Reviews by deathbytroggles

While a technical improvement in every area over the first game in the series, including graphics, sound, and breadth, I just couldn’t put my heart into Spellcasting 201.

You continue to play the noble Ernie, this time returning for your sophomore year at Sorcerer University. You have been accepted into the “cool” fraternity and must survive initiation week. While your frat mates spend the entire week trying to ensure your demise, there is something more sinister occurring behind the scenes of the university that has farther-reaching consequences than your self-esteem. Of course you must save the day, save your reputation, and save several girls from chastity!

It would appear that your adventure is less linear this time around, as there are many more locations to visit and few are inaccessible at any given time. But unfortunately, there are so many rigidly timed puzzles that you really have no choice as to where you’re heading. If you don’t follow the strict outline, you will end up restoring your adventure several dozen times. And that’s just by the end of the first day. This choice of design is a shame as it detracts not only from continuity, but the ubiquitous humor that Meretzky sprinkles about campus. There’s really no time to enjoy the colorful world around you as you’re always having to rush to beat the clock.

If you don’t mind that style of gameplay, then you should love this game. I felt alienated.

When Infocom disbanded, Steve Meretzky was hired by up-and-coming Legend Entertainment to continue text adventures and compete with Sierra in the adventure game industry. While Legend’s first offering wasn’t entirely polished, and did not have very good sound support, Meretzky certainly did his job to jump start the company and this series.

Legend did their best to try and appeal to all types of adventurers with their new engine. The game has dozens of still graphics, which can be turned on or off. You can also have different status screens available, such as a map, or nothing at all as if you were playing an old text adventure. That said, the graphics are grainy in this offering, and many of the status screens are either unnecessary or clunky.

But where Spellcasting shines is the wit and design of its author. Resembling one of his older offerings, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, you have the option of playing in naughty or nice mode. There is no nudity, but the sexual undertones and jokes certainly crank up under ‘naughty.’

You play Ernie Eaglebeak, an aspiring magician who has escaped your abusive home to attend Sorcerer University. And to get all the girls! The game is fairly linear, though there are many time-limited puzzles, albeit easy ones. A majority of the puzzles therein revolve around wordplay (a la Nord & Bert), a major attraction for myself.

Overall, this is an average offering from a company that wound up releasing many excellent games during the 90’s. If you are a fan of Steve Meretzky or language puzzles, or just want to see where Legend started, you’ll probably like this game.

Like Infocom's Nord & Bert, Montfort created an essentially plot free game for Americans with a love for wordplay. Also similar to its predecessor, there is a built-in hint system that will ensure you don't get stuck.

While I adore Ad Verbum, its best puzzle is easily the first one you're likely to encounter, that being the compass rose rooms. The descriptions and responses to valiant attempts to escape these rooms are some of the wittiest I've seen in interactive fiction. I was delighted when trying to leave the south room when (Spoiler - click to show)"skedaddle" worked. I also rather enjoyed the library room. Like others have mentioned, I was disappointed that several puzzles have very little to do with classic wordplay (and aren't terribly interesting), and the Latin pig understands less than he should.

A brilliant minimalist RPG that hearkens back to 80’s games made in BASIC only with the polish and creativity of today’s designers.

I have a soft spot for games that are light on exposition and throw you into a scene. The opening here has you in a dark room with the ability to build a fire, your other goals unknown. From there the most complex the game gets visually is an overworld map using ASCII characters. Despite this the story develops at a near perfect pace with ample doses of hope and horror. To say more would be pointless, other than it’s accessible to anyone and isn’t terribly difficult if you’re patient. I’ve also played it through three times because it’s that damn good (there's also more than one ending depending on your strategy).

I've only played the iOS port by Amir Rajan which I hear is a bit more polished and fleshed out.

I've always enjoyed games that take place in space, especially on failing space vessels (e.g. Mission Critical, Seedship). I fell immediately for Fail-Safe's hook, which entails playing the role of mission control talking to the lone survivor on a failing space vessel.

Ingold does an incredible job at building a tense atmosphere based entirely on conversation. His decision to disable most basic interactive fiction commands (save, restore, inventory, etc.) was perfect in keeping the player locked into the moment. It wouldn't work in a longer game, but given the brevity here it was the right move.

The only thing that pulled me out of the game a bit was that mission control had some jargon that mission control would know but were not obvious to me, making a couple of things less clear. However, the decision to have (Spoiler - click to show)an unreliable narrator is pulled off very well. It's a huge risk for sure, as it can seem like pulling the rug out, a cheap trick as it were. However, there are a few clues sprinkled in that I didn't pick up on that in hindsight I should have. All I could do was tip my cap to the author and replay.

Definitely worth a look if you're in the mood for something short and immersive.

Hollywood Hijinx is one of Infocom’s unsung gems. Your rich aunt has just passed on, and you were the favorite nephew chosen to inherit the large fortune. However, she needs to know if you are clever enough to be worthy of holding the family finances. She has given you twelve hours to explore her mansion and find the ten “treasures,” or leftover props from her husband’s popular B-movies.

The twelve-hour time limit would normally annoy me, but in my first playthrough I just relaxed, created an intricately detailed map, and explored each room leisurely. I ran out of time (and even made the game unwinnable by messing with some props), but once I learned what to do it was a blast to run through it one more time.

Hijinx captures the flavor of the times and the B-movie industry wonderfully, and is funny throughout. Normally I'm one to resort to a walkthrough pretty quickly, but for some reason I found the puzzles here fairly straightforward with only a couple of mind-benders. Regardless of whether or not you find the puzzles challenging or easy breezy, if you’re just looking for a good time and a few good laughs, this game is great.

