Reviews by forgepoet
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Better Towards the End, March 23, 2014While I did finish this, it took me three tries to get to an end, mainly because some of the initial segments are not very interesting or written very well (mainly too much telling, not enough showing). The first segment, in particular, could use a heavy rewrite -- it's not nearly as effective as some of the later pieces and that's a shame, because a lot of readers are going to quit after the first couple of pages and miss out on some of the more polished and fun segments later on.
Your choices affect the end of each vignette as well as the ultimate ending in a solid and clever design that works very well with the central conceit. However, there are too many segments per playthrough, and it detracts from the overall impact of the piece. No matter how cute or well-done a segment is, if it doesn't advance the overarching story (or give us a sense of the world), it's just filler. A couple of these might work for pacing, but as it is, I'm not sure I'm up to getting through all of that text again for a second playthrough. If I were editing this, I'd suggest picking one or two at random from the non-crucial segments to intersperse instead of showing all of them.
Another problem is that the overarching story isn't touched on often enough in the early game to make it feel relevant when it arrives; I know my choices affect the end segment and the ending, and how they do, but I have very little context for the end segment or how things came to suddenly be in a far worse position than they were in the previous segment. I mean, I can make some guesses, since it's not completely out of left field, but it felt very unconnected. Even a bit more foreshadowing in some of the less plot-centric segments would have helped.
Ultimately, if you can get through the first few segments, there are some interesting characters here and some interesting situations. Unfortunately, they're buried pretty late in the game.
Disappointingly Uneven, March 22, 2014This isn't really a mystery; if anything, it's a thriller.
It needs to be edited, and strongly, and probably twice. It's reasonably coherent and there are some effective moments, but there's too much wheel spinning, especially at the beginning, and the whole piece is uneven in tone and pacing. There are a few typos, misused phrases, and the occasional missed word or incomplete sentence. Dialogue is punctuated erratically. And there's a lot of cruft that could be edited out to make a tighter, more effective piece.
The mystery elements are disappointing, and there's no real sense of suspense. (Spoiler - click to show)In fact, should you happen to choose the right scenes in the right order, you'll quickly be given the answers, but you'll only receive credit for them in the end if you continue choosing correctly all the way through. Is there anything less compelling than a mystery where the characters figure out the villain halfway through and turn out to be right?
I know this review sounds pretty harsh, but these are all things the author could fix, if not in this game, in the next. I see a lot of potential here, if things were just edited more ruthlessly. And I'll definitely check out her next work.
It seems to be a fairly straightforward rendition of a specific scene from Alice in Wonderland, but I only made it ten or so clicks in. Enough to know I dislike the way this was handled intensely.
What I liked about the original scene, the graceful descent in a sort of dreamlike, accepting fog, is completely missing here, obliterated by the flashing, sliding, blinking, and fading of text effects gone haywire. To be honest, I became afraid that my next click would take me to a screamer or something similar and I lost my nerve to continue.
Perhaps if taken at a slower pace, the effects wouldn't be so overwhelming, but it's interactive fiction. It's necessary to take into account that some readers will read more quickly than others (especially when you're adapting a well-known work). I don't usually appreciate speed limits, but in this case, I think they would have improved the experience.
Would Be the Perfect Introductory Game, Except..., March 7, 2014This was so good, but it could have been so much better if the bugs were fixed.
There's humor that's genuinely funny, a companion who is as charming as the story, and a sense of meaningful purpose; there's a reason you're here and it makes sense why you continue. The puzzles are nicely introductory and ramp up in difficulty towards the end, but never become too hard (except maybe a couple of the optional ones) or illogical. The perfect game to introduce a fantasy reader to IF, until it just sort of fell apart for a while in the mid-game.
Things like one NPC's dialogue somehow getting stuck to another NPC (especially disconcerting since they are of different genders). An NPC still wandering around after being freed. A red herring item that, when acted on, turned into an item I'd already dealt with. And a couple of times the disambiguation messaging gave away information that I really shouldn't have had (and I was allowed to act on that information to interact with an item I hadn't found yet). Glaring stuff.
Yet none of that could hide the obvious love the author had for the world and the characters (despite some gentle fun poked at fantasy tropes). For one thing, it's refreshing (and happens far too infrequently in IF) to play a character who is competent and assertive and whose main flaw appears to be overconfidence. And, for a welcome change, who isn't an assistant or apprentice or slave or lowly peasant.
The multiple career paths are neat; the core game doesn't change much but all the important things (and a lot of the puzzle solutions) reflect your choice. And Threnody is a fine companion who makes the journey worthwhile and amusing; with her commentary, my choices felt much more meaningful than they would have otherwise. She's the heart of the game and elevates it from a mild dungeon crawl to an adventure. And I loved the little touches, like when my character got a bruised foot, the game occasionally remarked on it.
I liked that the puzzles could generally be solved (Spoiler - click to show)using items present in the room or a nearby one, with some exceptions. This felt very novice friendly, with the exception of a puzzle that I thought was a bit unfair; a required item is passed to inventory silently after a very specific dialogue choice and all other options are ignored with inscrutable messaging ((Spoiler - click to show)you cannot mix a potion in the old wine bottle, the hat, or the bucket, only in the flask you're given if you (Spoiler - click to show)"ask the librarian about worms").
I guess it's probably much too late to ask the author to fix the flaws in the mid-game, but I still wish he would! I would like to recommend this to someone who hasn't played much IF and who I know would love the story and Threnody, but I think the bugs would just be far too confusing to a new player. As it is, I can still say it's a good game, but keep the walkthrough handy to help if you think you've run into a game stopping bug.
