The Basilisk and the Banana

This game was entered in the Text Adventure Literacy Jam, designed to introduce newcomers to the genre.

It was co-written with a kid, who has provided the art for it, which gives the game a pretty awesome feel. I especially enjoyed the lettering on the parachute.

The game is well-fit for an introductory game, with good programming, a generally easy but dramatic set of puzzles, and a lot of humor.

The plot is a bit silly so some things didn't make much sense, but I don't think 'makese sense' was high on the list of priorities here; it seems like 'have fun' and 'be cool' were higher priorities, and it succeeds at both of those.

This game has a really fun and simple premise. You are Hermes and you need to deliver a letter to your father, Zeus. It’s a colourful and enjoyable Adventuron game with hand-drawn illustrations and styling that fits well with the Ancient Greek theme.

The tutorial is great and very straightforward - it’s an easy-to-follow introduction to all the basic commands and commonly used shortcuts. The game also makes good use of a fairly limited parser, sticking to basic verbs and simple noun-verb commands throughout. The only slightly uncommon verb (WEAR) is fully explained in the tutorial.

For me, this game is pitched at exactly the right level for TALP. When I first started out in the world after the tutorial and could seemingly go anywhere in any direction forever, I was a little worried the map was going to be huge. However, the story quickly limits the player’s movement and the game becomes a simple and fairly linear (but still very enjoyable) adventure.

The only time I got stuck was when I couldn’t find an item and didn’t seem to be getting any help with it from the in-game hints (you need to be in a certain location to get the hint you need, which doesn’t make much sense). I was able to find the hint I needed for this by looking through the comments on the Itch game page, but there is also a walkthrough provided.

It’s solidly coded (I only came across a couple of tiny bugs) and well written. A very good addition to the TALP canon.

BaB is certainly a catchy title: two words beginning with the same two letters, not obviously related, but you get to wonder how or why they might be. It also foreshadows that some of the puzzles will be surreal and silly, and they are, but they don't feel forced.

And it works quite well, as a father-and-son collaboration. We've seen them before, and I think that sort of cooperation works well for instructional games. The child doesn't understand coding yet but has an idea of what they want to create, and the adult maybe understands coding but is frustrated they don't have any cool ideas, or maybe they've forgotten one from the past. So the adult in essence gives a tutorial to the child, and then they collaborate on what to give to the player. So there's always a checkpoint of "why are you doing this" that the developers have to pass, and doing so makes things clearer to the reader. And these games are generally quite fun, as even if there is a hole in them, we think, well, I'd have been proud to write something almost this good when I was younger. Or have someone help me. Or, well, help my kids if I had them.

And it is a really good fit for the competition, too. You are Hermes, and your first task is to find two sandals that will help you fly around to deliver a letter to Zeus. Of course, it's for him, so you'd better not read it. I like this sort of riff on mythology. This groundedness reminds me of that passage in Amadeus where Mozart says "Come on now, be honest! Which one of you wouldn't rather listen to his hairdresser than Hercules? Or Horatius, or Orpheus ..." The next bit, while amusing, is not kid-friendly.

Delivering the letter runs into problems, of course. A flash storm lands you on an island where you solve some puzzles that feel standard for text adventures. They're mostly GIVE X TO Y type puzzles. There are hints, and you can evebn CALL ZEUS if you get stuck. A minotaur blocks your way, and of course, you need to figure what to do with the basilisk. If you know your mythology, you'll have a good idea, but I thought the fight was well-done as it used Adventuron's graphic features effectively. It just felt like the sort of coding project that's perfect for a kid but satisfying to solve at the end, especially in a comp where instadeaths should only happen if the player really, really tries.

The hand-drawn pictures are pleasant, too, and that's always a nice feature of Adventuron. They're whimsical without feeling lazy, and for me, seeing the room change when you take an item never gets old. Perhaps there's a part of Young Andrew who's still wowed at how Sierra did it and how it's easy to do now. That part of me is also wowed that you can change the font from Sans Serif to an ancient Greek style with FONT in BaB. Yes, even though I've known about fonts for 25 years now. There's still magic in there. Maybe it's the Inform programmer in me, who is generally just happy to use bold and italics. But I like these small aesthetic touches that maybe can be done just as easily in CSS, but it's cool a text adventure language lets you do something with a wave of your hand.

Overall, the silliness works without overwhelming. You always know what you need to find, both the enemy and an item. But that also got me in a bit of a problem. The game encourages you to look everywhere, and I had a tough time at first finding the banana because (Spoiler - click to show)bananas grow in tropical climates, and you find one in some snow. Perhaps I’m at fault for overthinking or not lawnmowering as diligently as I should.

Any absurdity you may have worried about is explained at the end as you wind up meeting a few more mythical beasts. Adults may guess the misdirection here. I've seen it in other games. But I think it worked very nicely, despite my knowing, like a surprise party you know is going to happen, but the recipient deserves it.

BaB felt like a near perfect fit for the competition and one of the most replayable. There were some cases where I hit on solutions and got whisked to the next room before I poked at everything I wanted to, which is one of Adventuron's foibles, but hey, TALP games should push you forward quickly to encourage you when you do things right.

(This review was originally written in May 2024 during the jam. I edited it post-comp.)