Reviews by cgasquid
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A nice old-school adventure, February 13, 2022a small number of locations, many of them containing nothing but scenery and background.
an NPC who follows you around and can be asked about things, and whose presence is necessary in certain situations.
a small number of objects to be collected to solve a handful of puzzles.
The Temple is very consistent with commercial IF in the late 1980s. it's a short game, with a couple of "read the author's mind" moments (it would never have occurred to me that (Spoiler - click to show)the translated book changes the descriptions of other items when carried, instead of it being an object i could CONSULT or READ) and lucky coincidences, but nothing truly awful. the prose is better than average, and i got at least moderately attached to the NPC by the end of the game.
a good way to spend a couple of hours. with a little polish it would be a classic short game.
A snappy but linear excursion, February 12, 2022Beet the Devil primarily shines in its writing. nearly every sentence is bursting with the PC's personality, from his individual judgments of the goings-on around him to his phlegmatic reaction to very extraordinary events.
that said, Beet the Devil is essentially a long, linear corridor, with the useful items front-loaded in the first few locations. you never have more than one puzzle to work on, and most of the solutions involve using vegetables for purposes they were clearly not intended for.
a small amount of lateral thinking is needed in some places, though if you WAIT at a location for a few turns you can usually get some kind of indication of how to proceed. the final single-turn puzzle is so obvious yet so difficult to think of that it's probably a masterpiece (on par with Madventure's).
on the negative side, the implementation is a bit shallow. TALK TO would have been nice, given the extraordinary number of puzzle NPCs, and many reasonable solutions to problems didn't work because the parser had trouble with prepositional phrases. as noted, the game is linear, so if you're stuck on a puzzle you're going to stay stuck. the few places that it seems the game is about to open up, it turns out only one exit is usable. you can get hints from the PRAY command, but they only tell you which object to use, not how.
overall, the writing is worth the half-hour of your time it'll probably take to make it through. i'd love to see something more elaborate from the author.
A small introductory game with one tricky puzzle, February 11, 2022this is your basic "you wake up on a spaceship with amnesia" game. the game is small but not cramped, and the puzzles are mostly easy. oddly, while the game has four (technically five) NPCs, you have very limited interaction with any of them; they either give you items and information or they're shallowly implemented obstacles.
the bravura puzzle near the end involves (Spoiler - click to show)rewiring a circuit board with limited and outdated information. it's a complex bit of coding and requires some experimentation.
all in all, this isn't a bad game, and it's a good introduction to IF in general. there are no unfair puzzles and you're never expected to read the author's mind. i wouldn't recommend it to experienced players, who can probably whip through it in about 20 minutes.
A stunning feat, February 8, 2022(this is a review of the original game, not the remastered Steam version)
now, i'm not the type who tends to get through games without resorting to at least a FEW hints and walkthroughs. there are different kinds of puzzles that a person can get stuck on. sometimes a verb must be guessed. sometimes there were non-obvious inventory items that were missed. sometimes a game is unfair. and sometimes puzzles are completely logical and even intuitive. there's really nothing like the feeling of being stuck on a puzzle for a couple of hours or overnight and then suddenly having the light dawn: you try it, and it works.
Anchorhead gave me that last feeling many, many times.
i believe i only had to resort to hints a couple of times -- once early on when i was having trouble tripping a specific flag to advance the day, and the later sequence (Spoiler - click to show)in the mill that many had problems with.
more to the point, the horrifying story kept me riveted. there are games where one kind of trundles along, hits a puzzle where any progress seems impossible, and gives up (frequently because the author put their e-mail address under HINTS instead of giving a link to actual hints or a walkthrough on their webpage). but there are games where you hit a brick wall puzzle -- in this case, (Spoiler - click to show)sabotaging the summoning at the lighthouse -- but you're so committed to the character and so immersed in the world that giving up is simply not an option.
i solved that puzzle myself. and it was the greatest feeling.
that said, there are some things that bear warning about and could potentially trigger people's PTSD. the plot relies heavily on (Spoiler - click to show)the villain's history of incestuous rape and, while figuring that out yourself is a wonderful puzzle that gives you that slow, creeping sense of dread as you realize what's been going on, people who've gone through the real-world equivalent may not react well.
Learning to follow directions, February 8, 2022little breaks immersion more than when the protagonist of the game refuses to follow your instructions.
there's a reason why so many people dislike stock parser answers like "Violence isn't the answer to this one" -- if i'm dealing with a padlock and holding a heavy rock in my hand, and i type BREAK THE PADLOCK WITH THE ROCK, i at least want to be informed of why my action failed. the stock response mocks the player for attempting a logical action. immersion break.
in a game like A Matter of Importance, half the actions you try are refused by the protagonist, often for the silliest of reasons. the protagonist is such an egotistical coward that they refused about half the actions i was able to give them, and examining almost anything comes back with a snotty message about it being unimportant.
the first move - third move, actually - puzzle is a guess-the-verb that makes no sense in context. i was only able to solve it (after multiple logical actions were "irrelevant" or "wouldn't help me") when the game gave up and told me (Spoiler - click to show)"maybe it would be better to ignore the cars," which clued the bizarre IGNORE CARS.
i tottered around a bit in what seemed to be the main game area, being informed that despite being a burglar i was not interested in any aspect of the building i intended to break into, nor in stealing anything else, nor in interacting with NPCs. and sometimes when the game informs you that something is irrelevant, it's lying, but you have to use exactly the right verb on the right specific detail to proceed. anything else would give you one of the game's stock "that's irrelevant" messages.
it's an aggravating feeling when the solution to a puzzle is right at your fingertips but you can't work out the correct phrasing to get your recalcitrant, obnoxious player character to do it.
there's a strong suggestion in the INFO menu that all of this is in aid of something: that this is supposed to be a difficult, frustrating game with some kind of manifesto or major twist at the end of it. but i've spent too much time beating my head against this game already.
