Ratings and Reviews by cgasquid

The Game Formerly Known as Hidden Nazi Mode is a harmless game about finding bunny rabbits hiding in a Jewish neighborhood. Adorable, right? It could be that the author grew up in a Jewish neighborhood, or the game could be aimed at Jewish kids and attempting to create familiar surroundings, or it could just happen to be one. It's a nice, homey, friendly place that's safe and welcoming.

Until you enter the "special command." (Which has apparently now been removed, as I entered it in the current version and it didn't work.)

Suddenly the game is about a Nazi officer searching for Jewish families. The rabbits are replaced by terrified innocent victims. Both the player character and the game itself become monstrous.

The point, though, is that the horror is hidden -- not the way horror is hidden in a creepypasta game, but deliberately hidden by the creator to pass along an abhorrent message to an intended audience under the nose of the mainstream buyer. And this is absolutely something that a sufficiently 2edgy4u kid could discover.

The author's point is that you never know what's hiding under the surface of the media your kids are consuming. Not unless you can actually examine it, take it apart, and make sure there's nothing under the surface.

I ... don't fully agree with this. It's not that parents shouldn't curate their children's media. That's a matter of carefully walking the line between too restrictive (isolates the child from friends, prevents learning critical thinking during crucial development stages, weakens child's resistance) and too permissive (forces confronting adult ideas at too early a stage, encourages poor conflict resolution, demonstrates unchallenged bad behavior).

What I don't agree with is the notion that seeing publisher-provided source code would accomplish anything at all.

If someone is already perfectly willing to hide rancid, nauseating evil inside a children's game, what on earth makes you think that the source code document will be the same source code as the actual game? If the game is a lie then why would the source code necessarily be the truth!?

Unlike most adult IF, Softporn Adventure has actual puzzles and gameplay outside of simple seduction. Given the era, it's not surprising that the puzzles are simple and shallow and the prose is flat.

But no one talks about this game to talk about it. There's the sleazy and unpleasant story behind the game's cover. There are the bizarre and illogical puzzles. And, of course, this game would later be reworked into Leisure Suit Larry, and the irony that there's actually a worse version of Leisure Suit Larry.

In a strange way I kind of wish this had been a Hi-Res Adventure like The Wizard and the Princess or Mission Asteroid. Not because it would be hotter with pictures (nothing could make this material erotic) but because I have a morbid interest in seeing how this game would look in that "crude even for the Apple ][+" style.

Anyway, as a game, Softporn Adventure alternates between simple, boring puzzles and parser-wrestling nightmares. It doesn't have much to offer even for its era.

At the age I was, I got hours and hours of fun out of Adventureland ... 's demo. As sparse as the text was, as weird as the puzzles were, and as unsolvable as many of them proved to be in the demo, it still felt like I was being drawn into a vibrant world of the imagination. I loved it. I loved the things that I imagined happening off the edges of the map, and I loved the idea of a world where dragons take their sleep of ages in random meadows and jewels and objets d'art could be found hiding everywhere you look.

There are lots of things in Adventureland you wouldn't see much after the ascendance of Infocom. Ridiculously varied landscapes where the entire biome changes each time you take a short jog. Treasures lying out in the open, marked so you can tell them from dross items. Single-move puzzles where you just have to bring the right item. And absolutely bizarre moments like dealing with the bear.

In 1980, Zork would hit the commercial markets and instantly become a "killer app." But Adventure International would keep publishing games until 1984, because there was still a market for this kind of minimalist, constrained narrative experience. And, looking back on it, I can see why; it's like comparing the experience of an Atari 2600 game and a Playstation 4 game. It's not that the modern game is "better" because it's more sophisticated; the two are just different.

I really wish I could convey to people that just because something runs doesn't mean it should be published.

It's also unfortunately common for novice writers to try to write "so bad it's good" games with self-reproachful titles like this one. Thing is, "so bad it's good" does not happen intentionally. When you call your game something like "the absolute worst IF game in history," you're probably going to be right, or at least in the running.

This doesn't even work as a troll game, and I think I put more thought and effort into this review than the author did into this game.