Reviews by IFforL2

It's been a long time since I've seen a new genuinely interactive text in Mandarin Chinese. A lot of what is called 文字冒險遊戲 or 互動小說 is really just web novels with very little or no reader/player agency.

This CYOA actually offered a lot of choices. I didn't feel disappointed or railroaded with any of the bad endings even though I started out pessimistically trying to sabotage the PC.

It lost one star due to the simple writing style. (Though for beginning or low-intermediate Mandarin learners it's probably right on the money!) It was fun and entertaining for a little under an hour, but never really wowed me, so I couldn't give it a fourth star.

這正是文字冒險應該要有的樣子。
This game is exactly what a text adventure should be. Even if you don't like escape rooms, you should play just to see how East Asian IF is improving on language-based interactivity.

English: You can play in English, but you may not recognize the sheer genius of the interface as it works better in Chinese than in English.* I do think this concept could work marvelously in English, but an author might need to be a native speaker.
Interface: This is a parser hybrid. Instead of typing commands, the player can obtain action and object cards. Each is stored in a separate inventory. For example, if I "examine flowers" I might consequently obtain the ability to "smell flowers." (This is not a game example or spoiler.) You grab and drag the cards to a place in the sentence.
Game play: It's an escape room. This is not a ground-breaking concept but the author made the right decision here. (S)he's introducing a completely new kind of interface to the Chinese gaming community, after all. There simply were no parser games in Chinese until now.

*One of my Chinese professors thinks Chinese learners should abandon the western concept of individual adjectives, nouns, verbs, etc. Instead, she promotes thinking in terms of "subject phrases," "attributives," "predicate clauses," "adverbial adjuncts" and other parts of speech.

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.

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.

In my experience, Chinese language visual novels are often puzzle-less electronic picture books. Many stories offer few and trivial choices. As a language learner, I prefer IF to have at least some game elements to focus my attention and motivate me to keep reading. Monochrome Impact is unique in a couple of ways. The characters are not glamorized/sexualized humanoids. The puzzles are very easy except for the endgame. But at least they do not allow the reader to simply click to the end without reading and understanding. (I actually tried and got stuck briefly, after accidentally losing my progress in the middle.) The vocabulary is quite simple; only occasional words exceed HSK level 2 or 3.

However, I took off a point for interactivity because I still felt there were too many times the game could have released control and let me make some moves. For example, it automatically moved me to a couple of locations and used inventory items when it should have let me do that.

A word about the development and publishing system, Bassavg. The first Chinese language IF community to discover the English language community is at Qiaobooks.com. Bassavg.com is probably the second. Bassavg stories are very similar to Ren’Py in appearance. Unlike Ren'Py stories, Bassavg's html output allow bookmark tools and plugins such as Mandarinspot that assist language learners. Almost all games are browser playable without needing to download.

Depresiv's El Archipiélago is one of the greatest fantasy IF games in the Spanish language. After finishing it a few years ago, I wanted more, but learned that Depresiv had been silent for years before I ever discovered his few works. La Casa al Otro Lado de la Tormenta did not disappoint. The fantasy world, story, interactivity, and action kept me glued to my laptop whenever I wasn't stuck.

This is one of the first truly retro games I actually bothered to complete. I didn't even know what an emulator was. I recommend the emulator QAOP by Jan Bobrowski. It works from your browser and has buttons for saving, etc. which a lot of emulators don't facilitate so well.

I was addicted to MetaComp for two full working days. (COVID-19 had closed all of the schools in Taiwan, but teachers still had to show up. So this was a godsend.) I found the puzzles in MetaComp challenging but not frustrating. The overall game is thought provoking and obsessively fun. I'm slow on the uptake, so I missed a crucial piece in my first review. n-n very kindly gave me a nudge. He makes some of the most playable games on the Spanish IF scene. I personally love what I call "toys" in IF, and n-n's games always include neat toys to tinker with if you get stuck or if you've already beaten the game.

I began playing this much acclaimed (see caad.es) game a couple of years ago, and I come back to it from time to time when new inspiration dawns on me. I'm now in act three, and the end still seems far away. Unprepared to write a full review, I gave this master work a brief compliment on another website. To my surprise and delight, Guillermo Crespi responded with a gracious and humbling letter of thanks! So I must at least make the beginning of a review in English. He and this work deserve as much recognition as I can attract.

This novel-length work is written in Argentine dialect. It's suspenseful and difficult. It's also superbly implemented and delightful to read. The NPCS, props, streamlined movement system (i.e. "ir a galería") all demonstrate how much effort the author put into making this work user-friendly and deeply immersive. It includes an in-game hint system. However, 'Undo' is disabled, so save often.

I've needed to resort to the hints more than I've wanted to, and this is probably because I'm not a native Spanish speaker. Perhaps larger breadcrumbs in the story itself would ruin the puzzles for smarter readers than me. Nevertheless, this is one of those games where you can have a lot of fun toying with the puzzles before finally admitting defeat. For example, (Spoiler - click to show)I had a lot of fun figuring out how to interact with the dog. Still, I needed the hints to tell me what I actually needed to do with him.

