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24th Place - 9th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2003)
| Average Rating: based on 6 ratings Number of Reviews Written by IFDB Members: 2 |
This ifcomp game was a demo for what was apparently a beta parser system (version 0.75).
In this game, you are a cat who helps their owner get dressed and go out, and nothing much else.
The parser is okay, but not equal to inform, tads, or Robin Johnson's parsers. An interesting artefact for those interested in various parser systems.
I'm not sure what to make of this one. The dual point of view is a little strange, resulting in being unsure how to proceed in some of the puzzles.
The writing was okay. Its main strength was the depth of description for a lot of the items in the game, albeit with awkward phrasing and some really poor spelling in some spots.
All-in-all, fun without a lot of depth.
Author Encouragement:
It's cute, and the two-character viewpoint is interesting too. I'd be interested to see this done in a more established system, such as Inform or TADS, but really just out of curiosity.
The concept might be worth exploring as a full-length game, where some actions need to be performed by Alice, and the others by... er, whatever that other thing was. Of course, I think you'd need a definitive way to switch viewpoints, so that if you tried something as Alice and it didn't work, you could switch viewpoints and try with the other character.
Scoring:
W: 2.5
Serviceable writing, a few awkward phrases. This score would be higher if the story was a little more compelling, or had more to it. There were also quite a few spelling errors, the "it's/its" problem, spacing issues.
A: 2.5
Cute, in a brief "Zip! Was that it?" kind of way.
B: 2.5
Didn't find any outright bugs, but a lot of the puzzles seemed to have arbitrary solutions, or weren't sufficiently clued (such as pulling the clock).
E: 2.5
Some fun, but nothing special. It was likeable, but not consistently.
WABE score: 5
A demo program illustrating the capabilities of the parser its author achieved to code. I'd rather refrain from calling this work a game, because it really isn't - the player just has got to dress, and to leave home. Thus, it hardly is going to entertain you, or evoke strong emotions (except maybe for the noble joy about the triumph of the human spirit that has found yet another way to make this stupid piece of iron- and silicon-mongery understand a basic set of commands). The parser itself seems to be adequate, though.
-- Valentine Kopteltsev
>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction
Little Girl In The Big World must be titled ironically, because the game's world is anything but big. It's just five rooms, three of which are pretty much bare. Not only that, the entire thing takes place in a standard house, and leaving the house (to go out into the big world) ends the game. I wish I could say that some interesting stuff at least happens in this little gameworld, but... not really.
See the full review
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