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Spider and Webby Andrew Plotkin profile1998 Science Fiction, Espionage Inform 6
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(based on 314 ratings)
18 reviews — 414 members have played this game. It's on 309 wishlists.
A vacation in our lovely country! See the ethnic charms of the countryside, the historic grandeur of the capital city. Taste our traditional cuisine; smell the flowers of the Old Tree. And all without leaving your own armchair! But all is not as it seems...
[--blurb from The Z-Files Catalogue]
Winner, Best Game; Nominee, Best Writing; Nominee, Best Story; Nominee, Best Setting; Winner, Best Puzzles; Winner, Best Individual Puzzle; Winner, Best Individual NPC; Nominee, Best Individual PC; Winner, Best Use of Medium - 1998 XYZZY Awards
1st Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2011 edition)
2nd Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2015 edition)
4th Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2019 edition)
3rd Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2023 edition)
Honorable Mention - The Top Five IF Games (Adventure Gamers, 2002)
| Average Rating: based on 314 ratings Number of Reviews Written by IFDB Members: 18 Write a review |
When I first discovered that interactive fiction had started a renaissance of sorts, I was mostly excited about the possibility of playing the old Infocom titles again. I had tried several games before Spider and Web, and, like so many of those before it, this game started out bland and uninteresting. Like the others, it seemed to be the product of someone with far more enthusiasm than skill as either a programmer or storyteller; its most interesting feature seemed to be the title.
Three minutes later, I was surprised to find that this game had a point and was interesting. Ten minutes later, I was awestruck.
I still hold the Infocom games up as the gold standard, but this game was the first I encountered that rated a "platinum" label. Daring in its conception and almost always brilliant in its execution of both programming and prose, Spider and Web shows the true power of the medium. This story simply couldn't be told in any other format in such an effective way.
I reserve five stars for works that are not just good, but that reach the epitome of a particular genre or otherwise earn a "landmark" status. Such works are the yardsticks by which all others are measured. I'm happy to bestow my first five star rating here on Spider and Web for its sheer genius in terms of premise and construction.
Kudos to Mr. Plotkin, who well deserves his reputation as a star in the IF community.
This was my third Plotkin-written game (discounting the Plotkin-starring game I played first, ‘Being Andrew Plotkin’) and I think it’s my favorite thus far. “So Far” was somewhat standard adventure hunt and puzzle faire (at least from a modern perspective, maybe in 1996 it was evolutionary), which was well written but wasn’t very fun for me. Then “Shade” was surreal and technically accomplished but left me feeling very unsatisfying because, ultimately, dream logic is really the absence of logic and Interactive Fiction games suffer horribly if you can’t figure out what the author was thinking.
Finally, “Spider and Web” has helped me understand why zarf is such a popular figure in IFdom. Spider and Web starts with a somewhat conservative opening, a man standing in an alley in front of a door he can’t open. But just as you are about to get bored (which the game figures out by you either standing around doing nothing or simply walking away from the door) you are suddenly blinded by light and find the curtain of the world torn away.
It turns out you have been captured by an organization and have been strapped to a chair to be interrogated. The interrogation is taking place in a unique manner, however. You’ve been connected to a computer which is allowing you to step into places you know from your memory and re-enact the events that led to your capture while your interrogator watches the play from his console. Ostensibly, the ‘game’ is about trying to figure out what you had done the first time around so you can show your interrogator and prevent him from killing you in frustration. The simulation you’re placed in allows you some freedom in that goal, but any time you do something that contradicts the evidence your interrogator has gathered, you are stopped and forced to restart the simulation after being told why what you did doesn’t match the evidence gathered.
Even if that was the entirety of the game, it would be fun and certainly out of the ordinary for the IF games I’ve played. But, naturally, that’s not all that’s going on. (Spoiler - click to show)And about three quarters of the way through the game something happens that changes your perspective on what you’ve been experiencing, bringing some doubt to whether you've been fully honest in your telling of events. Of course, the truth has been cleverly hinted at all the way through the game as well, with clever parser responses to actions that should be standard. For instance, very early in the game you obtain a ‘wrapped package’, but all attempts to open or unwrap the package receive the cryptic response “Not yet.” This does an excellent job of adding mystery to what is going on and make the reveal towards the end so much more satisfying.
The writing in this game is excellent, as is to be expected from Plotkin, so there is little more to say.
The gameplay, while ingenious at times, is a little cumbersome at times too. Much of the game involves meandering around doing things until something triggers your interrogator to intervene and reset the simulation because it didn’t match the facts. Then your challenge is to figure out how what the interrogator said you didn’t do alludes to what you DID do, and then do that.
Okay, that was a confusing way of putting it. Ultimately, it’s trial and error. You do something, like open a door, and then the interrogator yanks you out of the simulation and says something like “No, that door wasn’t opened until after you cut power to the security systems, otherwise the alarms would have gone off.” Then you are thrust back into the game and need to figure out where the security systems are to shut them off. This isn’t an actual scenario from the game, but it gives you an idea of what’s expected of you.