Not Much of a Mystery, But Fun, March 7, 2014I really wanted to like this game. The set-up is breezy and to the point, hitting a lot of the high points you'd expect in a certain type of mystery (I love it when a game straight out tells me I'm good-looking, brilliant, rich, and have good taste in clothes).
The problem, for this mystery buff, is that the actual mystery wasn't much of one. This is actually a treasure hunt where collecting all the treasures ("evidence") earns you the ending. The motives and their reveals just aren't tied that well into the environment or the story (on my first play through, the first evidence I found was a signed notebook detailing the villain's plans), which is understandable given the multiple potential story lines, but really took away from the game itself.
There's also no emotional involvement from the protagonist; when you unmask the killer, you're given the opportunity to read some of the why as an author's afterword, but it's sketchy and leaves out little things like "what happens to the person I just arrested" and "how does the protagonist feel about this". Even endings where the hero could be expected to have emotional involvement never discuss it or the ramifications of the hero's success.
I think, in large part, that the professionalism and just plain inviting writing -- these are authors who know their stuff -- really set up narrative expectations that that games of that era weren't usually designed to meet. It's not fair to ding a game based on my expectations, but damn, this was fun and could have been so much more so if there had just been a little more story and a little more resolution.
The puzzles unfold easily and smoothly, with most being clued so boldly even I couldn't miss them. I did find it a little tedious to wander around the castle looking for rooms that fit the clues. I'll admit it; I'm spoiled by modern convenience and whenever I get a "go to" command I use it excessively and often have no mental layout of the game. I liked that if I ran into someone along the way the command would stop so I could chat with them.
As a treasure hunt, and as a bit of history, and even as a fun game for someone who isn't expecting much of a mystery (or who is new to the IF format), this is one to play. Just be aware that you'll have to fill in the blanks on the emotional aspects yourself.
Not Too Campy, Just a Bit Crazy, March 6, 2014When I see "ridiculous" attached to a blurb, I usually translate it as "half-baked" or "I hope you think dumb equals funny". In this case, that'd be unfair.
This is a fun excursion into vampire flicks by way of a grown-up CYOA. It has a rampaging steamroller of a plot (and two separate but intersecting paths through the story) that makes reasonable sense if you don't stare at it too long and keeps things moving at a good clip. Which is good, because I didn't really care much about the characters, even the imperiled ones (which was everyone), mainly because the author did a bit too much telling instead of showing a lot of the stuff that was deemed unnecessary to moving the plot forward.
The tone is uneven, especially along the less violent path; it stays mostly around Buffy the Vampire Slayer but occasionally wanders over to early Laurell K. Hamilton. I think it'd be best described as "breezy". There are a few points where the author leaves a necessary sentence out and it takes a few paragraphs to figure out what's going on, but if you just watch the fun butt-kicking you shouldn't mind too much.
Don't get me wrong, there's a fun game under here. The structure is surprisingly elegant; if you choose the more exciting initial option, you get the more intense path, for example. The human characters are neatly aligned with the classic fighter, mage, and rogue (with the heroine as the rogue) and many of the choices presented give you a solid sense of this, and present a plausible conflict in the heroine's personality as well.
Ultimately, this would have been more fun if it were either a bit more ruthless or a bit more campy, and if the author had hit a few more of the expected genre points. But not at all a bad way to spend an hour, and definitely worth playing through both major paths (one is harder hitting than the other but they're both fun).
Good Example of Genre Done Right, March 6, 2014This is my kind of game; entirely entertainment. Choices that move the plot along, interesting characters, competent design. The main character is an actual character, with a past, attitudes, and goals (like everyone else present) and I found that a refreshing change.
Mystery buffs will probably not have much trouble figuring out the killer; I was fairly certain who it was by halfway through, although the author includes a solid red herring that is more than clever enough to leave some doubt. There was still plenty going on to keep me reading through the end, and the protagonist is, while flawed, definitely likable (and thankfully proactive) enough to want to find out what happens to him.
The writing could use a bit of editing, just to tighten things up a little, but I think the genre contributed to the sense things should be terser. I would also have liked more variation in the endings or maybe a twist or two in the endings themselves -- the wrong choices essentially played out exactly as expected -- but the right endings were satisfying and appropriate.
I think this falls more firmly on the side of thriller than mystery, as figuring out who the killer is definitely takes a backseat to survival (and does it matter if you figure it out if you don't have any way to defend yourself?). Definitely fun, and definitely worth playing if you enjoy the genre.
Enjoyable, Some Swalf, March 4, 2014I found this enjoyable, except for one issue -- whenever names are modern names or words presented backwards, it triggers the part of my brain that looks at words instead of reading them. I then find myself testing all capitalized words back and forth just in case.
And since there's no real political agenda presented (or at least none I could puzzle out), I assume the name choices are just to be, ah, funny? I just found them distracting, and worse, I kept waiting for a political point to be made. I felt it detracted from the silliness rather than adding to it.
Other than that, fun! Love the idea of a word and diplomacy based logic puzzle. I would love to see this carried over from the absurd to a more realistic situation with more realistic stakes, and with characters who aren't jokes.
A Realistic (I Think) Slice of Life, March 4, 2014I have to say, at first glance, I thought this was going to be a simulation of sorts (even though the author didn't promise one). I think it's most accurate to say it's a "slice of life" game, and at that, it succeeds.