Twine pseudo-puzzler with engaging characters, February 1, 2021this one's a real gem -- it's IF in the "existential crisis/surreal location" genre, but for once, the location isn't deserted. the characters in Cactus Blue Motel are interesting people, most of whom one might actually want to get to know, and despite the Twine structure and limited interactivity they come off as nuanced and deep.
there are no mysterious machines, trophy cases to fill, and so on. the "puzzles" in Cactus Blue Motel are generally explorative in nature; where do you go, in what order, and what decisions do you make? they lead carefully and organically towards a single dilemma, and while i feel like the author has a solution in mind, i'm not actually convinced it's the one i'd choose.
just overall fantastic. great writing and pushes Twine to its limits.
a well-crafted mystery, February 1, 2021the premise is simple: you're a ghost, you were murdered mysteriously, and by going through the minds of the suspects you're able to unearth memories that will either clear them or convict them. the central mystery is very well-crafted; all six suspects are viable and most are interesting characters in and of themselves.
i do regret one thing, though. while the protagonist is obviously tightly focused on figuring out who just killed them, there are things he's clearly not aware of that it's possible to infer from the "red herring" evidence. while i would definitely not call the suspects' relationships "mysteries" -- honestly they're none of the protagonist's business -- since they are presented to the reader, it does feel sort of disappointing that there's no apparent way to confirm them.
it's also the case that i solved the mystery much more easily than i was expecting to just by following the obvious breadcrumbs. i felt like i was just getting warmed up when it was over. of course, "there wasn't enough of it" doesn't really count as a negative, does it?
two narratives in search of a pun, February 1, 2021SCREW YOU, BEAR DAD is a pun-filled jape, full of jokes, slapstick, and a small amount of interactivity. there's no branching storyline, no puzzles, and no deeper meaning; you start the story by crashing through the skylight and landing in a remote, isolated (Spoiler - click to show)toy factory. the story is divided between your experiences as a bear and the antics of the factory's dysfunctional crew. this part of the story is hilarious.
SCREW YOU, BEAR DAD is a very serious exploration of the relationship between a son and his abusive father. it begins with a more recent memory of the father's inability to understand or relate to his son as an adult, but later goes on to a childhood memory where the father has a completely inappropriate reaction to (Spoiler - click to show)his son going missing in the woods and almost drowning. this part of the story is emotional and deadly serious, and shows how things between the two of them got so bad.
i have no idea how these two stories can coexist in the same place, but somehow it works. it feels sort of like the main story is the comic relief for the flashbacks, showing that the son grew up okay after all, even if his choices landed him in a ridiculous and dangerous situation.
a message lost in analogy, February 1, 2021the game is divided into two parts: first, a brief "orientation," where you play through a short mockery of The Stanley Parable. (mockery, not parody, because it doesn't really have anything to say about Stanley.)
you're set up with the familiar electric-shock button of the Milgram Experiment, but given absolutely no information about what's going on, why you're doing what you're doing, and so on. it turns out (Spoiler - click to show)it's intended to make you think Stanley is good and right for obeying orders without thinking, since that's what the military wants you to do in the field. it does this in an obnoxious and manipulative way, but given this is supposed to be an in-universe software program you're playing, that's obviously intentional and indicates the kind of organization you've signed up for.
the second and longer part has the player as part of a sci-fi military. while they have joined up intentionally, they know nothing about the organization, its goals, its mission, what they'll be doing, etc., etc. the military is authoritarian and delivers orders that are to be immediately followed. (Spoiler - click to show)it is logical that such an organization would offer the previous orientation, because they want you to think that your orders are always for the best, like Stanley's were.
unfortunately, during this second portion, (Spoiler - click to show)you really only have one meaningful choice. everything is binary; either follow orders (or implied orders) or disobey. disobeying just gets you yelled at before the thing you refused to do happens anyway. the only actual choice you have is whether to keep fighting when the enemy surrounds you, and these choices amount to "get shot in battle" or "get shot because the other military is as authoritarian as yours."
so, what is the message here? is it saying that we are wrong to obey blindly and follow authoritarians? hard to credit when it makes no difference either way. is it saying that we should obey, since the results will be the same regardless and obedience is the path of least resistance? that's a little hard to swallow, but i suppose it could be the intent. many people do think that way (or end up thinking that way after brainwashing). but the milgram experiment is usually cited as a rebuke to that line of thinking.
the lack of clarity or any real interactivity would usually merit one star. however, the writing itself is so good that i'm bumping it up to two. it's just too linear to be interesting, and the meaning too muddled.
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