Rated by many the best adventure game of 1993 and it’s pretty obvious to see why. You are the infamous Eric the Unready. You have been assigned to save the princess from her evil stepmother. Unbeknownst to you, you were assigned because you are the most ill-equipped knight in the land.

As with the early Legend games that used a text parser, you can play the game with or without graphics. The graphics are gorgeous for the time, and being a comedy they do well to serve the humor. The music is pleasant if too repetitive.

It’s more of a parody than a game. To the skilled adventurer, this should take less than a couple of weeks to win. The puzzles are not all that well-developed, and can even be annoying at times. But it is without a doubt the funniest game I have ever played. Bob Bates spoofs everything from Star Trek to Saturday Night Live to Zork and has a grand ole time with medieval culture. There is something here for everyone. I haven’t played the game since 2000, however, so it’s possible the jokes have become dated.

Yes, there were good text adventures during the 80’s not made by Infocom. This is one fine example.

You play Perry Mason, of course, and must defend your client who has been charged with murder. The first part of the game is rather pointless, where you check out the crime scene looking for clues. The illustrations were poorly-drawn (and were in four colors, no less), which made this part of the game more or less save and restore until you got it right. The Apple II had slightly better graphics, while the Commodore was much better. However, the MSX version is gorgeous, with actual pre-rendered photos. If you can play that version somehow, do so.

But the game really shines during cross-examination. There are about five or six key witnesses that both you and the prosecuting attorney will question. When your adversary is up, you must object to improper lines of questioning to aid your case. When you’re up, you must probe each witness to elicit facts that puts holes in the D.A.’s case and exonerates your client. Logic truly dictates the outcome, and the ability of the game to remember past actions in determining the verdict was fairly impressive for the time.

The parser is rather limited, but with enough trial and error, Perry can get his point across. However, the game’s most frustrating element has the D.A. objecting to your line of questioning. This would be fine if the D.A. objected to improper questions. However, he also objects to “guess the verb” issues. In other words, even if you are on the right track, the D.A. will object to your question if the game doesn’t understand your verbiage. The result is the judge getting ticked off and your case going down the tubes.

But for those with a little patience, the game can be very rewarding when you make progress. There are at least three different endings, possibly more, ranging from life in prison for your client to complete acquittal. It’s a shame that there aren’t more games based from the courtroom, as the drama and fascination created by the justice system (or, perhaps more accurately, television shows about the justice system) translates well onto the PC. Perry Mason, while good, is merely a drop in the bucket of that potential.

Thomas M. Disch, prolific science fiction writer and reviewer, wrote a game in 1986 that infuriated me as a child. At the time, I felt the game was too difficult, though I liked the premise behind it. So about ten years later, I picked the game back up. It infuriated me. Amnesia just may be the most difficult text adventure ever put on the market. And by difficult I don’t mean that you have to battle mazes and guess what verb the author wants you to use. The game is just damn hard.

As the title suggests, you wake up in a Manhattan hotel room with absolutely no clue as to your identity, or anyone else’s identity for that matter. Overused premise as it is, Disch works it to perfection. Almost immediately you feel as though people are after you. Naturally, you have no idea why.

It’s easy enough getting out of the hotel alive, but here comes the hard part: You’re homeless. You have almost no money. No job. No identification. No food. Half of the game is simply survival, and it’s about as easy as surviving on the streets in reality (or harder, really, considering how quickly I died). Unfortunately for our true homeless citizens, they have no access to a hint book or a restore function.

The game was only marginally easier when I was twenty-one than when I was ten. I was very happy to survive my first day on the streets without dying. I even made some progress towards figuring out my identity. But after dying a few dozen times, I gave in and downloaded a walkthrough; and I have no regrets in doing so. The game remains fair throughout, but I don’t believe I could have ever won it on my own.

Despite the insane difficulty, I have a strong affection for the game. Disch’s prose is beautiful. I wish more writers worked with programmers in developing games, because this one is worth going through the walkthrough just to read his descriptions of New York. Moreover, every single intersection in Manhattan is implemented. Every intersection. Granted, not every one has descriptions of warehouses and storefronts, but every landmark is there, as well as most parks and the entire subway system. A subway system that you’ll have to use extensively to make it anywhere in the game. Finally, the story is fairly intriguing if you ever get to see the end of it. One drawback is that the plot elements are all too often drawn out between various deaths and thus the suspense is hurt a bit.

There are a few programming mistakes, but in a game this enormous, they can be forgiven. So can the sheer difficulty, but only in this current age of walkthrough heaven. If you thought Bureaucracy was boring because it was too easy, then this game should be right up your alley. Otherwise, download a walkthrough and enjoy yourself, watching how a game can shine when writer and programmer join forces.

An ambitious final entry into the original trilogy that is a pleasure to read but a veritable nightmare to play, Zork III’s value now is mostly for posterity.

Unlike the treasure hunting of the first two games, Zork III has you on a more heroic mission not surprisingly involving coming face to face with a dark foe of Frobozz. This is ultimately more satisfying than just collecting antiquities, and with high-level prose that provides a chilling atmosphere, it could have been a memorable adventure. However, the puzzles are incredibly hard with most of them being patently unfair. There’s even a non-obvious way to lock yourself out of victory, which was annoying as *$@! then and is intolerable now. And with even less character interaction and humor than earlier in the series, it really breaks the game for me.

That said, if you want to play the game for completionist’s sake, have a walkthrough handy so you can enjoy the ride.