Reviews by virtuadept

So, you may have played this before, possibly in the newspaper even. There's two pictures side by side. At first glance, it's just two copies of the same picture. But no, there's something different between them. Maybe a few very subtle differences, even. And you have to spot all of the differences and then report what they were to solve the puzzle.

That is what Paranoia is, but it's done as a text adventure. You are in a room. There are various objects in the room. You have to decide what if anything about the room is different between the last time you pushed a button. You must use every sense here to detect any slightest change.

Paranoia responds to almost every single thing you try to interact with correctly. Not quite everything but most everything is either correctly implemented as scenery. I suppose it achieved this by keeping it all in a single "room" (from the player's perspective, anyway, I guess that this might be implemented as a bunch of very, very similar "rooms" in the game engine with small differences).

That's it in a nutshell. If you love difficult puzzles, you will probably love this. Accept the challenge! If not, this probably isn't your thing. Paranoia is well implemented.

Chime Rhymes, Clue Through!

This is a rhyming game, and apparently not the first by Andrew Schultz but it was the first one I've played. I got stuck. A lot. I needed help. There is good help. There's a device in the game that is very helpful, and I thought that was implemented brilliantly.

Overall the theme of rhyming and feasting was an interesting one. This game is not terribly long, but it is long enough to feel like an accomplishment in solving. It is light hearted, and I laughed a bunch, especially at some of the responses to incorrect attempts. I am definitely eager to go back and check out some of the earlier games in this "series."

Not a bad way to enjoy an evening of puzzling word-play.

This was pretty random but awesome. I mean, it really has intriguing writing. It kind of sort of felt like chess, but to me it also kind of felt like those old SwordQuest "Fire World" games for the Atari 2600, where you have all these elemental enemies to deal with. It is rather short, but I think that works for this game quite well. I was satisfied at the end and had not gotten bored with running NSEW all the time. The ending is quite good. There are certainly worse ways to spend 10 or 15 minutes of your time.

Alphabet City is full of grime and grunge. The place just reeks of poverty, decay, desperation. You are all to familiar with the bottom, but things were starting to look up. But now your girl is missing, and you want to find her, and take her back home. All in all, this game has a good premise, great setting, interesting writing, but needs a lot more testing. This could really have been one of the best games of ParserComp if more work were put in on the parser responses to prevent some of the silliness that happens with Inform 7 objects that aren't classified correctly. I really dig the artwork that was included that really sets the tone for this story. Would definitely like to see a version 2 of this released that fixes some of the issues and perhaps adds a bit more to the story. I am giving 2/5 because for me that means a game with potential that has serious problems. That's what I feel Alphabet City is, a game with a lot of potential, but it needs some major work to pass as an enjoyable game I could recommend.

So this is a quaint little diddy with pretty cool retro-pixel graphics and an old SCOTT ADAMS style parser. The graphics are really what make this kind of fun. Without that, this is just a "deliver boxes and solve minor obstacles while doing so" type game.

But the art gives it a 1980's retro-vibe, and it succeeds well as a retro-game. It is rather short, I feel as if the author probably ran out of time. Also there does not seem to be a real point to the story, other than you just do your job as a post-person. Which I guess, is its own reward, really. Hey, it was cool for Kevin Costner, right?

Did I mention I liked the art?

Iyashikei is a serene mostly-on-the-rails, short (15 minutes tops) diversion that feels like something a hypnotist might use to try to hypnotize someone. BERAAAKK! (chicken noises) Like, you know, the hypnotist that tells the audience member to cluck like a chicken, BERAAAK!!! (cluck, cluck) And when they wake up, they have no actual memory of doing it. BERAAKKK!!

Unfortunately, Iyashikei does not actually hypnotize you and make you act like a chicken. (CLUCK! CLUCK! Scratch the ground with talons.) It is rather peaceful, but with conflict comes story. A story with no conflict to resolve, is it really a story? BERAAAAAK!!! (cluck, cluck)

The serene-icity? BEREAAAK!! (is that even a (cluck) word? (cluck cluck))
Is broken by the lack of implementation of the scenery. A lot of gorgeous scenery is described. But when you try to take it in, by examining it, smelling it, tasting it, feeling it, listening to it... BERAAAK!!!!
the "it" is always "you don't see any 'it' here" (cluck, cluck)

So, apparently this game does not actually hypnotize you, (cluck, cluck) nor does it let you explore the peaceful scenery in a detailed way. BERAKK!!!

I like where the author was thinking here, but it needed more time in the BERAAKK!!! (cluck, cluck) oven.

Zork 1 is straight up GANGSTA, yo! If you can beat this game without hints then you are, without a doubt, one of the smartest people.

Back in 1984 when my folks bought me my first home computer (IBM PCjr) I was 15. Zork was the second PC game that I bought for the new computer. The first was Sir-Tech's <==== W I Z A R D R Y ! ===[--o ... an early computer RPG modeled after Dungeons & Dragons. I was very into D&D and so naturally I wanted to experience adventure on my computer.

Zork is kind of like D&D, in a way. You use a sword to fight monsters. You collect treasure. There are lots of traps and puzzles. Kind of like D&D modules were at the time.

And then it had the humor. The interesting history of the Great Underground Empire. The quirky responses to things. And treasure. Treasure was always fun back in the 80's.

This game has a special nostalgic value for me, of course, but I still feel this game holds up pretty well. Sure, it's absolutely CRUEL and brutal. It is a real challenge. This game isn't going to make you think or ponder life's mysteries or give a happy feel good comedy time. No, it's going to kick you in the private parts. Again. And Again. Until you quit, because you just can't handle it. Or until you smile after hours and hours of careful plodding, restoring, exploring, and eventually, winning!

