Reviews by AmberShards
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Zombie Loses, May 21, 2011This is a one-room experiment in humor or zombie realism, or both. The ending is humorous; the beginning is gross; there's not much between besides the initial groping around figuring out what you are and what you're supposed to eat.
For a game coded in one hour, the prose is surprisingly problem-free. The introduction effectively sets the scene and gets you right into the action, what little there is. There is gore and your initial meal is a bit stomach-churning.
It might be a bit unfair to give this game one star, but it's so limited in what it does, two stars seems madly generous. To be sure, it's a better game than any game in which you "mount car", but to make a bad pun, there's just not enough meat here.
House of Dead Children, May 21, 2011The Sisters begins a little better than your standard horror story; at least you are given a reason for getting to the old mansion. Could the author have made it more atmospheric? Yes. Could the author have cared about grammar, punctuation, and all those fundamentals? You betcha. The overuse of ellipses to end sentences (for maximum spook value, I assume) is particularly grating. Anyhow, the game begins fairly well and does draw you in.
There are some technical problems that can kill you, so be warned. The first of these is a lack of synonyms for a common verb problem -- annoying. (Spoiler - click to show)The next one requires you to close the penknife. This is not optional. If you drop the penknife, even in another room, you will still die if you try to go down the steep decline! The lack of synonyms for common verbs leads straight into guess-the-verb-land for some of the puzzles (none of which are crucial to the plot, fortunately). The Sisters loses points for technical problems that really should have been fixed.
The prose is decent; it's not campy, it's not bad, it's just unfocused. Take this as an example: "You slowly wake, somewhat reluctantly." Occasionally there are little bits of prose satisfaction, such as "...you have a nagging feeling that waking will only complicate things." Jokes are rarer still. The scenes that build the sense of unease are decent; the atmospherics are unoriginal.
The plot is a little bit better than the usual, but it doesn't have the originality (except the end) to make it truly memorable. It does allow you to explore quite a bit and yet provides enough plot to keep you playing. That's worth praising. I have played better-implemented games that couldn't keep my interest alive.
The scoring system feels pinball-esque, in that you're racking up a point here, three points here, and so on. I'm not an enemy of points, but in this game, they seriously disrupted the sense of immersion.
The ending ambushes you and before you have typed more than a few times, the game is over. I'm not sure that winning is possible, and neither am I sure what role score plays here. Would I have achieved a more positive result had I score seventy instead of fifty?
As other reviewers have noted, this is not a Lovecraftian opus; my hat's off to the author for at least trying to be original, even if he did not completely succeed. Altogether, The Sisters is a somewhat interesting game that rewards you with a chilling finale`.
By the Way, You're a Pixy, May 20, 2011Mite is an easy-going, picturesque, coming-of-age sort of fantasy anchored in the section of the literary landscape inhabited by The Wind in the Willows. By the way, you're a pixy. The writing here is nearly flawless and engrossing; never once does mimesis break. After a moment or two, only bodily functions will remind you that you aren't actually trodding beneath the caps of mushrooms or interacting with fey creatures.
The plot may not be original, but it is handled deftly and with authenticity. You are Mite, a young pixy lad who has discovered an egg that belongs to the Prince. Your job -- and your parents insist that you accept it -- is to return the egg. You've never been far from home, but this is your chance to learn about the world and take on the challenges of adulthood.
The puzzles in Mite range from simple to almost nettlesome, but none of them are cruel or overly difficult. The only fault I find with them, in general, is that sometimes the solutions lie in rooms you have yet to explore. The map itself is often linear, and so I was concerned that by going ahead a few rooms would result in losing the game. Besides that, they rank as some of the most true-to-the-game, immersive, organic, and satisfying puzzles in the history of IF.
Unfortunately, Mite does have a few typos and grammar problems that prevent it from being a five-star game. None of these make the game unwinnable or foul up your ability to solve any puzzles. They are just unexpected defects, like the cup holder in your new car coming loose as you round a bend. Also, the conversation system is the primitive ask/tell. Conversational purists will probably dislike Mite for that alone, but fortunately, the game manages to soften the impact of those restrictions.
Mite is not too easy, and not too hard. It is packed with memorable encounters and leads to a satisfying conclusion. It touches on various enduring themes, and does so with grace, class, and innate nobility. In short, Mite is a class act from start to finish. Brava, Sara Dee.
