Ratings and Reviews by Dan Fabulich

Dan Fabulich's Rating:

A big game, but buggy, March 6, 2022

This is a review of Release 7. We played this game at the Bay Area IF Meetup today; it's charming, and large, but very buggy. We were unable to complete the game, even after reading all of the hints.

I reported a bunch of the issues we encountered on the intfiction.org forum; I'm looking forward to Release 8.

Substantial, buggy, March 4, 2022

This review is of Release 3. The game credits no beta testers, which I generally take to be a bad sign.

I got stuck hard when I hit this bug: (Spoiler - click to show)I gave the computer tape to Roderick. You're supposed to give the tape to Doktor Giftig; if you give it to Roderick, the tape is gone forever and the game is unwinnable.

The game has a huge map, and tries to limit the size of the map by not letting you explore areas of the map until you've solved earlier puzzles. I generally regard that as good puzzle design, but the game doesn't give you enough hinting that the unlockable areas are now unlocked, most of the time. (Spoiler - click to show)You can't go north from Weed-Choked Street until Roderick tells you to find the cargo pod, but there's no clear reason why you can't do that earlier, or why you CAN go north after telling him that. You can't go east from Wide Street until Roderick has the orders and Giftig has the tape, but there's no clear reason why that is; the game has no clear goal at all at that point.

I think this game is still playable if you use the source text itself as a hint system of sorts. When you get stuck, peek at the source and see if you can figure out how to get you unstuck that way.

Needs testing, February 27, 2022

I think this game is off to a good start, but it needs testers, and preferably some hints and/or a walkthrough. (I guess it's possible that someone already tested this game, but the game doesn't mention any testers or any credits, so I assume by this that nobody did test it.) I recommend asking for testers on the intfiction.org forum.

Here's some material I would have sent the author if I were a tester.

The game is missing a bunch of "standard" commands:

* HELP (you can type "?" instead, but it's easy to overlook that, and if you do overlook it, there's no easy way to discover that it's missing)
* RESTART (to start the game over again). In practice, "QUIT" does something similar, but that wasn't obvious.
* X as an abbreviation for EXAMINE
* ABOUT for information about the author and testers
* TALK. The game uses "SAY" as its verb to communicate with NPCs, but "SAY" doesn't appear on the "?" menu (it only appears in the intro screen at the start of the game, which you can't easily get back to, because you can't RESTART). "TALK" could be a synonym for "SAY", or, at the very least, if you try to "TALK" or "ASK" or "TELL", the game could invite the player to use "SAY" instead, and in particular to "SAY HI."

In addition, most of the NPCs are missing most conversation topics. At a minimum, you should be able to SAY any of the items you're carrying, or any of the other NPCs, e.g. "SAY THEENA" to Dion.

I gave up after I died. I examined the payphone and a coin fell out, but "EXAMINE COIN" failed. Stephanie said to "present a coin for passage," but "PRESENT COIN" failed. "GIVE COIN" "PAY COIN" "PAY FERRY-PERSON" all failed.

This is what testers are for: to find the places where the author may think it's obvious what to do/say next, but testers weren't able to guess it, so you can add some synonyms (or at least recognize what the player was trying to do and hint them in the right direction).

Also, I didn't like the "green screen" effect. It's using a monospace font, but the letters don't fill the width of their grid slot, so the letters look like a ransom note, with wildly differing amounts of space between letters. For example, in the word "seem," the letters "se" have more space between than "em," which makes it unnecessarily hard to read.

Dan Fabulich's Rating:

A short time-travel story, January 4, 2022

By means of the matches, you'll travel through time and space to various places, meet a handful of charming NPCs, and solve a dozen inventory puzzles. Keep notes and you'll probably solve it in under an hour.

Veeder's NPCs are always reliably charming, and this game is no exception.

As I write this, the game identifies itself as "Episode 1" of a series. Thus far, it's a fine short piece; I'm curious to see how it expands in subsequent episodes.

A charming mini randomized adventure, January 4, 2022

This game includes a few dozen rooms presented in a random order. You're given a menu of options, which often invite you to take a risk to get greater reward. Most of the rooms have a joke or a clever word or two.

You'll probably lose at least once, but when you continue play after losing, the game will present you only rooms you haven't seen. I won on my second try after doing that.

With persistence and just a little luck, you'll probably get to the bottom in well under an hour.

Unfair guess the verb, January 4, 2022

The conclusion of the game is a fun crunchy arithmetic logic puzzle. The puzzles leading up to it are not as fun.

There's an annoying, very tightly timed puzzle where you have to avoid a sentry who arrives at a predictable time, requiring you to UNDO a bunch to avoid him.

Inside that room, there's a "guess the verb" puzzle using a non-standard verb. (Spoiler - click to show)You have to "spin the painting" even though it says you can't "push the painting." "It can't be pushed, since a nail is holding it to the wall." I thought this was unfair.

And in the puzzle with the host, if you guess the right thing to do, he delivers a line of dialog, but the game gives no indication that you've solved the puzzle. (Spoiler - click to show)When you "hit the host," he complains about it, but it turns out that once you hit him, he's unable to stop you from opening the door. The game doesn't make that clear enough; I had to read the source to solve this puzzle.

The logic puzzle at the end was fun, though!

A tiny game with multiple solutions, January 3, 2022

This game's central puzzle is to escape the pub. There are two ways out of the pub, numbered #1 and #2; when the game ends, it tells you which of the two paths you discovered.

Solution #2 requires a bit of "guess the preposition" that I felt made that puzzle kinda unfair. (Spoiler - click to show)I don't see why I should have to "look under the tray" to see that it's oriented incorrectly. I think that should have been revealed to me when I examine the tray or something.

Overall, it's a cute little game, and if you cheat on solution #2, it's an enjoyable game for a few minutes of play.

It's VERY short, a few minutes long, December 16, 2021

A handful of rooms, with a handful of choices. All of the choice questions have right answers, and most of the wrong answers will block your progress or kill you instantly.

It's hard to get a sense of what the rest of the story will be like from this.