Ratings and Reviews by Nusco

If C.E.J. Pacian keeps churning out little games of this quality and consistency, I'll have to go back to his other games and rate them all up one notch. As usual, Walker & Silhouette sports the author's trademark mix of pulp space-opera fiction, relentless pace and deliciously flawed characters.

In this game, Walker is an inhumanly smart crippled police detective specialized in solving freaky mysteries by sheer force of logic. His counterpart Silhouette is a passionate anarco-feminist bad girl with a big hearth. Together, they solve a case involving as much steampunk staples, English understatement and freaky accidents as Pacian can cram in a one-hour game. Both characters border on gender bending, and their nuanced mutual attraction works very well to keep this short game together. I'm regularly bored by romance in games, but Pacian's unusual approach to the topic actually works for me. You can feel that the author really likes and respects his characters.

Like Gun Mute, this game experiments with restricted input: in this case, you move the game forward by typing keywords rather than relying on the usual (semi)-free form IF commands. Although limiting, this device works well for such a short game, smoothing out the experience and preventing you from getting stuck. Pacian even manages to build a couple of puzzles around this limited parser, which gives you the feeling you're actually playing a game, although very linear, rather than reading a short story. The result is a small polished game that doesn't last long enough for you to suspend disbelief and actually question its calculatedly naive absurdity.

Like other games from Pacian, this one feels like the author was smiling constantly as he wrote it. I also carried that smile throughout the experience.

A confession: I really liked The Ascot.

The Ascot is one of those cheap Choose Your Own Adventure games - and a particularly constrained one, for that. Apart from a few special exceptions (like meta-verbs and the nearly useless EXAMINE), the game's parser only understands two words: YES and NO. As a result, the game feels extremely limited in scope. You can finish The Ascot in just one move (by typing NO at the first prompt), or invest a few minutes and work your way to a somewhat positive ending. You could even argue whether this is actually IF. However, I'll take a short constrained game that's actually fun over a boring game with a good parser.

Another reason not to like The Ascot is that this game belongs to the dreaded "wacky dorky humor masquerading as generic fantasy" club. That genre is usually populated by first-attempt games by teenage authors who then proceed to submit their bedroom experiments to the IF Competition, and force the poor judges to suffer through streams of lame jokes and random narratives. However, for some reason, the humor in The Ascot really worked for me. The narrative voice is consistent, if deliberately silly, and it even managed to make me laugh sometimes - especially when it self-reflects on the game's own limitation, a device that usually falls flat in other games. Here are two (mildly spoilery) examples:

(Spoiler - click to show)
[...] the old woman clucks at you. “[...] Are you ready to finally claim your family’s fortune, young master?”

> no
Oh, so you wanna go home, then?

> no
So, you’ll accept your quest, then? (I can keep this up all day, by the way.)

And here is how the game forces you to accept one option over the other when you enter a dead end in the story branch:


“Let’s try the other way,” whispers Gertie. Are you gonna listen to her?

> no
Okay, so... you’re standing around and... standing around... and...

Gertie asks you again if you wanna go down the other tunnel.

> no
Gertie stares at you. “Are you going?”

> no
Gertie stares at you. “Are you going?”

Oh, man. You have no chance at winning this one! She’s good, she’s good...


It might be cheap humour, but it made me chuckle. I'd rather take this game's honest tongue-in-cheek approach over a linear game that attempts to give you an illusion of freedom and fails.

Overall, I'd probably give The Ascot three stars on a very good day. But then, of course, there is The Ascot's main claim to fame: the infamous "smart puzzle that you can easily overlook and actually turns out to be the game real raison d'etre". That's why this little harmless game was nominated to a Xyzzy (that it arguably deserved to win) after being very harshly dismissed by many IF Competition reviewers. That puzzle changed my perspective on the game's strictly constrained mechanics, and it probably justifies investing a few extra minutes to get to the optimal ending... And that's where the fourth star comes from.

