External Links

picket.dat
data file
Requires an AdvSys interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
picket.exe
MS-DOS Application
picket.sol
Walkthrough
1req.txt
Readme
handbook.doc
author's notes

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The Land Beyond the Picket Fence

by Martin Oehm

Fantasy
1996

(based on 2 ratings)
1 review

Game Details


Awards

14th Place - 2nd Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (1996)

Editorial Reviews

Baf's Guide


A child's request that you recover a lost toy leads you into a whimsical little world inhabited by a mad scientist and a greedy gnome. Not difficult, but charming in its way.

-- Carl Muckenhoupt

SPAG
The world itself is far more Carroll than Tolkien, and the difference shines through (though there's nothing inherently wrong with traditional I-F fantasy as it currently stands). The perfect length, nice prose, a couple of clever puzzles, and a surprisingly good parser and DOS-based game engine.
-- C.E. Forman
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SynTax
Although the scenery and items in PICKET fluctuate wildly between the mundane and the magical (a scientist and gnome apparently co- exist quite happily as neighbours), the writing is quite descriptive, and the author successfully maintains this rather odd atmosphere throughout the game.
-- Bev Truter
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SynTax
The game has only a few puzzles and none of them are extremely difficult. Only one of them near the end had me worried for any length of time. The game has been translated I think from Swedish, but I found no spelling mistakes and only one bug involving the swan. This did not detract from the game or make it impossible to finish.
-- Peter Clark
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>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

Picket is a gently whimsical fantasy without much of a plot, whose main interesting feature is its interface. [...] It provided a pleasant hour’s entertainment, with a few jarring moments where the prose deviated from standard English. All in all, an enjoyable if unspectacular game.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A great little nugget of a homebrew parser. Small fantasy land, July 5, 2017
by MathBrush
Related reviews: 15-30 minutes

This is how homebrew parsers should be; and it makes sense, coming just 3 years after Inform was created and making new parsers was less intimidating.

This is a compact fantasy world, with only 7 or so locations. It has a gnome, a toadstool garden, and a mad scientist. It has good cluing, and fun, open mechanics including potions/chemicals you can try on things (nothing complicated).

The only thing I found difficult was that one important room exit was only mentioned once, in one event, with no way to read that text again once it scrolled back. So its important to read everything carefully.

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The Land Beyond the Picket Fence on IFDB

Recommended Lists

The Land Beyond the Picket Fence appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Best fantasy games by MathBrush
These are my favorite games that include some sort of magical or fantastical element. Games with mostly horror or sci-fi elements are on other lists, as are surreal games, fairy tale/nursery games, and religious/mythological games. I've...




This is version 6 of this page, edited by Paul O'Brian on 5 May 2022 at 2:02am. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page