefer the ratio of figuring-things-out to grinding-away-at-a-solution to be a little more weighted towards the former. Obviously I’m in the minority here; a lot of people did love it. And again, from a technical perspective it’s a very impressive achievement. But I hope my perspective might be helpful to people in deciding whether this is the kind of thing they would enjoy or not.