Average geek takes drugs and dreams his way through a confusing game. Pretentious, condescending tone, as if the author is trying to teach you something very profound. The competent implementation and writing is not enough to make this game less irritating.

I have to make use of the standard disclaimer here: although I didn't like it (and arguably I didn't get it), most players consider Blue Chairs a modern classic, and this game got close to winning the 2004 IF Comp. So it's a game that deserves to played. At the very worst, you'll be as disappointed as I was.

Ecdysis is underimplemented, extremely short and linear, heavy on directing the player and very limited in scope. However, it makes up for all of its shortcomings by being a very disturbing small piece of IF - even more disturbing than Lovecraft's average work. Not for the squeamish.

Giant laser-firing robots, steampunk-ish western bad guys, radioactive mutants, badass gay cowboys with an attitude and a lot of shooting at people - this game has everything you need. You can call it an experiment on the form, because it purposefully limits itself to just a few verbs (of which "shoot" is the most important by far) and declares itself "an IF shoot-em-up". Experiment or not, this is one of the funniest short pieces of IF I've played in a while. Its unassuming attitude, approachability, shortness and blatantly linear gameplay only make this spaghetti-western-meets-mad-max-meets-doom pastiche more of a pleasure.

Prepuberal Prince of Denmark wannabe peels the deep implementation layers of his parents' home. Exceptional atmosphere, flourishing prose and dark, dark humor abound.

Gamlet is a missed chance for a classic. It's deeply unsettling and funny at the same time, but the effect is somewhat spoiled by the ending sequence. The ending itself is mildly interesting, mainly because it reveals a lot about the game's author - which probably wasn't the intention of the author itself.

I tend to like single-puzzle games, so I had high hopes for this one. The concept is very good: take a classic puzzle and twist it by making the standard solution impossible.

The game itself is a bit underimplemented, but the strong concept makes up for that in part. I had a good time playing it, but unfortunately I ended up winning easily because of a bug. I didn't even realize it was a bug, so I headed straight for the hints and ended up surprised and somewhat disappointed. Overall a nice effort, but wait for a post-comp release.

A number of funny and pretty smooth mini-games tied by a loose narrative about a young arcade gamer. Geeky humor transpires throughout.

A fascinating mess-up of some IF conventions, this (very short) experiment is only partly successful. But somehow, the game manages to keep the thrust of its catchy opening line. Pleasantly subdued humor, decent puzzles.

A clever and funny time-travel puzzle game where you play a scientist trying to save the world from her own invention. Coherent setting and puzzles and a genuine sense of urgency make this one lift off. A bit confusing at times, but ultimately deeply rewarding.

IF Comp 2004 seemed to be filled with games about astronauts awakening from cryogenic sleep. This one is really good, though. It's a funny take on Infocom's classics, with the same gentle humor and fiendish puzzles of its
models. Great sidekick.

A short, nearly puzzleless, anti-war familiar drama. Very competent use of the medium and an interesting story. Too rhetorical and deliberate to be genuinely moving, but it gets close. It deserves to be played multiple times.

A short, light-hearted fantasy adventure about a squire on a mission to kill a dragon. The humour is not always spot-on, but a couple of clever puzzles make up for it. One of the puzzles is a bit guess-the-nounish, though.

A sci-fi story about meeting an alien culture. It can't seem to decide wether it's partly serious or not. It feature a sidekick with its own emotional reactions. I missed a essential item, and I was stuck without a walkthrough.

A single large one-room puzzle about a very complicated machine, with some impressive parser tricks. Too focused on implementation and technology and not enough on being actually fun. Amusing ending sequence.

A girl must deal with the daily grind of her own private zoo. Very confusing. It's actually a clever joke, but I couldn't get it until I read the walkthrough. Native English speakers will probably appreciate it.

An interesting MUD simulation mixed with traditional IF. The exciting premise is let down by repetitive gameplay, and the "undo" command makes it all a bit pointless. Refreshingly different, but seriously flawed.