BYOD begins with the gender-neutral PC as a new employee in an awkward situation. It quickly gives you (Spoiler - click to show)a a fun toy, (Spoiler - click to show)a hacker app, to play with.(Spoiler - click to show) You can use it to help someone or to create mischief. (Spoiler - click to show)It reminded me of the magical language in Suveh Nux, but in a modern technological and bureaucratic setting. This makes me wonder, do hackers sometimes feel like wizards?

The author, n-n, was kind enough to email back and forth with me before I decided to write this review. He showed me how (Spoiler - click to show)the app can do even more than it initially appears to. He also told me that the NPCs are inspired by (Spoiler - click to show)stories of office harrassment he'd read and seen in the news.

n-n's English is perfect, as far as I can tell, and this work deserves a translation. I did not feel frustrated by the puzzle, because there was so much fun to have while figuring out the mechanic. I continued playing with it after I finished the reading. The plot revealed itself in an ingenius way that further increased the replay value. It also revealed something to me about my personal ethics when I'm being snubbed. I actually felt a bit (Spoiler - click to show)guilty once I realized (Spoiler - click to show)that I had been making trouble for the wrong NPC, who wasn't my antagonist at all! I just had to give myself a Groundhog's Day as a sort of apology to my own conscience.

This is a detective game where the player interrogates witnesses, suspects, and informants.

The Good: The style and format of the website create an ambiance of mystery and foul deeds. I enjoyed the story the more it unfolded, and found myself caring about the characters, and wanting to solve the mystery. The "Improved Version" helped to make the game more playable for me.

The Bad: Mesagames entirely ignores IF conventions and courtesies surrounding the parser. Games with a limited parser can be lots of fun, but it's nice for the author to explain this beforehand. (The Improved Version does help, however.)

There were at least two unfair puzzles that require specific out-of-game knowlege. One of the unfair puzzles was a mood-killer for me, though another gave me an ego boost when I was able to solve it.

Finally, this game has at least one "nasty" puzzle in the Zarfian sense. Worse, there is no way to save your game! As I said, I enjoyed the story, but that doesn't mean I want to do it all again.

Note: This game includes one or two adult images and frequently references adult themes. It would not be appropriate for primary or secondary classroom.

https://ifdb.org/help-forgiveness

Este juego se trata de un detective que debe interrogar testigos, sospechosos e informantes.

Lo Bueno: El estilo y el formato del sitio crean un ambiente de misterio y hechos malvados. A medida que se desarrollaba, lo disfruté más y más. Comencé a preocuparme por los personajes y a querer resolver el misterio. La "Interfaz Mejorada" para mi mejoró la facilidad y calidad del jugar.

Lo Malo: Mesagames ignora por completo las convenciones y cortesías que rodean a la máqina parser. Jugar con parser limitado puede ser divertido, pero el autor sería major explicarlo al comienzo. (La "Interfaz Mejorada" proporciona una verdadera mejora).

Sentí que al menos dos de los puzzles eran injustos. Requirieron conocimiento fuera del juego. Resolver el primero era como una ducha fría. El otro fue un refuerzo del ego. A lo menos para mi.

Por último, este juego tiene al menos un acertijo "sucio". (Me refiero a la "Escama del perdón" de Zarf.) Peor aún, ¡no hay opción de guardar tu progreso! Como dije, disfruté la historia, pero eso no significa que quiera volver a hacerlo por segunda vez.

This well-received story pretends to have Asian influence but is remarkably western and male oriented. It should be no secret that cheating is culturally different in rural China, urban China, and western pop-culture. The scene where (Spoiler - click to show) the husband catches his wife in his own bed with his employee seems more like a scene from the old TV show Friends than a plausible event in in set China. In reality, in pre-Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary China, women, not men are undeniably the overwhelming victims, not the perpetrators, of cheating. When a woman does cheat, and is caught, her husband, the divorce courts of her government, and her neighbors will all ensure that her punishment is far greater than her 'crime.' Taiwan is little better, especially now recent court decisions have ensured that women do not have the right to safety. (People who attack rapists in the act are punished more severely than the rapists themselves!)

A story of a Chinese man who is the poor helpless victim of adultery is about as preposterous as a story of an American white man who is the poor helpless victim of racism by his African-American neighbours. Moreover, (Spoiler - click to show)three men team up to destroy one woman using absolute authority over another woman!

But I understand we all like a story of East Asian flavor that reads like a fortune cookie and ignores reality. I'm sure the author has read the take of several Western authors on Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist thought. HE probably did not intend any of the bitter irony that I'm reading into HIS story.

In a few days, I'll probably be embarrassed by something or everything I've written here and delete this review. I'm normally spineless. But I'll post it now while outrage fuels my, probably unjustified, courage.

