Reviews by Tristano
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Fun and Challenging..., May 5, 2010Having 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.
Puzzles within puzzles ..., May 4, 2010I 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!
An Intense One-Room Adventure ..., May 4, 2010It 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.
Beyond Flashback: Forking plot paths, January 8, 2010This adventure is great fun: plot progression has a good pace and rarely stalls. The setting is intriguing and well crafted. A good number of puzzles, some quite hard to solve. But the real puzzle is coming to grips with the plot.
It's difficoult to review this game without spoiling its enjoyment. So, I'll rather stick to some general hindsight considerations about what makes it really innovative.
The game uses flashback in a way which reminds of Borges Garden of forking paths: the player has to go (must) through a series of choices that will divert plot until a dead end ... an restart from scratch and seek an alternative plot path.
Each replay benefits from the previous game experience, which is the key to step in the alternative paths. Yet, a point comes were a last path joins all the previous loose plot threads and leads to the winning situation.
"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts!"
So, not just flashback as mere information retrieval: flashback as a time-space gate. If you've seen Donnie Darko movie, you'll know what I'm speaking about.
I warn you: the final path is not in plain sight as it might seem. The author doesn't make it easy at all: subtle techniques are implemented to make you believe that you got into a dead end.
Just a little hint: Jon Ingold leaves no bugs behind him! So, if you think you've stepped into a game bug: think again! Exploit whatever the game offers you.
I really hope that Jon Ingold will be exploiting this narrative technique in future games, it could make really thik plots.
A Smooth Game With A Nice Plot!, September 26, 2009I've found this game really smooth to play and enjoyed a good afternoon playing it untill I solved it.
The plot is good and it unfolds in a manner which keeps enthusiasm to proceede alive. I did not encounter any dead ends so, even though it's easy to die in the game, an undo operation is sufficient to get back to the game and try something else. Puzzles are well made and don't lead to frustrating situations where one gets stuck and worn out. There is an overall logic in the unfolding of the game which makes it rather clear which puzzles have to be solved first in order to proceed and what is expected from the player.
The game is not overwelmingly verbose yet it manages to say all that is needed to know provided you also look carefully at pictures! Some important objects are not mentioned in text descriptions but are to be worked out from the pictures which depict every room. Simple graphics make this game lively.
The game contains many secrets to be discovered - and it's great fun.
The overall plot is long even though the map is not to huge to handle. Basically, whenever you solve a puzzle the whole environment is to be revisited in a new light in order to solve the next one.
There are specific steps to solve the game, but it's order comes natural as you get in the game.
A good adventure if you like to play a game that doesn't get you in frustrating situations; all you need is being patient and resort to the most obvious lexicon implied by the game. Objects names are very well implemented with a good variety of synonims that make it easy to guess the right term to address any object.
Worth playing!
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