Political Kabuki Theatre, May 18, 2011The intro and the first few rooms of this game are amazing, as it describes a world that exists only as hateful fantasy. "No rhyme or reason"? Uhm, that doesn't make sense. No-one bothers to go to the effort to track, arrest, and imprison someone on a whim; every action has a reason.
Curiously, the author reveals virtually nothing about the main character. That arouses natural sympathy in the player's breast, but I find it disingenuous and cowardly. The backdrop is the war on terror; the character begins by escaping a cell; and the prison is apparently a "rendition" facility (no, the character is not Pvt Manning). The main character is most likely a jihadist Muslim. So the odds are on whatever he was doing having something to do with murdering a lot of people.
"How will they know that you're telling the truth?" If the implication holds, the author demonstrates shocking ignorance of "taqqiya" -- the deception of your enemy if it preserves your life or advances the cause of Islam. This is a common tool in the jihadist toolbox.
"Low value" does not mean "not part of anything," as the author suggests, revealing her ignorance of intel. "Low value" means "not likely to yield actionable evidence". Beyond that, the game offers up another unrealistic scenario: the government knew they couldn't get anything from the prisoner, but kept him anyways? That simply wouldn't be done -- unless you're inclined to believe the stories told by taqqiya-mouthing jihadists. By this point, I'm laughing. Really, how can you make a game where you know nothing about the world you're trying to model?
The information that you find about the procedures apparently is so controversial that it will prove your innocence. And this information is about...wait for it...the PrOcEdUrEs. Hurry, someone call the ACLU. They'll get right on those panties on your head and other forms of psychological fake-out marketed as "torture"!
For further evidence that the main character is a jihadist -- or possibly, an anarchist, try examining the corpses; both place the same low value upon human life. Here Out of the Pit edges up to eliminationist rhetoric.
As you keep going, you find misspellings and the usual purple prose (consider the laptop and its pieces). There is no challenge from a puzzle perspective, either. The single puzzle is painfully easy to solve, and escaping the prison is also mindless, requiring just the ability to type compass directions.
For a game that presumes to be deadly serious, Out of the Pit fails catastrophically. It's political kabuki theatre.
At Least PUTBAD Was Funny, May 16, 2011This game consists of an entirely nondescript one-room plane that you are in -- not a seat or stewardess to be seen -- and an annoying sister who repeats the same thing every turn. For some inexplicable reason you have a survival kit in your purse. No verbs do anything except wait. So you wait and wait and wait until you get tired of waiting and then you quit.
If this game is actually an interactive life experience, maybe we are all on planes, stuck in a game with a title that means nothing, surrounded by annoying people that we want to shut up but can't -- ok, I give up. This game has no meaning and no satisfaction. At least Pick Up the Phone Booth and Die was funny.
No, No, No, Please No., May 16, 2011From the first paragraph, you know this game will be bad. Scary Caps, grammar problems, and point of view problems scream off the screen. The content? Well, it fits.
The game channels the spirit of low-grade slasher/gore films, and the setup is strictly by the numbers: teens meet in an out of the way place to drink and have sex. Monster shows up. Dead bodies ensue. Sure, the girls have mildly humorous names, but that's it for camp -- besides the hackneyed plot.
Technical problems abound. You can't actually converse with anyone (getting no response from attractive women would be realistic, but not from your friends); you can drink an endless amount of beer and never get drunk or have to pee; you can't drive your own car.
Advancing the plot means a lot of waiting. It's like watching one of those lame movies and having to hit the play button every few moments. Ugh. Also, the number of profanities is off the charts. Double ugh.
I agree with RandomExile's comments about the plot being on rails, although that may be too gracious. The plot is in a straitjacket. Maybe that was the point, so that you could role-play one of those imbeciles who sits around and waits to be carved up by the monster. This is especially frustrating in one of the character's death scenes, where you just sit by and watch. This might be fiction, but it's sure not interactive.
Hallow Eve is nasty, boring, not funny, and not self-aware. In short, it's just like a Friday the 13th film -- best off avoided.
