Magic Travels

I don't think anybody will like this.

You see, the writing's okay, but that's only from the author's point of view.

And I'll bet nobody will get the Enchanter spell references and the reference to H.P. Lovecraft's writing.

This one is a failure.

This is probably the shortest IF game in existence. It has fewer options than Aisle; it takes less time than other one-turn games like Pick Up the Phone Booth and Die. Unfortunately, it doesn't compensate the player for either of these two restrictions. The writing, while satirizing well-known IF games and H.P. Lovecraft, does so in an over-the-top pulp style that's old hat. The endings seem tacked on and gauche; the most interesting thing is the whole setup, and as a result, the game is barely worth playing.

Some will complain that this game is not valid IF, but others have said the same thing about other one-turn joke games as well. You do have an option (singular) which gives you interactivity, although a very small amount of it. Magic Travels is best enjoyed as a satire about IF and common IF themes. It's not especially thoughtful satire, but what were you expecting? On the plus side, even if you hate it, it's very short.

Magic Travels is a program which dumps the short transcript of a fantasy text adventure game to your screen, kills you, then asks you if you are okay with that. The author's self-proclaimed goal is to have the game play itself, but there's no model inside ala Progress Quest. The implication is that the joke is at the expense of Interactive Fiction that's not very interactive. This subject is viable comedy fodder, but as per Mister Nose's Big Red Button, the execution is not good, resulting in a flat joke and lack of insight. The problem is the fake transcript itself. It's a hodgepodge of aimless non-sequiturs and Enchanter jokes. Some of the latter I recognised, and in the case of others, I'll take the author's word for it that they are indeed Enchanter jokes. This is all the content there is, and it doesn't change from one play to the next.

At a stretch, I could interpret the game's final question to the reader as representing the disdain of uppity authors for players who don't like their non-interactive interactive works. At least that idea is funnier than the transcript itself. I'll admit that the outro phrase raised a smile, though: "The game has completely and utterly stopped."

This game is not in any real way IF. Mainly because it's not interactive. The whole game is this: You die. Your one choice: Is this okay? Either way, the game is over. It's a bit more than that, the death is described in a matter of turns in an IF game, with the actions supplied by the computer. Would have made a better joke in a blog then as an actual "game".