Unfortunately, what the interrogator implies is not always straightforward and I spent quite a bit of time fumbling around trying to figure out what was next. This is exacerbated near the end of the game when the guiding words of the interrogator are absent for a plot-related reason. Also, the end goal of the game, which is to obtain a MacGuffin of some sort, requires a bit of reading between the lines to figure out what exactly it is and what you should do with it when you get it. Unfortunately, I needed a walkthrough in the end to fully figure out what to do in the final few minutes of the game.
Overall, this game is excellent, and does a great job of allowing you to play a very, very intelligent protagonist without feeling as though you’re breaking his character. The story twist is superb, and launches an otherwise average spy story into new heights. Fully recommended.
In high school I was in an abusive relationship; the song "Push" by Matchbox20 resonated with me so much that it became and still remains one of my favorite songs. Is it a great song? I don't know. I only know that it stirs within me something raw and profound.
I feel the same way with Spider and Web when it comes to "The Puzzle." I've been playing adventure games and puzzle games non-stop since I first played King's Quest in 1985 and there is no other puzzle that makes me feel this way. In my first playthrough twenty years ago, it gave me chills. I played it again this week, knowing the answer, and that familiar wave came over me again. I am in love with this puzzle. I want to marry it and have brilliant puzzle babies.
I could try to break down why it gives me all the feels. Perhaps it's the gradual buildup that is extremely well-clued but never obviously so. Perhaps it's the oneupmanship over the interrogator. Perhaps it's the extraordinary gift of getting to play back the entire game in your mind up to that point with the knowledge bestowed upon realizing the answer. Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter. No logical argument will sway my adoration nor my reverence.
For those who are fortunate enough to read this review and have the opportunity to play Spider and Web for the first time, for all that is good and holy do not resort to a walkthrough. If you must, use the Invisiclues linked to on the main page. And be patient with yourself. Let the game play you.
Please don't mistake my adulation for belief in perfection. There are parts I'm not a huge fan of. The gadgets could come with more of a tutorial, especially since our spy is an expert with them. And the end puzzle itself doesn't really fit in with the theme of the rest, leading to a whimper of a conclusion. But our loves don't need aspire to perfection. They just have to sing to us in a way that will touch our hearts and stay there forever.
A futuristic spy story with a highly unusual structure. The bulk of the game consists of flashbacks, as you try to recreate, to the satisfaction of the man interrogating you, the events leading up to your capture. The strangest thing about this is that the protagonist knows more about what's happened than the player does. Gameplay is quite linear, but somehow works anyway (in part because your captor gives you so much guidance). Starts off very forgiving, but ends with a frantic race against time. Nice gadgetry, unexpected twists, ties together in a very satisfying manner by the end. A real gem. I'm still discovering subtleties just by thinking about it afterwards.
-- Carl Muckenhoupt
Adventure Gamers
I personally was let down by the final ten minutes of the game, but the storytelling device up to that point is second to none in its brilliance [...]
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Gaming Enthusiast
Spider and Web is undoubtedly confusing, difficult and unforgiving, especially later, but the more you play it, the more you appreciate the ingenuity.
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IF-Review
A Game Untangled
Despite the linearity of the game, its ultimate meaning is entirely in your hands. Or perhaps entirely in your mind. There are a couple of endgame options -- *important* options, things that sum up the whole meaning of the story -- but you're not told how they play out, one way or the other. You get to choose, but you don't get to know all the final ramifications. People have found this unsatisfying, and griped. I myself found it unsatisfying, and griped. There's something about it that is nonetheless true to morality in real life: not only do we often have to make our decisions blindly, but we cannot always know for certain even after the fact what the outcomes were or would have been.
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Jay Is Games
[...] an absolute work of genius. 'Spider and Web' is about a man who stands in an alley and then leaves. And I'm not telling you any different.
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PC Gamer
An oldie but a goodie, this spy story is one of the most enjoyable examples of unreliable narration, and a story that couldn’t be told any other way.
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SPAG
The experience of playing it is unique and vaguely reminiscent of "1984"--it forces the player not only to accept someone else's account of a certain truth, in this case his own memories, but to replay them in conformity with what he's told--and the feeling is often unnerving. (Duncan Stevens)
The mechanics and prose are, as in every Zarf game, excellent. The one fleshed-out NPC is convincingly drawn, and Zarf's choice to limit conversation with him to "yes" or "no" works well both in the context of the game and as a tool so that the amount of coding is kept to a minimum. The spy gadgets work intuitively and the interface seems very believable. And they're fun to play with. (Adam Thornton)
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SynTax
Personally, I didn't really enjoy this game, but that is a personal response to the game. Technically, it is very good indeed and those who like this sort of subterfuge plot will be in their element.
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Xyzzy News
While the game's turning point has a wonderful "Aha!" quality to it, it's a point that I never would have gotten to without relying heavily on a walkthrough solution. And although the descriptions are expansive, the characters' dialogue believable, and the plot is richly complex, I was left feeling that I could have done without some of these features if only I could have really played more of the game for real, without outside intervention.
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IFIDs: | ZCODE-4-980226-5C05 |
ZCODE-4-091122-FC7A |
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