Lesbian Noir, May 15, 2011Initially, The Blind House impresses you, artfully and graciously. The setting is dark, psychological, and constrained, yet sauced in delicious unease. The puzzles are also simple, at first, and even the ones which are not intrigue you instead of frustrate you. The layout of the screen features the game's graphic at the lower right and a graphical map at the lower left -- truly, a revolution in IF branding. Lastly, the main character's main current thoughts are floating just below the status bar. These game mechanics go a long way towards making TBH playable, and memorable, and cement the noir atmosphere.
Then the puzzles get less obvious and my interest wanes. The middle section takes too much time to unriddle and drains the prickly, panicky fear away. I'm also convinced that there's some sort of timing bug -- occasionally Marissa doesn't return (I waited until after 9 PM), and other times she returns after barely thirty moves. Originally, I thought that had Marissa returned earlier, the further revelations of the game would be avoided, but that was only wishful thinking.
The main character grows less likable as she becomes better defined; her thoughts hover upon indecency, and her jealousy of Estelle betrays her attraction to women (it's a jealous madness, but attraction nonetheless). Other scenes reveal this as well, and not in any subtle, interpretable way. The ending scenes make it completely clear. TBH is lesbian noir.
This casts a vomit-colored light upon the rest of the game. The middle section is Helena pawing through the private life of someone that she wishes was her lover. Even the introduction makes more sense -- why were the characters seemingly so close? (Spoiler - click to show)What actually happened last night, except for a lover's fight that turned deadly? The ending does succeed in wrapping things up, although it is anti-climactic, and it assumes a few things that you may not have done.
The writing in many places is taut, eerie, and evocative, but that in no way atones for requiring someone to live inside Helena's skin. That horror remains, like the memory of being deathly sick.
Like Looking at Common Ancient Artifacts, May 1, 2011Sometimes the past obscures the purpose of things; I can imagine sifting through an archeological dig and finding common artifacts which although they are mysterious, no-one knows what they are for, and so they are thrown aside. Spectrum is one of those common ancient artifacts. It's curious, but you have no idea what it's for, and that leaves you with apathy.
To say much about this game is to reveal its central conceit, which is that of an emotional color wheel. You can pick up metaphysical objects and move them around, although where you're supposed to place them is a matter of "guess where you drop things". I know it's only SpeedIF, but this format has seen some pretty good games -- think of You are a Chef!, for instance. Spectrum provides a great premise and goes nowhere with it. The lack of implementation is sorely missed, here. I wish more authors would understand this: if you're creating a different-than-usual world, it needs to be immersive or the player won't get it. The normality of standard responses will suck away attention and he won't be able to reason as though he was bound and circumscribed by your world.
Anyhow, for additional discomfort, the game features profanity and a subtle anti-Christian dig. If you feel like playing "drop objects in random places" or "guess the verb" you might find more of the same -- that was no inducement for me to continue. Caught between boredom and offensive material, I wandered off to find something else to do.
No Way Out, April 30, 2011The problem with Snatches is that it lets a good idea get in the way of a good game.
The original approach intrigues, and then frustrates, and then you realize that you're along for the ride. There's no way out, no way off the rails, and the game consists of walking straight into the creature's clutches again and again. I can't say that's terribly satisfying from a playability perspective; the fact that the technique gets tired about the seventh time that you've experienced it doesn't help. (Spoiler - click to show)Really, did I have to be the dog? Talk about overusing a technique!
Anyway, Snatches gets props for being a horror game and not a Lovecraftian horror game. Its theme and tone remind me of the X-Files. The different characters perceive the world in vastly different ways according to their experiences and physical characteristics, and that's tough to pull off.
A Soap Opera in Miniature, April 30, 2011The first line is chilling and evocative, which makes what comes after a plunge into the mundane. The lower-cased room names and the minimal room descriptions suggest the feeling of loss, and the character's inability to put together obvious clues suggest his frame of mind. The lack of objects and their responses continue this tone. The room descriptions reveal the story in reverse -- a neat trick. On the whole, this works; it's just a bit too soap-opera-ish.
Is all well that ends well? Depending on how much you've explored, the violently short ending is either ironic or extremely ironic. The author doesn't use this setup to bash men though, so that's a nice surprise. Still, it feels too minimal.
With that aside, the game holds together well, emotionally. It is short because it needs to be short; it could have been long only as farce. The only detractors are a few grammar problems, a little vagueness about what to do next, and the brevity of the ending. The Argument is not revolutionary, but it does capture a moment in time fairly well.
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