There doesn't appear to be any randomness and you get the same cases in the same order on every play through. Your choices don't change much that happens (maybe an additional screen of text or a slightly different response) but do affect your stats. The stats were a nice addition but underutilized. I think that's what got me expecting more of a "game" than advertised; if you hand a player stats, they're going to assume they'll be rewarded or punished for how they affect those stats over the game. And this wasn't the case.
I think my biggest complaint is the ending; it was disappointing. I played through twice, and after a week of directing this character, I would have liked more than (Spoiler - click to show)a single line of text and my stat totals. Where's the entirely unrealistic to base off one week but necessary for player satisfaction epilogue stating how successfully my character will be? At least tell me what the stats will mean for him over the next few years! I really felt like it left me hanging.
I would also have liked to see a little more of the dramatic stuff (I know, I know, this isn't Law & Order). Maybe a central case that the protagonist sees as a "big break" that you can choose to devote part of each day to (or not), with a court appearance on Friday that your stats and preparation affect the outcome of or something, to break up the call-response routine a little and give some meaning to those stats.
The game as a whole really does leave the impression of spending a week looking over the shoulder of a new lawyer. It just turns out that this is about as exciting as spending a week looking over the shoulder of a new PI or web designer or any other self-employed field. Which is to say, interesting, but not in the way you'd expect if you were a fan of genre fiction. It was definitely informative and worth playing through, if only to see how ridiculous the callers are.
Silly, Unapologetic, March 1, 2014I would actually say that the protagonist is more of a stabby-stabby Jack the Ripper-type, to be honest, even though the game tells us he's not, but the title gets the point across.
This is ridiculous, mixed with enough "wow, that is actually kind of horrible if you think about it" to make it more thought-provoking that it might otherwise be. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just wandering around a swamp stabbing ducks.
I appreciate that the author is so aggressively confident about the whole thing. There are no apologies here, either meta or implied; no "this is just something dumb, lolz", no "you chicken out" choices. You're a psycho duck-killer who may or may not be a duck, and the author DARES you to take note of things like "where would a duck hide a Bowie knife?" and "how do I get reception in a swamp?".
Definitely not a "must play", but amusing. I would say this is probably closer to 2.5 stars, but I bumped it up a bit because the author was so gleefully consistent.
Interesting, Creepy, March 1, 2014I enjoyed this. It's effective and fun.
It reminded me of an old school CYOA, with branches that depict different realities, rather than different aspects of the same reality. You're building a story here, and your choices will affect it, but you won't have much idea what's going to happen based on what you've picked. This actually works pretty well with the genre --you're supposed to feel helpless and uncertain, even a little foolish at times. And there are a number of subtle variations along each path that make the story seem coherent and put together even on repeated plays.
(Spoiler - click to show)The author somehow managed to create a CYOA with the feel and effect of watching a handful of different horror movies. Your job, as the player, is to watch and occasionally flip the channel to see what other movies are playing. And it really does work in this context.
Overall, I really felt more as if I were assembling a story than playing a game, but it was an enjoyable process.
Visually NSFW, Not Much Else, March 1, 2014Wow. A "NSFW" label on a work of interactive fiction REALLY does not do enough to warn folks that an explicit (Spoiler - click to show)(foot-long erect penis) photo will be displayed. Seemed especially out of place given that none of the other branches (as far I could find) had anything visually explicit in them even though the text says you're sending adult photos. I guess I should be grateful the author didn't put a hardcore porn clip in the middle.
No characterization, no descriptions, no real plot, no structure. No actual sex, just bored guys sending pictures to each other. Just one long, dumb excuse to show us a "shocking" picture. Maybe it's trying to say something, but what, I don't know.
Cute Idea Horribly Obscured By Poor Implementation, February 28, 2014It's a cute idea with cute art that would be perfect to share with kids if it weren't written in near gibberish. It's obvious the author enjoyed writing it and knew what he was trying to say, and plot events happen in a logical way, which actually makes the butchering of the English language far more frustrating that it would be otherwise.
Mistakes like "unfortionatly" and sentences like "You went in and saw the creature with some kind of sharp thing making a hole in the glass, then put some beautiful jewelries in the sack! but you sack the sack has a cat picture on it, and you thought, it must be for me!" show the author wasn't even trying.
Technical implementation is equally terrible but at least it's simple -- directions are used for all but a few objects ("go down to push the button", for example). This should have been written as a CYOA.
To the author; please, please find a more suitable system (have you looked at Twine?), proofread it, get someone else to proofread it (twice), and make this the game it should be.
Difficult, Brilliant, February 28, 2014Fair warning, I've tried to use the spoiler tag but I may have inadvertently left something in. You should go play this first before reading a single review anyway!
I enjoyed this immensely. In a lot of ways, this reminded me of an Ursula Le Guin novel (The Left Hand of Darkness in particular), with the focus shifted from gender divisions to -- well, it's complicated, but brilliantly put together. (Spoiler - click to show)The Colonists are asked what price they will pay, in terms of which faction of their people (and thus which facet of their culture) they will sacrifice, for the survival of their entire race. The humans are asked the opposite question; what part of their culture will they pay to save a single suffering segment of their population.
(Spoiler - click to show)Add to this that each race has already faced the choice to destroy one group of their people to save the rest, and made very different decisions that shaped their cultures, and that the historical decision that most people would want to be the correct one was most likely (but may not have been) disastrous, and that everyone involved except the hero is aware of these ramifications, and you have a lot to think about.
