In the End

SPAG
It's a mood piece, with a brooding atmosphere, which starts at a funeral and doesn't get much more cheerful. The quality of writing is exceptional - possibly the best I've seen in IF, and certainly the best of this year's competition.
-- John Wood

All things considered, this was an interesting experiment, but, even ignoring the guessing puzzles, it was also very short, and didn't quite convince me of the feasibility of larger puzzle-less I-F games.
-- C.E. Forman

If you can make a complete story out of fragments, then you and "In The End" will work out nicely. However, the point of IF is not to hand the player a bunch of fragments to sort out, it is to place a complete story in the hands of the player.
-- Chris Klimas
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>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

Hmmm. The first character I’ve been totally unable to identify with — the author shows us an interesting world with friendship, intellectual interest, potential for love, and incredible technological comfort, and wants us to believe that the foremost desire one could have in this world is for suicide. I just can’t buy into the idea of convenience creating a lethal level of ennui, if indeed this is the reason for the main character’s suicidal urges. I’m reaching, because no good reason is given.
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Top Expert

While several reviewers attempted to meet In the End where it was [...] it is mostly forgotten today. Nevertheless, because of the conversations that Mason and his work promoted in the wider community, the concept of "puzzle-less" IF became a more and more pressing question of craft. IF without mechanical problems remained controversial for years [...] Even if In the End cannot be considered a success in terms of audience appreciation, it served to launch and further vital investigations into unexplored possibilities in interactive fiction.

Less discussed, but just as important, is Mason’s focus on the interior life of the protagonist of In the End. There had been few–if any–excursions into the interior lives of characters suffering from what seems to be severe clinical depression. Mason may be even more of a trailblazer in this regard, as it is quite common to see contemporary authors explore the interiority of characters, mentally ill or not. Deemphasizing the Zorkian world model of things created space for the treatment of subjective experiences. While Photopia absolutely does explore the emotional lives of characters, its success is ultimately of a different kind.