Sylenius Mysterium

Baf's Guide

An ambitious effort that didn't get pulled together in time for the competition (and has never gotten cleaned up). For the first half, you're a teenage video game junkie wandering around a mostly deserted mall, and things work fine, though it's a bit unexciting; mid-game, you become the protagonist in a real-time video game. There are no graphics--everything's described in text--but the real-time aspect is badly broken, and as far as I can tell the game's unfinishable. The mall segment, if you want to try that, is very thoroughly done--lots to ask NPCs about, lots to explore, etc.--but that's about all there is here.

-- Duncan Stevens

>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

It seems to me that text is good at certain things and so is graphics, and to make a text version of Pitfall makes about as much sense as a joystick-and-fire-button version of A Mind Forever Voyaging. It's great to know that the z-machine has realtime capabilities to produce a text arcade game, but surely those capabilities can be put to better use.

SM does have a prologue which operates in a traditional text adventure mode, and this section of the game is quite well-done, with the exception of a number of problematic bugs. The game does a very nice job of defining an engaging and convincing setting and characters, as well as creating a sense of nostalgia for the old gaming consoles. The Atari system was my first introduction to videogames that could be played at home, and I have many fond memories of days spent at friends' houses playing Missile Command or Donkey Kong or Pitfall. In fact, the game evoked nostalgia so well that my disappointment was all the sharper when I realized that its "arcade" section was nothing more than realtime text.
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