We don't get to see much, if any, of the emotions of any of the characters, including the protagonist. (Spoiler - click to show)He isn't a blank slate; he has been personally affected by the Plague, and the choices made that led to it. And his life has been changed, maybe even saved, by choices others have made for him. But, despite glimpses of his history, we are never told overtly how he feels about anything of importance. This is a case where detachment from the main character is an effective technique; the distance allowed me to see the facets of the situation without undue emotional weight.
That is part of what made it so difficult to decide what to do; if the protagonist's sympathies were clear and aligned, we could simply choose to "do what our character would do" and thus feel no responsibility for the choice (as we are urged by the protagonist's superior, who goes so far as to absolve us of any guilt if we do "follow orders"). Instead, we are forced to decide on our own, using the information we've gleaned from our exploration of the world and the NPCs (and the more thorough the exploration, the more meaningful the choice will be, though never clear cut). We can certainly choose to make the decision we think the hero would make, based on what we know of him, but it will not be handed to us.
There's a fine line between "make the best choice you can with the limited information you have" and "eh, it's impossible to say what'll happen, just pick something". I think this came down on the side of the former, but it could easily swing to the other side if you missed important information or didn't explore enough or didn't catch on right away that these NPCs were not going to stand around feeding you information on demand all day.
I'm terrible at timed puzzles and worse at dialogue-based story advancement (I'm the person dialogue menus were invented for). I love that this was accounted for; I still made it to the end by doing logical IF-y things, just with a lot less information than a better player would have had. I could have made a decision blindly at that point, but I decided not to spoil the ending with lack of context. So I restarted with a walkthrough to consult on the trickier bits, mainly a couple of conversations near the beginning before I caught on to the nuances of communication. Hint: (Spoiler - click to show)You often get just one shot at someone; the most productive next step is often clued heavily in their dialogue. Experiment with general responses like "agree" or "disagree".
It took several hours of mulling it over to really grasp the significance of the main story and to appreciate the layers built into it and the frame around it. EVERYONE in this game has an agenda and a past that influences them today, and none of these agendas are petty or foolish, and none are entirely right or entirely wrong -- much like their opinions of each other. (Spoiler - click to show)There are also no absolutes and no guarantees; no ending promises that history will prove this the right choice, a theme mirrored by the human story of the plague. And on this scale, of millions and millions of lives, that ambiguity feels appropriate.
By the end I was greedily lingering over any little thing I could interact with just to learn a tiny bit more, checking just one more time to see if changing any aspect might open up another ending, even reading the Club Floyd Transcript to see what others might have found that I missed. And requiring that my loved ones play too so we can discuss it. Not sure there's higher praise than that.
Surprising, February 27, 2014So. First impression: this is going to be awful. Starts out at a desk in a featureless office, with a hero who has a ridiculously banal quest. Yep. This is going to be awful.
And... it wasn't. Things rapidly become more exciting, in a web comic meets action movie kind of way that plays it pretty straight (if sometimes a bit over the top). The characters are likable (although flattened into easily recognizable roles) and there's a real sense of the emotions between them. It's obvious this is a prologue of sorts to a much larger story, and sometimes backstory is sacrificed for immediate action (which I find preferable to the alternative).
The design is solid, and most choices lead to actual branches, some that loop, some that don't. Choices are meaningful but the "best" path is not always obvious (and sometimes sub-optimal choices work out in surprising ways). I could have done with less author abuse of the characters, but I read that as more of a self-defense mechanism than anything else.
The whole piece needs a proofreader to polish it. The author does a lot of things right, and I wouldn't want to polish until it lost what makes it unique -- just enough to take some of the unintentional rough spots out.
More than worth the time to play, as long as you don't mind profanity and are willing to suspend a little disbelief.
(Small) (Spoiler - click to show)It's not that I don't enjoy thirty-two step convoluted brain-meltingly hard unlock the door because it's there puzzles that require six sub-puzzles to be solved first (without accidentally alerting the NPC who is wandering around), it's just that sometimes you want to beat up a bunch of thugs as a solo one man army after making a single bold choice. While on crutches, no less. It's a credit to the author that I came out of this scene feeling badass and not silly.
Appalling, February 24, 2014If there were zero stars, this would be the time for it.
There's an error message on the first screen. Nothing is implemented except exits. The content is unfunny, unpleasant and repetitive. The dialogue is hard-coded into the room descriptions.
I've already wasted too much time on this, but hopefully it'll save someone else the hassle.
Pretty Surprising Given Its Age, February 24, 2014I spent a large part of the day tinkering with some very old school games, and when I saw this one had an Inform port, I jumped at the chance to see if it would hold up to modern standards with a better engine.
The answer is "sort of"; the world and implementation are solidly three stars, but the unfairness of some of the puzzles makes it hard to appreciate. It's pretty obvious that the game is designed to take a couple of weeks of exhaustive searching to solve, but the plot really wasn't interesting enough for me to want to devote that much energy to it.
It must have been an innovative game by the standards of the time, with NPCs who move around on schedules and a plot that actually drives the exploration and advances as you play. The puzzle of managing your heroine's time isn't overly difficult and adds life to the world, but the NPC dialogues are unfortunately limited and fiddly, and often require very specific phrasing to trigger the required result.
(Spoiler - click to show)And I don't know about you, but after crossing a moor in a rainstorm, climbing down a steep, muddy cliff, crossing a raging river, reaching a safe place, lighting a fire, and heating up some grub, I INSIST on walking all the way back to town because I forgot to order coffee at noon and thus lacked a spoon. Eat with my fingers? What am I, a barbarian? This is even funnier when you find out that the heroine is so frail she collapses from exhaustion if she spends the night without a blanket.
