Ratings and Reviews by RadioactiveCrow

When I first started plaything this game I didn't really like it. It seemed confusing and I wasn't sure what my purpose was. The writing seemed thick and I had trouble getting going. There was also a shade of the grotesque to it all that I wasn't into at first. But as I stuck with it I eventually came to appreciate it more and more until I was hooked. Groover's writing is wonderful, even operatic at times. The puzzle components were kind of hard to pick out from the flowery prose, but the solutions made sense in the internal logic of the game and every time you completed a "course" the reward was great. I'll definitely play through it again sometime to see how my opinion of it has grown.

ADDENDUM: I did indeed play this game again more than a year after my initial playthrough and my appreciation for it has grown. I imagine it will be on my ballot for the Top 50 IF Games Of All Time for a very long time.

One of the best games I've ever played. It was fun, a good length without overstaying its welcome, light-hearted and humorous while still being challenging. Loved how it seemed like a goofy game at first, but then you discovered there was more to the story than it first appeared. The interaction between the characters, and how you could switch which one you were "controlling" was clever and I loved how the limited verb set didn't feel too easy.

One of the few IF games that I know I'll play-through again for the shear enjoyment of it.

ADDENDUM: As of the 10/01/20 this is still my favorite IF piece of all time.

Forgive me, it has been several months between playing this game and writing this review so I can't remember all the details, but what has stuck with me is that I didn't care for it much. The fact that (Spoiler - click to show)the game starts in one place and then you never go back there, and instead are playing somewhere completely different threw me for a loop. I didn't think that the puzzles were set up well (I had to cheat several times and when I found out the answer to several problems I knew that I was unlikely to have ever figured those out on my own because they didn't really make sense). I also think that some of the characters' abilities should have worked in ways that the game didn't allow only because that wasn't the right answer. My favorite part was the ability to switch between phone lines to control the different characters. Clever and decent effort in the classic style, but in the end just not for me.

This isn't really a game, but a short story (or medium-length story, I think it might have taken me 2 hours to play through) that is very engaging and makes clever use of the mechanics of Twine to make you feel what the main character is feeling (like when (Spoiler - click to show)you click on a word to choose your path and the word changes in the updated text). The ending was both great and heart-breaking.

ADDENDUM: The more I get into IF and also away from the idea that all IF should have "gameplay" elements the more I appreciate this piece. It is primarily a linear story, but one that makes use of the interactive aspects of IF very well. Will be on my Top 50 ballot for a long time.

I really enjoyed playing through this game again this year (after having played, but not beaten it back in the 1980s). Yes, I understand how the phrase "Zork hates its player" came about, but at least because the tasks are compartmentalized and getting back to where you last were doesn't take more than a few minutes that it doesn't feel like a major setback to blow yourself up when you weren't expecting it. I had fun puzzling through everything (or at least most things, I had to cheat to figure out (Spoiler - click to show)the secrets of the egg) and even making the maps on my own, though I can see how those can become tedious as well.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed myself and look forward to picking up Zork 2 and 3 for the first time ever, soon.

A somewhat interesting, if fairly cliched, short story in a barely interactive shell. Many of the choices aren't really choices, just ways to expand the text. Also, the setting is totally unnecessary. It doesn't need to have a magical setting, seeing words like MagiCorp (or whatever it was) thrown in there to explain away things that don't need explaining away was just distracting.

Feels like someone programmed a weird dream they once had into a short game. It was just odd and I didn't find any meaning in it. I think there was a glitch in it if you don't go in a certain order, or maybe it was caused by playing through a second time without restarting the game, but it felt like the game assumed you would go through it from A to B and only explained the first part of B in part A, so starting with B as you are allowed to do is confusing.

Kind of an interesting premise, but in the end it is just a quick 15 minute game where nothing really happens. Your choices don't feel like they make any difference. Certainly not as good as "Eat Me".