Reviews by Nomad

This game would probably have much more reviews if it was playable in a browser. Anyway, it starts out as a simple fantasy gamebook with a linear flow. Writing is actually good - the game world is presented from the perspective of the protagonist, meaning there's no lengthy explanations of everything, because the protagonist *knows* what kind of social system etc. he's living in. I like that. Next up, a horror element creeps in, almost lovecraftian. Then, a sudden change of perspective which I'm not going to spoil. After that, the game was over relatively quickly.

I played it through once only - so far. I'm pretty sure the game is not as linear as it seemed to me. There's a score at the end indicating I could have performed far better - means I maybe only scratched the surface. Three stars so far, for the interesting setting and plot. Probably a fourth star the next time I play it. If you like gamebooks you should definitively try it.

A short story, not exactly interactive. A spaceship crew discovers a lost spaceship and boards it. Nice setting. Good pacing at the beginning, maybe a bit too fast once on board the lost ship. More trouble begins there: Logic dissolves. Crew hierarchies don't matter as everybody just does as he pleases, everybody intuitively knows the layout of the strange ship, a former crew member had the means to paint paintings with acrylic. The "game" end happens soon after. I counted two situations where I could make a choice. A nice quick read (with a few flaws), but not a game.

No explanation what your goal is. Sparse room descriptions. Things are lying around unmotivatedly. NPCs are not communicative. Two word commands are all you need. It's like the past 40 years didn't happen, and Scott Adams still squeezes obscure puzzles into 16 KB of RAM. I appreciate the effort, but I do not long for a sequel. Not recommended.

Wow.

First glance: Artsy experiment
But then does the fun increment
It's a game of adventurous exploring
Scattered puzzles make sure it's not boring
For a Twine game it's really excellent

It's not a game, just a story you click through. But the story is nice. Well, it's pretty trivial until the one interesting twist, but that'll grab you, promise. Makes me a bit sad it's not a game.

Shambolic, horribly implemented. If the storyline wasn't on rails you'd never get beyond the first room. Plus, the story didn't grab me.

Robin Johnson has a lot of quirky ideas, and within the severe limitations of the format of his game (see below) the writing is amusing, refreshing and down to the point. That should easily make forget that the setting of the game is pretty cliché.

Unfortunately the technical novelty of reducing a parser game to the most indispensable verbs and available objects leads to two problems: The solution to many puzzles is obvious when the necessary verb-object combination is suddenly highlighted (e.g. a beer usually has the options "drop" and "drink" with it, and when the right situation comes up an additional "give" option pops up), and not coming up with the correct solution immediately entices you to fall a dull simply-click-everything routine that many magazine editors criticize about P&C adventures. It doesn't exactly help that the entire text is kept in a Scott Adams telegraphic style which cuts off the feeling of exploring a game world's details.

As an interface experiment Draculaland is really cool. And it has its moments, see above. But in general, as a game I want to dive into it fails.

A nice reminiscence of 1980's C64 cassette games. I'm now too old to wrestle a parser though.

A Chose-your-own-adventure game with sexual content. Good idea, but bad implementation: The "story" doesn't captivate at all, and apart from a few story branches there's not much of a "game" aspect. Wasted potential.

The James Bond setting in the Austrian Alps was fresh at the time and would still be promising. Everything else... Alpine Encounter's competitors in 1985 were games such as The Pawn, Nine Princes in Amber or Dragonworld. Textwise, Infocom released A Mind Forever Voyaging, Spellbreaker and Wishbringer that same year. On the graphics front, Mindscape released Déjà Vu in 1985. Alpine Encounter's has a two-word parser, sparse room descriptions, and lets you guess the essential commands in every damn room. Antiquated the moment it hit the shelves.