Hopelessly cliched "astronaut with amnesia" stuff. Interesting enough at first, but it dries up after the first half. The lost identity theme adds nothing to anything, and that last puzzle could have used some trimming.

Ye Olde Puzzle-Fest, with decent implementation spotted by some obvious bugs. From the generic fantasy-starting-in-a-house setting onwards, everything feels a bit oh-hum. Never actively bad, though.

A very well-crafted Sci-Fi narrative implemented with maniacal attention to details. Very good (if verbose) writing, clean graphics and an involving and deeply human story almost push it up into four-stars territory. But sorry, I couldn't stand the puzzles.

Well-written social satire with Gourmet-style "lateral thinking" puzzles. The cheesy opening scene gives way to a very solid, enjoyable game. Intelligent writing, strong characters. The humour is a bit hit-and-miss.

A comedic mistery with a well characterized NPC and not much more. Clumsy, uncertain use of the medium. The puzzles are decent at best, but the two protagonists save it from being quickly forgotten.

A Kafkian story about a man imprisoned for unknown reasons. It becomes less and less interesting as it goes, but the philosophic undertones are clever and sometimes funny. Largely based on a difficult puzzle that doesn't really fit in IF format.

A fantasy story on the side of goblins. I wanted to play this a tad more, but the lack of a walkthrough and an hunger-sleep puzzle convinced me to quit. If I'm about to die from lack of sleep, why can't I use the beds?

Japanese schoolgirls against the robot dictators. The English prose feels strange, but maybe it's just me. Many situations feel a bit random, and the game has hints but lacks a walkthrough. The B-movie robot descriptions are funny, though.

A curious short story about a tourist lost in Santa Fe and looking for his group. Simple, with retro-style puzzles. Ultimately too insubstantial to be satisfying. At least it doesn't make promises that it can't keep.

An earnest attempt at a mistery/action story. Very rough around the edges, with lots of edges. The "unexpected twist" in the end can be seen approaching from miles ahead.

A messy alien abduction story with a bunch of puzzles that range from the interesting to the totally pointless. Nothing to write home about.

An interesting "create" command lures you into fantasy B-games hell. Missing item desciptions and increasingly random story elements make this one involutarily humorous. It can be completed by using ESP or a walkthrough.

A short and very bland whodunit, where you don't really care about who did it. It feels like a series of in-jokes between the author and her acquaintances. The setting, a small private airport, is original, and it kept me playing.

A satirical game about the current Iraqi war. Pointless puzzles, confusing map and very peculiar humour. Wait a minute... That is humour, isn't it?

Zany fantasy game where the author jumps here and there trying to make it all feel part of a theme. Some of the long monologues are so bad, they deserve cult status (or maybe the author is very young?). Everything, including the "light" theme, is all over the place.

Short, underimplemented game about a guy escaping from somewhere. It's sci-fi, but it could be just about anything. Pointless and juvenile in its approach to story and character.

Sci-fi with neither the sci nor most of the fi. Some robots, some uninspiring locations, a generally sloppy feeling. The author's hints are as subtle as a slap in your face, but the puzzles felt too difficult anyway.

"Astronaut in peril" plots were all the fashion in the 2004 IF Comp. This one is another point against home-brewed parsers. The real-time technology never really comes through, while the bugs and parser limitations do. The prose and puzzles don't really help.

The author's note: "Don't understand the point that this game is getting at? Thats ok, I don't either, and I wrote it!". Yeah, it's one of those. You're "in someone else's mind", wandering around without a clue nor a walkthrough.

Short BASIC game about a ninja who must do something to someone, but ends up moving between two or three underdescribed locations and winning the game for no apparent reason. Probably contains less words than this review. Extremely buggy.

Superhero parody involving a talking parrot and lots of comedic characters. Let down by quirky parsing, overly sparse implementation and verbose prose. The humor didn't quite work for me.