Reviews by IFforL2

This Spanish work does a good job of being at once a game and a story. It was quite fun, but it felt like one of those graphic point-and-click adventures. The game world is medium sized; I didn't need a map, but I would have moved more quickly with one. Each chapter consists of an initial choice-based backdrop scene followed by a puzzle-solving exploration session.

Again, this game really was fun, but it could have been even more fun with consistent implementation. (Spoiler - click to show)Each magical device only works once to solve a specific puzzle. You can't tinker with the cauldron, the garden, or anything. After I solved the growing fruit puzzle, I tried to do it again, but the game just asked, "Why would you want to do that?" I tried putting other things like water and a rabbit into the cauldron and even lit the fire. Nothing even cooked! That rabbit is a survivor!

Most of the puzzles are standard for parser-games. Some of the puzzles use ascii graphics to imitate graphic adventure type puzzles. Whether or not such puzzles belong in IF, it would be courteous for an author who employs them to hyperlink the controls. The act of typing a command just to make a minuscule adjustment started to feel tedious after a while.

I considered one of the normal puzzles unfair. (Spoiler - click to show)Any interaction with the eagle suggests that she can't communicate with you and she's dangerous to touch. But lo and behold, you suddenly can communicate with her and touch her only when one puzzle requires it. When I consult an in-game walkthrough, I believe I should think, "Oh, duh. I would have thought of that if I'd given it enough time and patience." With this puzzle, I felt irritated that the game steered me away from the correct solution at every prod.

For Spanish language learners, I'd rate the vocabulary as roughly intermediate level. However, the work includes a warning that it is not for readers younger than 14. A walkthrough is accessible within the game.

Although I enjoy many works of interactive literature just as well as text adventure puzzlers, I observe that puzzles help language learners to read IF with more focus, care, and investment. Therefore, I find it unfortunate that few East Asian visual novels include puzzles. Those that do tend to limit themselves to instant death by wrong choice. The Poisoned Soup is a rare piece in that the fluently bilingual author is well-read in a variety of IF genres. These range from parser-based puzzle games, to parser-based literature, to choice-based (and basically linear) East Asian visual novels.(Spoiler - click to show) Steven Dong intentionally makes it difficult to select all the right choices in the first play-through. However, wrong choices don't usually lead to instant death without clear warnings. Rather, most wrong choices cause trauma to the PC. As I made progress in the game/work, Dong's method caused, in me at least, a sense of desperation and increasing cautiousness, as well as personal investment in the PC's lot.

I would have to say that this is currently my second favorite Mandarin game after 逃出去 | Escape.

This story includes a light puzzle and a bit of creepiness. What I really love about it is the spot-on cultural setting. Right at the start, you can choose between two very realistic and quintessential types of Asian daughters for the PC. As you enter the scene, every detail, from conversations to "rooms" genuinely feels like modern rural China or Taiwan. (Please forgive the comparison! It's not politically motivated!) The author could have kept this as a very well-written slice-of-life. But the puzzle and the creepy plot do a good job of gamifying it all.

This minimalist idle game is available in lots and lots of languages. Not-so-unfortunately, after reading through the start of the Mandarin and Spanish versions, I must deduce that they were created using Google Translate. (I may be wrong, and I'd gladly eat a humble pie from Michael Townshend.) That's actually not so bad, as this game is one of a handful that make the most of a few short phrases. Julian Churchill's Tiny Text Adventure is another.

This story explores the PC's thoughts and memories, rather than geography. Compared to other IFs of the same concept (e.g. verityvirtue's Staying Put), this is relatively under-implemented, which kept me mindful of the parser. (Spoiler - click to show)For an example, talk to Claire.The author clearly didn't want the reader to go in that direction, but a more natural response would have helped me stay immersed.

這段恐怖視覺小說設在台灣的大學校園。寫作風格是還可以的, 有點陳詞濫調。有很長的無選擇的敘事，特別是在前面。後來一些選擇導致突然失敗，雖然可能把故事帶到兩個不同的結局。

This horror CYOA is set at a particular university campus in Taiwan. For this reason, it may appeal only to a very specific audience. The quality of writing is not bad, but unremarkable. There are long stretches of narrative without options, especially at the beginning. Later, there are a couple of binary choices, one leading to sudden death, and the other continuing the narrative. A few consequential choices do exist, and it is possible to find two different endings.

This bilingual point-and-click manual is a pretty cool cultural demonstration via the internet. It's not text-based, nor is it interactive fiction. But it would be a useful teaching tool in the Spanish language classroom both for its cultural demonstration and language options.

The first puzzles of this work feature routine usage of household vocabulary without guess-the-verb difficulties. The vocabulary becomes more complex as as progress is made, just as in most literature. I'd recommend this story for students who are learning household and food-related vocabulary. The vampire theme helps to enhance the mood of what might otherwise be an academic exercise. (Spoiler - click to show)In this game, the player is asked to prepare a snack. Many language teachers are familiar with the humorous mini-lesson where the teacher asks the students to make a PBJ sandwich. The first two puzzles are similar, but, obviously, reading-base. The parser, of course, takes the role of the teacher either understanding or misunderstanding the students' very specific directions.

Several people have told me that this is one of their favorite works by Incanus. I certainly enjoyed exploring and reading his descriptions and narrative. I was frustrated by guess-the-verb difficulty in two of the first puzzles. I finally found the right word in the first. However, in the second, I did not find the right verb even after reading the "pistas." The quality of the writing is such that I may actually consult a walk-through, simply because I enjoy the reading. I would not recommend this for an intermediate-level Spanish language learner unless she were already quite good at text adventures.

The TPRS method/tradition in the L2 classroom gives students total freedom to further the narrative in response to the teacher's prompting. Mrs. Pollard may be familiar with TPRS, because every option prompt in this story allows the student/reader to move the story in a new direction. There are no dead-ends, and no loose ends. Vocabulary is limited to HSK level 1, meaning that a first-year student in an HSK standardised course would be able to read it.