I'm proud of myself for finishing it, even though I had to dig into the source pretty hard to find a few hidden items (I somehow didn't think to search, look at, and examine every single piece of scenery in every single room just in case a plot item might be hidden there. And each action uses up a minute of game time).
It's not the game's fault that gamers expect a lot more today, but it still has to be judged against modern games because those are what it's competing with for a gamer's attention. And I would say this is worthy of your attention, but don't be surprised if you have to sneak a peek at the source eventually.
A Good Puzzler, But Not Exactly As Advertised, February 23, 2014For a game titled "Dracula", this starts off the way you'd expect, as a spooky, incredibly atmospheric piece, with the hero arriving in a small seaside town after dark carrying nothing but a letter from the endangered Lucy Westenra. Terrifying supernatural forces array against you as you seek to understand what's going on and locate your only ally.
And then it goes all sideways. It's still a lot of fun, but it's not Dracula.
(Spoiler - click to show)Essentially, by the second chapter, you've somehow wandered into someone's Ravenloft campaign. It's as if the writer wrote the first chapter, took a few years off, reread it, and decided it was good but needed more pirates. So it becomes a creepy dungeon crawl, with some very dark fantasy creatures to encounter, and a few vignettes tied together by the four mystical whatsits you're trying to recover.
The game took me about three hours and was challenging, but I finished it on my own without a walkthrough, which means it wasn't that hard. A number of puzzles are timed, and you only have one shot (and any interactions, including "look" and "examine", cost you time). Undos were sufficient to handle most issues, but saving when you enter a new area is wise.
Deaths are plentiful and you get used to it. NPCs are marginal and mostly there for shock value or to dispense a few specific bits of advice. The game's design is fantastic, a cleverly laid out series of rooms that require careful exploration and unlocking of further areas with actions, nicely punctuated with clever shocks. The ending was satisfactory, but I would have liked to learn more about the hero's backstory; after some time to think about it, I think I've puzzled out how all the pieces go together to fit with the ending, but I'm not at all certain about it.
There were a few typos (the author had issues with "it's" and "its", especially in the first chapter), and one glaringly misnamed item (Spoiler - click to show)(a dustbin implemented as "bin"; meaning the first time I tried to look into it I got a generic message that sent me looking for something else to interact with). Otherwise, nothing too difficult, as long as you remember to examine each object when you get it for any specialty verbs.
I would say that this is a game worth spending a few hours with, as long as you're aware that what you're getting, while good, is not what necessarily what you might expect. And that you will end the game with more questions than answers.
College Hijinks Ahead, February 22, 2014As much as I enjoyed the first game in the series, this one is better. The author has kept a lot of what made the first game fun and improved on many of the things that needed improving. Unfortunately, he also introduced some new issues, notably a ridiculous number of typos, including one in a room name.
First, the things that are the same. The hero is still ridiculously talented in the erotic arts, still has a one-track mind, and is still surrounded by women who need favors done and are willing to repay in kind. The world still runs on porn logic.
However, there's now a plot goal outside of having sex. The situations are fairly stock fantasy, with a lot of loving nods to the movies that define the college romp genre. Picking a frat name right out of the gate was a nice touch and immediately told me what to expect.
The map is still large, but the areas are better defined and few are wasted. Descriptions of rooms and scenery are functional and do give a sense of the hero's personality, such as it is. The NPCs are just as varied and individual as in the first game, but more mature and assertive.
The puzzles always move the story forward but rely a bit too much on searching and revisiting old locations. No guess the verb problems, but I did find run into what seems like an oversight more than a bug; nobody will answer the door at the Dean's house unless you (Spoiler - click to show)get rid of all your twenties first.
This is definitely a puzzle game; the puzzles aren't a tacked on afterthought but a crucial part of the game. Fortunately, the time spent solving most puzzles (the ones that don't directly involve sex) provides a needed down time in between more intense scenes.
All in all, one of the better adult games I've played, and worthwhile as IF, too.
A Mix Of AIF and Puzzler, February 22, 2014I first played this game a decade ago, and I can safely say it's one of the better AIF titles from that time period even if it doesn't quite hold up to the standards of today. Setting the sex aside, it's a fine puzzler, with puzzles that feel logical and generally intuitive. However, this is definitely a game about sex, with sex as part of some puzzles and as the reward where another game might hand out narrative.
The design is fine, but the implementation is only passable, with that "first-time author" feel (but that's okay, we're not here to look at tables and scenery, are we?). Where the game shines is in the variety of NPCs and the skill the author used when writing them. All have their own personalities (unfortunately too often stereotyped, but a bit less so than you would expect of a school romp), and their responses are varied and unique (and pretty much too eager, but that's the kind of game this is).
The puzzles were generally fair, although there were a couple of actions that really needed more synonyms implemented (Spoiler - click to show)(getting the oregano and climbing through the window).
I definitely recommend this (with a walkthrough handy) as both a look back and as a decent game.
Fun, Silly, February 22, 2014The author has perfectly captured the engaging, slightly-to-very cartoonish feel of a King's Quest (or maybe Leisure Suit Larry) adventure and blended it with an adult game that is on the "naughty" side of things without (surprisingly, given the source tale) being repellent. And this is definitely an adult game, with the adult content integrated into the puzzles.
