Ratings and Reviews by Rovarsson

(This review is for the PunyJam version of the game)

This is a game which takes a tried and true adventure setup and squeezes the best out of it.
You wake up disoriented and amnesiac in an underwater base. Some kind of catastrophe has all but destroyed the place and it seems everyone has fled, leaving you alone.

The map is small but challenging. With a few crooked passages and bending corridors, the surroundings take on an eerie and ever so slightly disorienting feel. The locked doors (or functional equivalents thereof) serve their purpose well, guiding the player through the base until she has found what needs to be discovered.

Puzzles are common sense and straightforward. A few could be better clued, and I missed alternate commands for the necessary actions and reasonable synonyms for some important items.

A1RLOCK has a dark atmosphere. (The child-protagonist lightens the mood considerably here and there, for instance when she (Spoiler - click to show)Pew! Pew! Pew!-shoots a staple gun at random objects...)There is always the suspense of some gruesome revelation just around the corner. This feeling of expectation keeps growing until it is finally resolved in the final confrontation.

Lucid Night uses the frame of an interrupted night’s sleep filled with lucid dreams to present the player with a collection of small puzzles which take place in the dream world.

The puzzles are easy, heavily clued and tiny. Each does give the player that bit of satisfaction of finding the solution, and of looking around to see what your dreaming brain has come up with this time.

A laid-back bit of easy fun. Some distraction while you wait for the potatoes to boil.

It might be, were it not for the glimpses of the protagonist’s life we catch. There are vague references throughout the game to previous, more powerful lucid dreams, and to the character’s waking life that imbue it with a sense of mystery, even an unsettling feeling of unseen threat.

I enjoyed the writing, smoothly transitioning the PC from waking to dreaming without drawing too much explicit attention to it. The PC is used to dreaming, so the lucid sequences come as no surprise.
There is a nifty implementation feature in this game, of the “blink and you miss it” variety.

The puzzles were very common sense, especially for a dream-setting. I had expected some more moon-logic and surrealism to pop up as the game progressed.

A good game. The untold backstory of the PC keeps lingering in my mind.

“…those were the days of roses, of poetry and prose…”
Tom Waits - Martha

A poem draws the reader into the mood. A loner, anxious, on the sidelines. Choice anxiety, overwhelmed by a myriad options.
The poem, in its closing verse, promises comfort, soothing. A chance to see all options. Choice without choosing for it will all be turned back on itself.

Beautiful well-chosen prose drops you in the middle of a scene. A multitude of scenes, theatre stages next to each other to wander through. The setting is an expansion of Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, with its oyster bar, its foggy streets,…

But there! There is time. A minute counting back… Pressure to explore!

Until the minute has passed and all is restored, ready to revise.

The repetition renders the sixty seconds pressureless, devoid of tension. In effect, you have a free-floating minute, disconnected from external time and causation.

The result is a narratively empty (isolated from cause-effect, plotless), exploration-rich discovery of relations between locales and passages of text, streetlamp-lit alleys and overheard conversations. An endlessly revising everlasting minute wherein to choose all options and be returned to poetry.

A captivating, mindful experience.

(This review is for the competition version. I expect any small hairs will be removed from the buttery patisserie in an updated version.)

A cake so sumptuous the meagre word “cake” does not do it justice. A fruitcake so stuffed with raisins and nuts and confectioneries of all kinds, so soaked in the finest cognac, a Royal Fruitcake, if you will.

A cake fit for a King.

And that is precisely why you would have the King himself partake of this masterpiece, and humbly implore him to fund your expedition into the secrets of even more delicious Patisserie. If only that stubborn guard would let you through.

A game which starts with a seemingly simple premise, present a cake to the King, and builds on it, complicates and layers it until it becomes a hilarious obstacle-filled endeavour.

A small map with enough twists and bends to make it interesting, and a few locked off locations that take more than a bit of ingenuity and perseverance to get into.

The puzzles are heavily clued. A bit too much for my taste. At least, that’s what I thought at first. I realised though, that trimming back the generous clues and hints would also dampen the slap-stick farcical mood.

There are a bunch of bugs to be found in the SeedComp version. Indeed, part of my enjoyment came from chasing them down and thinking of new ways to exploit them to fool the game and create little funny scenes of my own making. The game is strong enough under the hood so that the bugs become more something you might find in the “Amusing”-section after finishing an adventure.

