Vacation Gone Awry

SPAG
Feels fairly retro, but not unpleasantly so.
I must acknowledge that Vacation Gone Awry got my attention right away -- but not with the cleverness of its premise or with a nifty hook. No, what grabbed me was the copyright notice, which described the game as "copyright (c) 1988-2002." Not many works of any kind are fourteen years in the making, and IF has a sufficiently short shelf life that putting that much time into an IF game is worthy of note. More to the point, though, the world of IF changed more than a little between 1988 and 2002, and I wondered just how retro Vacation Gone Awry would feel. The short answer: fairly. But not unpleasantly so.
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IF-Review
A Wry Awry
In the end, Vacation struck the proper balance between atmosphere, puzzles, and writing. Released in the latter days of Infocom when it was originally written, it might have been a contender with the commercial game developers of the day. Released today it may not forge new paths on the IF-frontier, but could be an instant classic nonetheless. It is well worth the play.
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