The tone starts out very light, and it's obvious this is a fantasy that isn't meant to be taken too seriously. For a fantasy game with such a direct purpose, it made me think a lot more about my actions (and gave more incentives to play "in character") than other games it might superficially resemble. You aren't exactly penalized for your choices, but it definitely feels as if the tone of the game (and thus how the world treats your character) adjusts itself to your actions. Something I'd love to see the author explore in a longer work in the future.
Which leads to my biggest complaint; just like any good short story, it left me wanting to stay longer. I wanted to see a lot more of the castle, and have more puzzles to solve (maybe even restore the whole place)! But as an "encounter", it works just fine without anything extra added. (Spoiler - click to show)Also, if you're really unpleasant to Beauty, I think she should make you suffer directly for it in the end. It's definitely possible such an ending exists, as I wasn't all that rude towards her.
So, recap -- adult, atmospheric, presented in a light way that takes a lot of the sting out of some otherwise really not too appealing actions. And too short!
Do My Choices Matter?, February 22, 2014I'm a little confused by this. The writing was fine, but the story never really took off; it seems promising at first but never really blossoms into an actual story. It's possible I'm missing the choice that will send me off into a different, more exciting branch, but there's not much incentive to keep hunting for it after a bunch of attempts have ended up in roughly the same spot -- and, frankly, the choices are so opaque it's hard to feel any sense of agency at all.
Even when deliberately trying to avoid the paths I'd already explored, I still ended up with the same game ending event happening in roughly the same way on every play through. (Mild) (Spoiler - click to show)You could make the case that experiencing the same event from the same POV but in different locations counts as multiple endings, but with no epilogue or explanation, it seemed more like padding than anything else. (Major) (Spoiler - click to show)Is there really enough of a difference between walking to a cafe and dying in a pool of vomit outside it vs going home and dying in a pool of vomit to count as two endings? So I'm assuming I only saw two of the ten endings ((Spoiler - click to show)I also managed to die at my desk before vomiting), but I really couldn't figure out how to access any others.
And even when my choices were clearly very consequential, or should have been in the game world ((Spoiler - click to show)opening an email revealing my sister's been kidnapped versus deleting it unread), they didn't seem to make much difference to what happened or to be reflected at all in the ending.
That said, I'd play another game by the author, assuming the setting were more interesting and something exciting happened in it.
Amazing Game, Mixed Feelings, February 21, 2014This was an amazing game. Professional in all respects, fascinating mechanics, gentle, well-described world hiding unexpectedly sharp teeth. I wanted to fall in love with it, and I did, for what turned out to be the first half or so.
The issue, for me, is that the characters were as gently and obliquely described as the world. I could sense there was a lot more to them bubbling under the surface, but I couldn't seem to unlock much of it. So I was left with a sense that the game would really be happier if we just stayed good friends and I didn't pry too much, and this left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied.
I may have rushed through too quickly; I'm used to IF that takes a few hours to complete, and this probably should have been enjoyed over a week. And maybe I'm spoiled by the easy narrative rewards of less demanding pieces. And maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind to enjoy exploring all of the nuances of the system and fiddling with everything in pursuit of success.
Minor spoiler (general feelings on ending): (Spoiler - click to show)I found the ending to be disappointing, enough so that I assumed I'd gotten a mediocre ending until I checked the source and discovered I'd gotten the best one (and some of the reasons why the author made this choice). I wasn't entirely shocked that the ending left me with mixed feelings, since I've played a few other games by this author and have come to the conclusion that our definitions of "happy" are considerably different!
Major spoiler: (Spoiler - click to show)I wanted Alexandra to be separated and to see them interact with each other face to face after spending so much time so intimately connected and going through so much. Leaving them joined just felt incomplete.
I would definitely suggest using Gargoyle if possible, since on WinGluxe, "go to" and "find" became incredibly sluggish as the game progressed.
Adult Adventure Puzzler, February 21, 2014This is a fairly long but easy puzzler, with a defined world and an interesting story (and a clever travel mechanic) that reminds me in a lot of ways of a graphical point-and-click adventure. Ultimately, I think it would have been a better game if the resources put into writing so many rather forgettable dating targets had been put into other aspects of the game.
Adult stuff, very mild spoilers: (Spoiler - click to show)All the encounters are strictly heterosexual; the only overtly gay character is cowardly, ineffectual, and obnoxious (this may have been a joke, since he's a vampire and I entirely expected to be offered a sex scene with him). There's not much going on otherwise besides willing sex between (with one exception) equals, one of whom wants to repay the other for a favor. The one exception is easy to avoid and telegraphed as "bad" in big, bold neon. None are particularly meaningful or add much to the story except the witch and the pirate.
Since that aspect of the game is entirely optional, I would recommend only pursuing the NPCs who feel plot appropriate or just skipping the adult stuff entirely. It isn't poorly written, but the engine used is obviously based on incrementing meters with actions and that gets tedious pretty quickly, especially with chunks of text recycled between characters.
The plot is dramatic, the stakes high and personal, but the hero never seems to be too concerned about the fate worse than death awaiting him (or about the others who may have already suffered it). The hero remains a blank slate throughout; we know his name, his occupation, his lifestyle, and what he's been doing for the past five years, but his description is the generic "about the same as always" and he has no opinions about anything going on around him (or happening to him) besides mild feelings of guilt if he's unkind. This bugs me, and is representative of the game as a whole; it just can't seem to commit enough to have real impact.