“Have you tried…”

Mind you, the bugs are naught but a small raisin in this wonderful fruitcake of a game. The tone is continuously funny, not (only) by cracking jokes but by the aforementioned layering of complications. The main NPC is a funny bloke to mess with, and the reactions of the unnamed townsfolk are a real treat.

Great fun. I laughed at my screen several times. Somewhat straining on my suspension of disbelief at times. Great puzzle collection.

(This review is based on the SeedComp version of the game.)

After a period of 737 cycles in deep Sleep Mode, the Core of Reconstruction Facility 05 (RF-05-C1) awakens. Time to resume its mission: prepare the planet for the return of the humans.

The Core is the conscious, volitional, self-reflective AI of a terraforming and restoratory facility. It has control over several subsystems which carry out the practical tasks needed to further the overall goals it sets.

Each cycle, the Core gets a report about the previous time period. Based on that, it can adjust its priorities to guide the subconscious systems through the next cycle.

That’s the practical side of things in a nutshell. Providing a home planet minimally capable of supporting human life. The player gets to decide what to focus on and sees the results in the next cycle-report.

Since the Core’s target population is humans, it is also fed tidbits of information about human history and culture by its subconscious Memory database. These consist of seemingly random fragments, some from literary masterpieces, some from more mundane sources. This is a built-in attempt from its makers to teach the AI about human aesthetics, morality, society,… Hopefully, when the humans return, they will come to a world which is tailored to their sensitivities in these less tangible areas of human experience.

The player gets to read these cultural sources from the perspective of a non-discerning AI. This produces a shift away from her preconceptions about quality or value of the sources. A fragment from Homeros’ Oddyssey (Be still, my heart…) might the next waking cycle be juxtaposed with a Wikipedia article about beans ( Bean - Wikipedia). [Neither of these are actually in the game text.]

During the sleep cycle, it seems that the AI is agitatedly trying to incorporate, re-organise and assimilate the information about humanity in its memory base. It does this in dreams. The dreams are not directly related to the information the Core received in the previous waking cycle. Instead they are more like contextless floating memory snippets, short stories told in simple sentences, or free associations of words and concepts.

I played through the game twice, with opposite strategies (aggressive <-> accomodating toward wildlife which may damage the base, reaching-out <-> self-sustaining toward other terraforming facilities that may be out there). Both times my efforts were fruitless and my facility was terminally damaged, unable to carry out its objectives.
There are many options to tweak the facility’s attitude toward the surroundings. I have not (yet) found a succesfull combination, but I will definitely keep looking. (EDIT: Failure is inevitable)

The most intriguing parts of the game to me were the cultural fragments and the dream-sequences. Sadly, those were also the parts where I found the game most lacking. I would have liked to see more of the personal development the AI goes through in response to its growing experience with human culture and its own growing mind.

A very interesting game, and one I hope the author will expand upon.

Meet Sub-Lieutenant of Human Resources Command Sheryl Swift.
Sheryl is punctual, tidy, scrupulously hygienical, and conscientious about her work. All good personal qualities, no?
She diligently organises and leads the weekly staff meetings, preferably during friday-noon lunch break. She sternly believes those beneath one on the societal ladder should be cared for with a firm guiding hand. That’s important work, no?
Recently, Sheryl was promoted to the free-standing cubicle closest to her boss 's Lieutenant’s office. Even though he never asks her in, it's a sign that she’s worthy of her position, no?
The Lieutenant himself even calls her to take care of an urgent matter in the office. On a friday evening. Minutes before she would leave her desk, put on her coat and go home. That’s firm proof of his trust in her, no?

Against a tumultuous futuristic backdrop, we follow Sheryl as she searches the Human Resources Command offices for a number of missing chapters for the new draft of His Majesty Smurg IV’s Royal Space Navy Service Handbook. Lieutenant Fernandez wants them sent through that same evening. A menial clerk’s job it would seem, but Sheryl performs it with pride and ingenuity. While we see glimpses of the Space Navy fighter fleet in action through the window, Sheryl just as dutifully does her part for the smooth operation of the Human Resources department of His Majesty’s Space Navy.

His Majesty’s Royal Space Navy Service Handbook utilises a limited and efficient verb set, which it vehemently insists upon when it is strayed from. In contrast, the surroundings are richly implemented. Descriptions of objects provide deeper layers of detail and they often include nuggets of characterisation for Sheryl or clues about her co-workers who misplaced the missing chapters of His Majesty’s Royal Space Navy Service Handbook.