While it's unwise to judge a book by its cover, I tend to make inferences about an IF by its development system. TADS is for computer people, Inform7 is for very precise non-programmers, and textadventures.co.uk is mostly for youths.

Twine is unlike other choice-based IF systems because it has a history of providing an digital literary voice for oppressed communities. What I like best about this example is that it publishes real accounts. The traditional way to publish short first-hand accounts and brief primary sources is by collecting excerpts into anthology books. Here, in contrast, the various accounts are triggered by the reader's choices. (Spoiler - click to show)Even better, the final choice leads the reader to an activist website! So the Interactive Non-Fiction continues with the reader's real-world choice of what to do about this issue, starting today!

Two questions for the comments:
1) Are these eyewitness accounts harmed by the second-person narration? These happened to real women, not to the fictitious IF character named "You."

2) Is it unjust to present a dangerous incident of harassment with a clickable set of options? (Or even with a parser's command line, for that matter?)
(Spoiler - click to show)I was offended when one of the women was being attacked and I was given the option to "react" or "wait." I'm SO glad that neither choice led to more abuse towards her than the other. But putting that choice there strongly suggests, to me at least, that the victim is somehow responsible for what happened to her. She should have made the other choice. Then again, I could just be mentally imposing some of the unfair Twine-game choices I've seen onto this literary work. Again, neither choice was a wrong choice. I'm just uncomfortable that it looks like she has to make the right choice.

I read this piece once in English and three times in Castilian. The English translation is quite good, but uses a tamer, less stinging choice of words. If you know some Spanish, I recommend the original. (Even if you have to use a dictionary. It's short.)

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 this is not Incanus' most polished game, it was my personal favorite until I found the time to play Ofrenda a la Pincoya. It's also the one I'd recommend for Spanish language learners--The parser never misunderstood me and didn't expect me to go through extremely detailed procedures.

Aunque este juego no es el más finamente construido de las obras de Incanus, todavía era mi favorita, hasta que leí Ofrenda a la Pincoya. También este es el que recomendaria para los que están aprendiendo el Español.

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.

One of the things I love about text adventures.co.uk is the unabashedly amateur nature of many of the pieces. But it is nice to see near perfect implementation, and this is one example. In my opinion, this game is as entertaining, sublime and meticulous as many of the IFComp winners that I've played. It is also one of those games you can continue to "play" away from the computer during an interminable meeting or while proctoring final exams.

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.

I was quite excited to stumble upon this game. I like having parallel texts available for language learners. Also, Scott Adams' games nearly always feature very short narrative segments and generally low-level vocabulary. For both reasons, this could potentially be a valuable resource for the language classroom. Unfortunately, I encountered bugs early on. It is impossible to "coger libros" to find the secret passage. I'd be happy to change my rating to four or five stars if such bugs are fixed. The translation is natural, not overly literal. The background and visual effects match the original game, creating (at least for me) a warm fuzzy nostalgia.

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.

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.

Esta historia permite al usuario a escoger inglés y o español, una cosa útil para aprender este o ese idioma. Los elecciones disponibles no parecen resultar en muchas variaciones o resultados.

This story allows the reader to read in English or Spanish. I consider this somewhat useful for learning languages. However, the available choices don't result in a great variety of results. Then again, the authors' goal may simply be to enjoy several perspectives on the same story.

I love hiking through the mountains of southern Taiwan, and I appreciate the way Mouth of Ashes creates a long walk for the PC. I make up stories like this for my kids to keep up the pace and distract them from the potential discomfort of stamina exercise. I'll have to use this plot next time we head up Mt. Du-li.

The lowest English level of this game has an average grade level of about 2. It should be easily understood by 7 to 8 year olds. Although this game may seem to target a younger audience, I've had Taiwanese high schoolers ROFL at this game. It's surprisingly cute and suddenly startling.

Readability Indices:

Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease 101.4
Flesch Kincaid Grade Level 0.6
Gunning Fog Score 2.9
SMOG Index 2.4
Coleman Liau Index 5.9
Automated Readability Index -1.1

(Source: Read-able.com)

This game has an average grade level of about 6. It should be easily understood by 11 to 12 year olds. My students find this game to be more difficult, but also more fun than "A Day at the Beach" by the same author.

Readability Indices:

Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease 85.6
Flesch Kincaid Grade Level 5
Gunning Fog Score 7.2
SMOG Index 4.5
Coleman Liau Index 7.7
Automated Readability Index 4.7

(Source: read-able.com)

This game has an average grade level of about 5. It should be easily understood by 10 to 11 year olds. My students usually like this game less than "Escape from Simian Island" by the same author. But they appreciate the snarky humor; I usually hear some giggling as they read.

Readability Indices:

Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease 90.3
Flesch Kincaid Grade Level 4.1
Gunning Fog Score 6.4
SMOG Index 3.7
Coleman Liau Index 6.8
Automated Readability Index 3.7

(Source: read-able.com)