The puzzles are straightforward and somewhat varied. I did flounder a bit occasionally trying to figure out what I should do next other than wander around and look at everything to see what might help. The key seems to be asking everyone you meet about everything you can think of. Personally, I find that I almost never hit on the right things to ask, not just here, but any time an "ask X about Y" system is used without suggested topics. Fortunately there's any ally you can get early on who will guide you somewhat.
I had some issues with the specific phrasing of commands (during the first puzzle, no less), but the game has a context-sensitive hint system that provides two hints and then an outright solution, so I was never stuck for long. None of the puzzles are cruel or require mind-reading. I did find two a bit unfair. In one, a crucial plot item is (Spoiler - click to show)hidden behind a locked door in an out of the way spot, just past a room with six locked doors in it, and the solution is (Spoiler - click to show)to knock on that door even though the first six do nothing. By the time I found the important door, I had assumed the locked doors in this area were scenery. In the other, (Spoiler - click to show)you need to "look in" an item that's only marginally a container (examining it won't work). (Spoiler - click to show)If you can't find the coin to pay the apothecary, (Spoiler - click to show)"look in red chair" in the Ice Flow Tavern.
Be aware that "strip" is not implemented correctly; NPCs may not realize they've been divested of their clothes, and they certainly won't notice if you're naked. And inventory management in general is kind of a pain, but you're given a mobile base to keep everything in that's never more than three or four rooms away. "Drop all" is your friend here.
All in all, worth playing at least once, and a game I would definitely recommend to someone familiar with IF who wanted to try an adult game.
Amusing, Different, February 20, 2014Might just be that I'm a sim addict (I am), but I wish there were more IF games like this. Not that ALL IF games were like this, just that there were a few more.
It's amazing how easily a few bits of information (name, gender, four stats) and a little responsibility can be converted to genuine (if very mild) affection. I genuinely wanted my charges to be attractive and well-disciplined so that they could get out of my orphanage before despair killed them. And to get paid in the process.
I found the interface simple to use and not overly tedious even in the tail end of the game once I discovered I could "x all" and "assign all". I enjoyed the random story events, and liked that I could dismiss ones that were unfulfillable. I wish there were more of them, or that they were more frequent ((Spoiler - click to show)and that the sewage one came up a lot less frequently, or not at all unless you have wards in every room. I had it happen on two different plays when I had no wards in two of the rooms and it took forever to clean up).
At some points (like when a ward I'd gotten almost perfect bolted) I found myself wishing for a bit more agency. And I would have liked a subplot that required spending money (maybe enriching myself or improving my station) to make the choice of where to spend my money more interesting than just "what order do I buy stuff" or "buy whatever will help solve my current issue".
After several play-throughs, I only found one bug; one of my wards met an untimely end yet was still active and present the next day.
Definitely a game worth playing as both an interesting experiment and a fun game, as long as you don't dwell too long on what the game is actually requiring you to do (or find it amusing).
So, it turns out I somehow downloaded both versions and played the wrong one! The updated version seems to have increased the number of random events and decreased the morale hits. Very nice.
Decent, For What It Is, February 20, 2014This is actually not bad for a first or casual foray into the medium.
The central conceit of two players is cute, clever, and makes sense inside the game, and also leads coherently into the sole moment of interactivity. The writing is sturdy and hints at more world than we get to see. It's definitely silly, but serious enough within its own framework to work. It's not terribly interactive, but then again, it's not a bad short story.
I've played worse Speed-IF games.
Worth the two minutes to click through.
Entertaining, Fun, February 19, 2014This definitely comes down hard on the narrative side of IF, with a light, linear story and explicit sex scenes that are integrated into the plot and don't feel tacked on. I felt that it relies a bit too heavily on genre conventions, and that those genres (YA series mystery and Cinemax film) don't mix entirely comfortably, but the game never takes itself too seriously or veers into making fun of itself or the material it pays homage to. The format, an interesting blend of CYOA and parser, kept things moving quickly and forward as events unfolded.
Well, with one exception: (only a spoiler if you're as obtuse as I was, in the very first scene) (Spoiler - click to show)I didn't realize I needed to read the newspaper to move things forward -- I read all of my news online -- and on my first play through never advanced the main plot at all. But even with my cluelessness (seriously, I failed about as hard as you can fail in a scene with two implemented objects, despite being given seven separate attempts to wise up), the game appreciated my efforts and rewarded my character with a nominal win (and some, shall we say, interesting scenery). So, while the story itself is strongly linear, there are a number of exit points that aren't the "optimal" ending to see on the way.
The title and some of the characters seem to be intended as a fairly direct reference to Nancy Drew, but I really picked up more of a "Made for TV Mystery of the Week" vibe. You know the kind of movie -- the one that's playing at two in the afternoon on a weekday, the heroine is feisty, attractive, billed by everyone around her as brilliant but can't spot that the guy she's just hopped into the sack with is a psycho stalker, and nobody ever gets killed, they're just kidnapped and made uncomfortable. Usually based on a cozy mystery book, often with the same title and character names, but generally bearing no resemblance to the source material in any substantial way. (The author of the book probably cried when she saw it.)
None of the above should be taken as a spoiler for this game, by the way, except maybe the "kidnapped and made uncomfortable" part but since that's in the blurb, it's not much of a surprise. Movies like that aren't usually totally unenjoyable, they're just forgettable and often disjointed; this game's plot, as slight as it was, actually held together very well and made sense in context.
I think "slight" actually sums it up, and I very much hope the author uses this format to make more games, ones with more confident and original stories.