While at first it may seem that there is a bit too much handholding in solving the problems, we must realise that His Majesty’s Royal Space Navy Service Handbook chooses to exchange some player satisfaction or puzzle-glory for a smoother flow of the story and better control of the tempo. This makes for a more engaging story.

Sheryl is a beautifully drawn character. I will remember her for the next XYZZY Awards.

One of these days I'll have to publish A Wanderer's Guide to the Mansions of TextAdventureLand. I will have to wade through this towering stack of notes and edit them down to a manageable volume though.
Haunted mansions, Alchemist's mansions, Vampire's mansions, mansions left to you in the will of your late (and pleasantly unhinged) uncle,...

McMurphy's Mansion falls in that last category. A pressing telegram urges you to Scotland, where you shall inherit your Uncle McMurphy's estate and 10.000.000 pounds. On one condition...

Find the twelve gold bars scattered around the grounds and solve the final puzzle...

Copyrighted in 1984, McMurphy's Mansion is magnificently old-school.

(EDIT: The original version for C64 was released in '84 or '85. The game was ported to DOS in 1987 and 1989. I played the 1989 version.)

IF conventions were not as firmly established, and this game has its own idiosyncracies regarding commands anyhow.
AGAIN is shortened to R (repeat) instead of G. DROP ALL works, but you have to TAKE FEE, TAKE FI, TAKE FO, TAKE FUM instead of TAKE ALL.
X is short for EXAMINE, as usual. Large objects can be examined immediately, but the game refuses to let you examine take-able items unless you are carrying them.
I works for INVENTORY (no messing with INV), MAP shows you the room layout of the mansion (no map for the outdoors), XMAP turns off the layout and snorts that real adventures make a paper map anyway.

It took a while before I fully put my trust in the game. Opening and looking in cabinets, for example, give responses so dry (contrary to the vividness of the rest of the world) that I was unsure if anything had changed in the underlying world model. It was not necessary to be mistrusting. The game and its engine under the hood are indeed solid.

Uncle McMurphy's will of course is just the pretext to drop the player in an unabashed puzzlefest.
There are a number of code-breaking tasks. These are probably the most logical of the batch. A few puzzles present a surprising application of common sense and everyday physics. A lot more rely on mental associations and not-so-straightforward intuitive leaps.
However, because the game is set in our normal (for an undefined value of the term) non-magical world, even the least logical puzzles have handholds in real life experience.

Most of the progress through the game, finding necessary items, comes from thoroughly exploring and investigating the game-world. And yes, this means copious amounts of LOOKing IN, UNDER and BEHIND stuff. Fortunately, there is no need for lawnmowering every location with these commands. Either it's clear that any curious investigator would look in, under or behind a certain piece of scenery, or a clue found elsewhere will explicitly tell you to do it.

The map itself is a joy to explore. Almost all of it is open from the get-go, allowing you to roam freely around the gardens and the house, noting interesting or questionable features and remembering where the various locations are in relation to each other. (Yes, this will be important.)
Another joyous idiosyncratic implementation feature is the use of L N (or any direction) in a room with a window to get a detailed description of the view. This knits the world together and joins the inside of the house and the outdoors lawns and trees into one continuous space. (It also provides clues. Read carefully, they may appear only once...)
From boldly exploring the edges of the map, it becomes apparent that the author was no big fan of death in adventures. Upon falling from great height (or some other accident), there is a humorous paragraph detailing your injuries and you are brought back to the house. In the original game, the player also got a 1-minute penalty where no commands would be accepted by the game, effectively freezing the protagonist out.

McMurphy's Mansion stands out among its mansionate peers by the liveliness of its world. You repeatedly bump into the butler, whom you also see walking around the yard through the windows. The many trees and flowers provide the pleasant distraction of nature's beauty, and you can even get a glimpse of the nearby moors on the other side of the estate wall, if you look out the right window.

A splendid old school treasure hunt.

With these words our story begins. The protagonist welcomes a timid customer into his salon, preparing to do a psychic reading and look into the future. He'll be the first to admit it's all hazy-floaty mumbo-jumbo, or, as the plaque above the salon door reads: "For entertainment purposes only."

Not long after however, when a strong-willed police-woman steps into the salon on a private mission and slaps a "tense and furious glove" on the table, it is revealed to his own astonishment that he does seem to have inherited some of the genuine psychic powers of his late mother...

Stone Harbor is a supernatural detective story. It follows the predictable mould of such stories quite closely. What it does with the various elements within that mould however, it does very well.

