Ratings and Reviews by cgasquid

Everyone is, i think, familiar with the genre of "one move" games, originated by Aisle and followed up on by titles such as Pick Up the Phone Booth and Aisle and 50 Shades of Jilting.

Unlike most such games, this one has a puzzle. You have one move to act. That action, all by itself, a single command, has to completely solve the puzzle.

The puzzle.

That damnable puzzle.

The evil, insidious, dastardly, cruel, vicious, mean, demonic ... incredibly interactive, deeply implemented puzzle.

I mean, I found my experience with this game to be one of incredible frustration, but it was the kind of frustration where the parser is being perfectly responsive and the reactions to your actions make perfect sense and you always feel like you're this close to the solution when, in fact, you're still another fifty iterations away.

Five stars for That Damnable Puzzle. One star deducted because something important isn't made sufficiently clear: (Spoiler - click to show)the event isn't always exactly the same, and the differences are of paramount importance.

Absolutely not recommended for beginners or inexperienced players. For all that there's only a single command required, I rank this with some of the hardest IF I've ever played.

the one-move game Aisle has been endlessly remixed, parodied, copied, and reiterated at this point. most of the copies have ignored the pathos that was the original's intent, instead focusing on the bizarre responses the original provided for more out-there commands that seemed to hint that the protagonist was suffering from dementia.

in this offering, you are sitting at a restaurant table with your lover, and you intend to leave them. you have one move. every response the parser recognizes will print out a joke interpretation of what you typed as a method of dumping said lover.

the key here is "every response the parser recognizes." most of the things i typed after the obvious were not understood. objects whose presence had been established in one narrative were not implemented, and couldn't be interacted with in the next restart.

it's not that this kind of game can't be done well, though admittedly i can only think of two times it worked: Rematch and I'm Having a Heart Attack from the Apollo 13 collection. in both cases the implementation was extremely deep, and you could (and needed to) build on what you learn about the setting from your previous actions to give you ideas for later attempts.

here i ran into too many brick walls of unimplemented words and lost interest.

... assuming you have a thing for Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

you're dropped into the uniform of William T. Riker and the quarters of Deanna Troi. (it's not clear whether this is happening before NextGen or after Star Trek: Insurrection, because they were never a couple during the series' actual run.) within very short order, you will also be dropping said uniform and, ah, initiating docking procedures, so to speak.

the main thing that distinguishes Deanna from other works of adult IF is that it gives Deanna agency and active participation. most works of AIF present one's prospective partners with all the detail and implementation depth of the wrench in Zork I: the item is there for a purpose, it doesn't particularly matter what it looks like, and until you start applying verbs to it it's not going to do anything, either.

in other words, this feels like a sexual fantasy, while most AIF feels, at best, like a still photograph.

now, i did still have trouble with it, but that's probably because i'm not personally well-versed in how to use the implement Commander Riker will be relying on. but it was still fun reading the dialogue, which rings remarkably true, and exploring the various Trekkian room features.

i'm still not sure parser is the best way to go with AIF -- it's always going to be somewhat on rails, and using Twine would save the player some verb guessing and the like. but honestly, this is a short erotic story where no one's being manipulated or taken advantage of and two consenting people get their nookie on. that's worth celebrating.

you are a college student (male by default, though it switches to female if you type (Spoiler - click to show)HETERONORMATIVITY OFF, something i'd give my left arm to be able to do in real life). you've been making practically no progress on your paper because you keep allowing yourself to be distracted, and your girlfriend is fed up with you. now you have an ultimatum: write 1,000 words by the deadline or she's leaving you forever.

as a point of stark realism, your college dorm room turns out to be a horrible place to study. there's no quiet, you're surrounded by minor irritants, and there's a MAJOR irritant who i'd think was trying to sabotage your relationship if there was any way she could know about the ultimatum.

in a very clever design choice, rather than being personality-free (or pointlessly sarcastic like the default library), the parser's voice is what you imagine your girlfriend would be saying if she was watching your situation right at that moment. it gives her a lot of character, and goes a long way towards redeeming her in my eyes (really, it's not fair to issue an ultimatum about something the protagonist can't really help).

that said, i did not even come close to completing the story without hints.

the puzzles in Violet are eminently logical, but still entirely brutal and require a ton of experimentation. so many things are happening at once that it can distract the player, as your problems aren't kindly enough to line up one at a time. the few means you have to fight back are counterintuitive and in some cases plain ornery (e.g., (Spoiler - click to show)the bizarre way you operate the radio).

but "it's hard" doesn't equate to "it's bad." we need IF for all levels of player skill and creativity. the only reason i don't refer to this as a hidden gem is that it's not at all hidden -- it's extremely well-known.

probably also says something that i was feeling depressed after writing a few negative reviews in a row, i wanted to review something good, and i came here ...