Note on adult stuff (read this if you don't care for it): (Spoiler - click to show)You can pretty easily mentally replace everything between the start of a sex scene and the end of it with "fade to black" and not miss anything too important.
Flawed But Entertaining, February 19, 2014This was the first game by this author I played through to the end, and I found it surprisingly entertaining. Years ago, I had slotted it into the "don't bother" category over some of the flaws that are glaringly apparent within ten minutes of beginning, and I'm glad I disregarded that initial impression and tried again.
Where the game shines, and where it's entirely focused, and what makes it worth playing despite the implementation flaws, is the narrative and the characters (there are no "he looks exactly as you would expect a clerk to look" descriptions here), and both are engaging enough in a light action movie kind of way to want to see through to the end. Too often I found myself in a situation where I needed to simply "wait" a turn before talking to an NPC again or before something interesting happened on its own. I can't help but think this would have been a better game if it had been written in a different format (say, CYOA or CYOA-hybrid) that allowed these strengths to really shine.
Unfortunately one of the four or five missions in the open world segment gives away much of the ending if you're at all genre savvy and even remotely paying attention (if you want to avoid this, don't hunt down (Spoiler - click to show)Failed Romero).
Even though I knew what was coming, it was still compelling enough to make me want to see how it played out. In some respects it felt as if the author lost interest after the big reveal; I would have liked to have known more about the ramifications of what was going on. But the conclusion was rewarding and the game definitely felt complete.
If you enjoy action science fiction, this is well worth playing, just save often and have a walkthrough handy.
Entertaining, Surprising, February 18, 2014CYOA is a difficult medium because it has to succeed as both a short story and as a game. And what one person enjoys in a short story another might dislike intensely (see "Lovecraft, H. P."). There's nothing here to distress anyone, but (slight) (Spoiler - click to show)there is an uncompromising statement about how the world works, and I found it thought-provoking.
As a short story, this is competently written in a serious, slightly overblown way that recalls the simplest high fantasy of my childhood. And it skips over the boring bits, as stories like that usually do, in favor of the parts where you get a cool item or get some bit of sage and cryptic advice or meet someone interesting.
Most clicks, even ones that appear decorative, move the story forward, but choices are not uninteresting, usually reward you with specific text, and are often reflected on your character sheet. There was an appropriate amount of interactivity for the story to have maximum impact and to allow for a replay or two without becoming tiresome.
I played through three times, twice as a wizard and once as a warrior, and I'm pretty satisfied that the endings are fair reflections of my choices. I also quite liked the second ending I ended up with; bittersweet but surprisingly okay.
To sum up, nicely entertaining and more challenging than it might seem from the first few clicks. Well worth the time to enjoy.
Not Sure What I Just Played, February 17, 2014The thing about games (stories? Hypertext fiction? Poetry?) like this is that whenever I reach what seems to be a wall, I'm never sure if I've experienced the full game, if the author is trying to convey some message about frustration or death or something else profound, or if I'm just dumb and not finding the next thing to click on.
This game epitomizes that feeling. After clicking on everything I can and reading the resulting slightly-to-fairly gross, bizarre (but presumably with some much deeper meaning I'm not catching) snippets of text, I'm locked in a loop that doesn't seem to have an exit, with a score of 800,000 and with no apparent way to continue. (Spoiler - click to show)And the only way to progress through the loop -- just so I can respawn at the beginning of the loop again -- requires several actions and then sitting through a poem, which appears line by line, with a brief but excruciating timed delay between each line.
At this point, I have very little interest in continuing; I feel vaguely sorry for the amorphous protagonist, but (slight) (Spoiler - click to show)I'm pretty sure nothing I help him do in the game is going to improve his life outside it, and he's so passive it'd be hard to imagine him improving it for himself. And the dreary, unrelentingly unkind atmosphere suggests this is the kind of game where "winning" will be Pyrrhic, if not worse than losing.
As a game, I found the biggest flaw to be how difficult it was to know what to do when (or even if there was a "right" or "best" or even "productive" thing to do). As a story, I found it surprisingly compelling, in the same way that a kid feels about poking a dead thing with a stick. But the appeal wears off pretty quickly.
Cute, February 17, 2014Within the framework of a quickly made and meant to be quickly played game, this works very well and is quite pleasant. The tone is consistent and appropriate to the setting and main character, and the adult elements are played for (fairly gentle and worth a giggle) humor. Events unfold logically and with few hitches; I can't recall a single issue of guess the verb or a point where I was stuck for more than a minute or two.
This is a perfect example of silly that actually is silly, not lazy and stupid. Not what I would call "unforgettable" (two days later the details are escaping me) but worth playing.
Not What I Expected, February 17, 2014Let me start off by saying that I somehow missed that this was not exactly the whodunit mystery I was looking for. And... I think I'm glad? Even though I'm still feeling a little disturbed two days later.
Compelling, I think, would be a good word to describe this game. Enough so that I kept playing, even though I really, really didn't want to once I started to suspect what was coming. Very effective. Even if I had to read certain parts with my eyes closed. No guess the verb issues and vivid (too vivid, gulp) descriptions.
I ran into a few places I got stuck. (Spoiler - click to show)I didn't realize the window in the bathroom could be opened. And the gasoline evaporating after three turns almost forced me to reload, but fortunately I had just enough "undos". The walkthrough for the original Mystery House gave enough pointers for me to get through.
Overall, it successfully tells a creepy short story while allowing the player to gradually discover the scope of that story through his own actions and the actions of those around him.
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