Ratings and Reviews by Tristano

I really enjoyed playing «Guilded Youth». It’s not the usual IF adventure for in some ways the plot tends to be guided by the game itself thus offering a smooth interactive story-like experience more than a brain-teasing guessing the next move experience. Yet, the experience of immersion into the story is very strong.

The game creates right from its start a strong setting, it has a fast pace and the player flows with story without bumbs and doubts. Accativating graphics and sound contribute to the successful worldbuilding of «Guilded Youth».

I strongly advice playing this game both to IF veterans as well as newbyes — newbyes will profit from a non-frustrating game experience, and veterans will enjoy a neatly build story which is fun and easy to play.
It took me overall about half hour to complete the game. It was fun and challenging (not in a "guess the verb" way but rather in a "what's next" way).

Well done Jim Munroe

This game is one of my all-times favourites. The plot is simple, the atmosphere relaxed, the prose capturing. It's quite a long game, but since it's packed with puzzles there are no dead times in the game.

If you like big maps, Return to Ditch Day offers a generous environment. And, if you are a puzzles lover, you'll find planty of puzzles in this game — some minor, others more intricate.

Surely, it's more puzzle oriented than plot-oriented, yet the well polished prose and mechanics grab the player's attention, fix the plot in the mind and keep the game pace alive.

A game that won't let down lovers of classic IF.

This if game is really worth 4 stars. It's fun, it's intriguing and keeps you going.

The story unfolds itself in a balanced manner, each important move unravels something more about the plot — soon you'll find yourself immersed in a true horror tale.

The map is not too big as to be tyring, yet not too small as to be claustrophobic. The author cleverly managed to create an environment which changes as the story progresses. Also, there aren't too many objects to handle, yet each object requires deep thinking about its possibile uses and applications.

Also, the story hints play a fundamental role in guiding the player toward a correct understanding of the way to move about, the goals to achieve, and the significance of the various items he/she comes across.

There aren't any really frustrating bits in the game, though some puzzle solutions are not easy to guess. I've managed to solve it in an afternoon, but I admit I had to peek at the walkthrough twice because I couldn't come up with any more ideas — yet, if I had payed more attention to the hints hydden in the descriptions, I could have worked it out myself.

Some hints are deceiving, the author plays on the player's hopes and fears and lets him/her derived conclusion which, later on in the game, will contribute to the plot twists.

The narrative atmosphere is great, it start soberly and quickly builds up. The worldbuilding is rather fantastic, unusual, rich.

The game has more than one ending, not all of them being the best one.

The game mechanics could have been slightly more polished here and there (some pareser responses are confusing, evidently due to unpolished responses controls) yet they don't interfere with the actual gameplay. Also, some synonims are not well implemented, and overall the player as to stick to items names as presented. I often experienced switches in the referred object, ie: I examine an object but further commands then refer to the previous object handled, which did cause some misunderstanding in some rooms.

Still, the game was original, entertaining and fun all along, what more can you ask?

Nothing But Mazes is a strange piece of IF: there are parts of the story in which the player doesn't really play but reads along, screen after screen. So it's part fiction, part interactive fiction.

Both the game and its language are simple but polished, so it suits also kids. The author has put a great deal of fantasy in the story and I've found it really interesting. As a game, I have to admit that the puzles are quite simple, but I enjoyed them.

The game has sound and hand-drawn graphics (very nice indeed) which add atmosphere to it.

I got to the end of Nothing But Mazes: it's "to be continued". So I hope that Greg Boettcher will bring it to completion because it's worth it.

I rated 5 this game because I found it to be an excellent piece of playable-IF to solve. A mind-bending puzzle that captures the player without a sense of frustration. Overall, it shouldn't take too long to complete it.

Since the very beginning of play you "sense" that something is strange ... that sensation kept me going ahead without frustration even though I moved around in circles for quite a while, but I knew that somehow I was on the right track. Then ... it "clicked" to me and everything was clear. Nevertheless, once the core of the puzzle is grasped it still takes some strategic moves to actually solve it.

No distractions, just a polished and well presented puzzle with all its elements in plain sight. Nice atmosphere.

Surely one of its own kind -- I don't recall coming across any similar puzzles.

I downloaded and installed version 2.2 of Beyond Exile and ... it doesn't work. After game begins, and a first room (which has a single possible action to carry out: going north) I get to a place with 3 characters: 2 people and a dog. The only thing I can do is looking at the dog (which then leaves), all the other (few) available click-comands either display blank text or some short description.

Basically I'm stuck in the second room.

By visiting the game's Website, I've seen a screenshot of the second room I got stuck in, and there is some text-reply to a command I used which does not show up in my actual play.

I've tried it with XP SP3, and it looks like it incurred in a bug.

I personally don't like the Quest QDK interface, nor the few options offered by the click-menu of the game interface. Still ... I was curious about the story but seem like I can't get to play it.

Having had the pleasure of betatesting this game, and see it growing through it's various stages, I had the chance to fully appreciate it.

Mordred did a great job in designing the intriguing puzzles that face the player in this "escape-the-daily-work-routine" game. The humor is great and gives pace to the adventure. Extra notes and comments broaden the context of the game, stimulating curiosity and making great use of the litte setting the game takes place in. The puzzles and tasks are original and quite unique.

I've found the story absorbing like a sponge, and the player is given ample space to try-out different approaches to reach the final goal -- which keep involvement high and frustration low. There are no dead-ends and the author deviced some "spontaneous hints" in case the player starts moving in circles.

Game completion can take anything from half-an-hour to less than 2 hours.

Really worth playing.

I enjoyed completing this game, it took me just less than an hour.

A one-room game which takes place in a transforming virtual-reality environment. The player soon starts to grasp the logic of the game and to handle the symbolic environment to induce changes and shift of levels.

I've never played anything like it, and I was surprised and amused. Not too hard to solve but requires concentration and thinking -- it litterally sucks you in the game's interwoven symbolism. It requires basic commands, and a lot of associational intuition.

Really worth playing!

It took me over an hour to complete the whole game (and I confess that I had to peek into the PDF walkthrough a couple of times) -- by BTW, the PDF-Walkthrough is great because it gives procedural hints but not the exact steps to solve puzzles, so it's not too much of a spolier to peak in it when stuck.

The game is intriguing and NPCs are lively shaped. Puzzles are well crafted and not too hard to solve, and even though there is a specific order in which puzzles should be solved, the story unfolds in a way which makes clear what has to be acomplished first.
Also, there is no "guess-the-verb" struggling: intuitive alternative comands to complex operations seem to be reckognized straight away -- I didn't experience problems in achieving any particular task.
I liked the humor of the game, which is present all along the story. Surely, fantasy is another main ingredient of the game -- it isn't a stereotyped game, it has a flavour of it's own.
I'd say this is a recomended game for IF-veterans and newcomers alike.
Well done, worth playing.