Murder at the Aero Club

>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

My first clue was a line in the banner: "(With apologies to all real-life characters and Government organisations upon which this is based!)" Do I detect a faint scent of "in-joke game"? Of course, the dead giveaway came when I encountered a character with the same name as the author. So assuming that "Penny Wyatt" isn't a pseudonym, or that it's the pseudonym of somebody who really does belong to an Australian aero club, I'm going to venture the hypothesis that this is one of those games where the author implements some familiar setting and characters, drapes a little concept around them, and then releases it to the world. It's a close cousin of the "implement your house" and "implement your job" games: the "implement your hangout" game.

The vast majority of the time, games like this are vastly entertaining to the lucky few who are acquainted with the people and places represented, and irritatingly baffling to the rest of us. Murder At The Aero Club is no exception, though its competent prose and the presence of an actual story (albeit minimal) render it a cut above many.