It took me years but I did eventually beat Zork 1, then 2, and even 3. I did play a bit of Zork Zero and a few of the others in the more graphical parts of the series. Grand Inquisitor is super funny (never beat it). They all have adventuring and quirky flavor that is unique to the GUE setting and related areas. There's a lot to like about the series, overall, so why not start with the first one, the grandaddy of them all, ZORK I.

You know you want to. Go ahead. The house is right there.

There is a lot to like about Bradisson Rayburn's Revenge. The premise is funny. You're on a game show. You can't win it, because the game is rigged against you for some reason (I never figured out why Rayburn hates me). That sets the stage (literally) for a great premise. You must use cunning and guile to cheat your way to victory, as any sane person would surely do! There are many humorous moments here. The writing is competent and feels appropriate for the setting.

Bradisson Rayburn's Revenge! was designed and published in a very short amount of time, showing how quickly a simple 30-to-60-minute game could be built in Inform 7. There are ways to see 'bad' endings but "UNDO" or just saving the game before each contest stage will solve that. The ending was sudden for me, I didn't expect it to happen that way, but it was pretty good. I would definitely revisit this game later if author Lance Cirone decides to expand it. I definitely hope that he will, or at least keep writing IF and perfecting the craft.

Overall, BRR is a good effort as a short diversion and worth taking a look. And BRR is definitely worth expanding into a bigger work, hopefully we see more or a sequel possibly.

Andromeda Chained is a cleverly written interactive reimagining of a classic Greek mythology about Perseus rescuing princess Andromeda of Aethiopia from a terrible sea monster Cetus. Andromeda’s mother, Cassiopeia, slighted the Nereids by boasting that Andromeda was more beautiful, and this angered Poseidon, god of the seas. So Poseidon sent a flood and the monster Cetus to destroy Aethiopia. King Cepheus, father of Andromeda, having consulted the oracle Ammon, believed that offering Andromeda as a sacrifice to the sea monster was the only way to save his kingdom.

So Andromeda Chained begins with King Cepheus chaining his daughter to a rocky cliff at the shore. The tale is told from the perspective of Andromeda, who is given little choice about her fate. The only true choice she has is how she will express her feelings about her plight. Will she be angry? Courageous? Fearful?

When macho pretty boy Perseus enters the scene, will she be smitten? Skeptical? Angry?
The fate of Andromeda is a record of ancient Greek mythology, but how she decides to feel about it, that’s her choice, your choice as the player.

This is a very short work of interactive fiction. I was left wanting to know more about Andromeda and her life with Perseus. After all, the myths tell us that the gods were so impressed with her that they immortalized her for all time as a constellation in the stars. Surely she must have been an amazing woman and not merely a prize for Perseus. She bore seven children for the hero and stayed by his side while he ruled as King of Tiryns. Her eldest, Perses, was said to be the progenitor of Persia.

Andromeda Chained is well written and thought provoking and left me with a desire to seek out more information about the character. Unfortunately the mythology about Andromeda is rather vague, but I suspect it is enough of a scaffolding to construct a delightful retelling of this amazing woman’s story, hint, hint, Aster.

Turandot. Oh! Turandot! What is not to love about thee? Your delicate prose dances across the page like a world-class ballerina. Your enormous… adjectives, tempt even the most chaste of readers. Your delicious humor tastes as sweet as cotton candy! No, wait, that would be all sugar and no substance! Your humor is more like chocolate, a bit bitter at first, but a love affair guaranteed to end in tragic over-indulgence! Turandot. My time with you was short, but oh, so sweet. Dearest fans of IF, if you cannot tell, I am smitten by this lovely work of fiction. I dare say, it might stay on my mind for weeks, months, even years? Such a story of love, hate, death, redemption… I shall not reveal more, a gentleman never tells.

I laughed. I cried. A philosopher died. This was a true hoot. A real laugh fest. I mean, you kind of have to have a bit of a dark streak in you to appreciate a lot of the humor, which I most certainly possess. This IF is almost entirely dialogue: witty, informative, descriptive, contemplative, and most especially so-funny-my-sides-hurt dialogue. And yet there is still a serious side to this, obviously given the subject matter. This story entertains, educates, and keeps you guessing. It keeps you wanting more. It is not extremely long, probably around 1 hour to see most of it with a replay. Keep in mind this game deals with adult themes, but is not graphic in its descriptions. You know the ending, but it's the ride, ahem, the journey, that makes this one great.

This slightly interactive story has, as far as I can tell, two meaningful choices. You do drag words onto other words to show more text and get more description, but more often than not, that doesn't change the plot. I haven't played a lot of "Texture" games. So I will try to refrain from commenting about that aspect of it and focus instead on the narrative.

The story is very, very short. I think it takes maybe 10 minutes to do a full play-through and another 2 or 3 to replay it to get the only other ending and try some of the other non-meaningful branches.

You may or may not get some adult language depending on some of those branches, but either way that doesn't change your ending choices. This kind of felt like those scenes in movies with something gratuitous that add nothing to the story and feel like they were just to get an R rating.

As a very-short form work of IF, it's not really bad. I have played shorter ones that I enjoyed better (9:05 comes to mind). Generally with a really short IF it is more enjoyable for me personally if there's a few other branches to explore to try to get different results.

Some of the descriptions are a little, uh.. pretentious-sounding? But if you consider from the perspective of the protagonist, maybe that fits into the character, so I will chalk it up as the descriptions fitting the characterization of the characters.

One issue that I do have with the narrative is that it seems to impose the protagonists' view of art upon the player. Maybe that's just me, it just felt a bit heavy-handed in its preaching about Art and not so very nuanced about it. I get what the author is saying. Or at least, what they are saying about the protagonist. I disagree with it, but hey, to each their own. I did enjoy playing this game, it's worth 5 or 10 minutes.