Ratings and Reviews by Dan Fabulich

The source code of this game is delightful, and you simply must read it. No, seriously, the game is basically unplayable (its puzzle is unfair) unless you read the source.

I played the game with the story file in an interpreter, which is normally my preferred way to play IF, but as a result, I missed out on a message that appears in the HTML "Play Online" version:

An Entry in Event One of the Second Quadrennial Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction.

The challenge of Event One was to create a game in Inform 7 with beautiful source code text. Therefore, you may be interested in viewing the source code text.

This game and quackoquack's Moving (On) are stories about caring relationships between close friends told via the medium of parser IF.

There are precious few games like this; so much of parser IF is about using your superior intellect to solve devilish puzzles about things ("moderate-sized specimens of dry goods" as JL Austin puts it), often with a comedy theme, because solving puzzles in this way always feels faintly absurd.

quackoquack's games subvert this structure. Mind The Gap asks the player to solve a scheduling problem (and a traveling sales problem) in order to have cozy, personal moments with all of the friends you want to see in London, with bonus points available if you can help create and support connections between your friends, especially the ones who don't see each other often enough. Each meeting is sweet (bittersweet), tender, and genuine.

I very much look forward to her next work!

I went to the trouble of typing in this game from an archived copy of Softline magazine because I had fond memories of playing this game with my dad.

The game itself is playable, and has some cute bits. The centerpiece puzzle with the dragon has adequate clues, I think, and the magic spring puzzle may catch some players pleasantly by surprise.

This game has some "guess the verb" puzzles with non-standard verbs (Spoiler - click to show)(tip, crush) without much hinting.

I'm not categorically opposed to "guess the verb" puzzles, but you can't have a GTV puzzle in a game with a limited parser, because 99% of the time, the verb you'd reasonably guess won't be supported.

For example, you can't (Spoiler - click to show)smash peanut; you can only (Spoiler - click to show)crush peanut.

The backstory was evocative, but it never became relevant to the lock-and-key puzzle the story was actually about.

The game isn't really meant to be played; it's a sample game intended to demonstrate the Adventuron -> Spectrum converter. There's a YouTube video that explain the process.

To be funny, jokes have to be surprising, but inevitable in hindsight. The jokes in this game either don't feel surprising (the Ground Troll is silly!) or don't feel inevitable (what's Mario doing here?).

You can reach a winning 10-pebble ending if you use the back button when you fail, so winning is just a matter of straightforward hard work.

A delightful appetizer.

The web version includes lovely background music by Julian K. Jarboe, don't miss out!

It was a little hard to guess the command to get started, so here's my gift to you: (Spoiler - click to show)touch sunlight with leaf

A short, simple work in Twine, with a nice photo on every page.

This seems to be a game where you have to go from room to room examining everything. But the game doesn't follow the BENT rule (Bracket Every Notable Thing), so it often describes things that can't be examined.

In the living room, for example:

"You are standing in the Living Room, the heart of the home. The majority of the hardwood floor is covered with a worn carpet of a repetitive design. Dark wooden paneling line the walls, matched by equally dark baseboard, poorly joined in the corners. Simple furniture and few knick-knacks decorate this room. Uncle Clem seems to have lived a simple life, with the bare essentials"

You can't examine the floor, the carpet, the paneling, the furniture, or the knick-knacks, ("You can't see any such thing") but you must examine the baseboard.

The whole game is like this! I gave up after trying to examine everything I reasonably could in seven rooms and never finding anything that I would call a "puzzle" or even a goal.

Maybe hints would help?