The prose flows easily and confidently. For example: the protagonist's shock and disbelief of being drawn into a psychic trance feels genuine to the reader. It's believable, where it could easily come across as forced or even farcical from the pen of a less-skilled writer.

Places are described elaborately and in precise detail, allowing an intricate mental picture of the surroundings. These descriptions are infused with the personal impressions of the protagonist, letting the reader align herself more intimately with the protagonist.
In contrast, revelations about the characters themselves and their relations to other people are kept short and implicit, trusting the reader to draw conclusions based on a few poignant details.

The overall structure of the story made me think of a ride in a slowly but steadily accelerating train. The long uninterrupted paragraphs of the first chapters provide the opportunity to comfortably settle in, study the characters and the setting. The story gradually picks up speed and by the final chapter the plot is frantically hurtling toward the denouement, dragging the reader along.

I'v consistently used the word "reader" in this review. That is because Stone Harbor is much more a story than it is a game. It's a linear narrative without branching, leading to a single predetermined outcome.
The choices, the clicking, the interacting with the text serve to guide and influence the reader's experience of the story while travelling through it, rather than giving her control over the direction of travel.

Especially in the first chapters, the many micro-choices, the options of what detail to focus the protagonist's attention on, invite deep commitment and investment. They effectively help the reader to align herself with the main character and inspire a genuine wish to see the mystery solved.
The further the plot advances, the more a single clickable option is available to advance the story. Instead of being a boring "continue"-option in disguise at the end of a paragraph however, these single clicks retain an in-story relevance. Not only does it feel qualitatively different to press a meaningful nou, a word which the reader has been trained to associate feelings of hope or threat with, the strategic placement of the clicks in ever-shortening paragraphs nearing the end also very effectively impresses the hastening tempo on the reader.

An impressively written, grippingly paced mystery.

The Witch's Apprentice is a short, easy and humorous bite-sized little parser game.
(Caution: "bite-sized" should not lure you into tasting any of the substances mentioned. Doing so may result in bodily deformities, demonic possession, boiling of bodily fluids, spontaneous combustion, excrutiatingly painful bowel movements, burnt-out eyeballs, death and /or hiccups.) (EDIT: This caution is directed at the player as a “do not try this at home”-warning. The PC can try eating or drinkind anything without ill effects. The game is very kid-friendly.)

As the new apprentice, the boss witch sends you out to get groceries. Ahem, ingredients for her witch's brew. There's a handy list of things you should gather in and around the house.

Although the map is fairly small, there is a nice variety of locations. The house itself is mostly surprisingly homey, albeit rather empty and with a scary surprise here and there. In contrast, the outdoors have a scary-yet-endearing horror B-movie feel to them.

Most of the obstacles are simple search-and-fetch tasks, with a few slightly more complicated two-or-three step puzzles.
The most challenging (and fun) part of The Witch's Apprentice is the amount of funny and distracting red herrings sprinkled all over the map. They all fit well with the puzzles, so they feel like they could be part of a solution. It was hilarious at times to experience how determined a seasoned adventurer's mind is to come up with the most complicated and convoluted answers to simple problems.

A charming short and easy puzzler.

The Great Meldellevo ends his magic show with an unforeseen and, honestly, quite gruesome finale. While he runs away memories of how his career began flash through his mind...

The magic show is a marvel of finetuned implementation. It is possible to rush through with a few well-chosen commands, following the game's nudges. Far more satisfying however is to savour the moment and give the audience a real show for their money. (And give yourself, PC ànd player, a healthy dose of adrenalin and smugness...)

The following flashback to "Meldevello"'s humble origin is a rather railroaded vignette. There is one all-important choice to make, which determines the protagonist fate. Whether this option is even available depends on certain actions during the magic show. Replaying once you understand what I am referring to would almost certainly heighten your appreciation of this game.

I found the pacing of The Act of Misdirection somewhat unevenly balanced.
Act I, the magic show, requires the player to explicitly give the right commands for the following step to the PC. While the game does nudge you forward, sometimes the nudges were not enough for me. Being stuck in this part, searching for the appropriate action, breaks the tempo and the thrill of the performance.
Quite the opposite is true of Act II. Here I wanted to loiter in places, taking my time to study my surroundings and especially to talk about all manner of topics. In this part though, the game seemed so eager to drag me along with the story that half a command was often enough to trigger the next scene.

Taken together, the occurences at the magic performance and the explanations in the flashback make for a fragmented, shiver-inducing short horror-tale. A story that takes a while for all the bits to fall into place.

Worth playing, and replaying at least once.