Guess the Verb!

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- Roundrat, February 13, 2020

- Möwe, November 28, 2018

- lkdc, February 10, 2017

A frustrating but rewarding mix of 5 mini games, June 8, 2016
This game has some great content, which makes it a real shame that it is covered with an impenetrable shell of obnoxious obstructions.

The first puzzle is a huge issue. Solution: (Spoiler - click to show)There is a quarter shining machine that is completely useless, and a weird box behind the tent where you have to turn off one switch, so that the announcer's criteria for a shiny quarter turns to just shiny or quarter..

Once you get past that hurdles the central conceit of the game is genius. There are 5 mini games that you can get sent to, each with a different concept. They all have one thing in common: (Spoiler - click to show)the word that the wheel landed on is vital to the mini game..

The mini games are varied, with a couple of fantasy games, a few sci fi, and a real life game.

- Adam Biltcliffe (Cambridge, UK), May 10, 2015

- Thrax, March 11, 2015

- Lisbon, February 19, 2015

- Sobol (Russia), September 12, 2014

- grainne6, October 28, 2013

- Christina Nordlander, July 25, 2013

- DJ (Olalla, Washington), May 9, 2013

- Floating Info, April 5, 2013

SPAG

Despite the problems I had with the puzzles and the walkthrough, I did find this an interesting diversion. I think it might be interesting to see some expansion on this game, some more involved scenarios, in a post-comp release that didn't have to fit a 2-hour limit, but even as is the game is worth a look; if nothing else, if you don't get a scenario you like, restoring to right before you choose is easy enough.
-- Tina Sikorski

>VERBOSE -- Paul O'Brian's Interactive Fiction Page

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: Guess the Verb is fun. In fact, I'll go even better than that: Guess the Verb is great! I was quite worried when I saw the game's title, fearing that I faced another Annoyotron, or at best a riff on the Textfire game Verb!. What I got instead was a highly enjoyable comp game that I'm eagerly looking forward to revisiting after the judging period is over. What a bargain! For one thing, the game is just screamingly funny. In fact, even the meta-game materials are hilarious. Not two minutes after loading up GTV I was giggling like a loon. My wife walked past and asked, "Good game?" "I haven't even started the game yet!" I replied. "I'm just reading the instructions!"

SPAG

I laughed out loud at several parts of this game. The author's spoof "Introduction to IF Concepts" is particularly silly, and shows that this game is not for newcomers to IF at all. The intended audience is anyone who spends a lot of time playing and writing Inform programs and programming in general. Someone like the author, most likely. At one point, one NPC remarks accurately that the game might be getting a little too self-referential, which may limit its potential as a Work of Art, but does gives scope for a lot of knowing in-jokes. To be fair, there is also plenty of other humour spoofing funfairs, parenting, B-movies and so on.
-- Cedric Knight

- PNervous, July 7, 2012

- Mr. Patient (Saint Paul, Minn.), June 24, 2012

- zylla, May 21, 2012

- Sam Kabo Ashwell (Seattle), April 16, 2012

- E.K., January 27, 2012

Robots, scientists and evil wizards , May 6, 2011
What more can you ask for in a game but robots, scientists and evil wizards combined into a single game?  Very little.  The name of the game "guess the verb" was very unappealing to me, and likely the reason I kept putting this game off.  It sounded like some of the games which are so poorly developed that you have to enter "scale cliff" instead of "climb cliff".  Or it looked like those horrifying high school tests asking you to come up with as many similar verbs as possible. Anyhow though, due to some of the good reviews, I decided I'd give the game a shot-a long shot.

Well it wasn't at all like the scenarios above, and in fact I found it had very little to do with guessing verbs at all, or really for that matter carnivals.  It was one of those things which have very little plot or story direction, but somehow I didn't question the writing or the time I spent playing it.  It was well worth it.  There wasn't really time to get bored with the story, as the story twisted and turned surprisingly quickly.  That mixed with the witty dialogue made the experience one of a kind.  The humorous prose was well maintained throughout the story, and i certainly chuckled to myself several times, even in the help files.  (Spoiler - click to show) the bit about the needing the manual to progressing the game (mad scientist) was especially funny

Humor is for sure the prize of the piece, not really focusing on the puzzles at all.  Take it from me, the king of failing at puzzles, they were fairly elementary, generally only dealing with one or two simple tasks to finish.  No confusing maps, crazy objectives or anything.  

What I find really compelling to this game is how it is fun and enjoyable.  Perhaps a starter game for beginners because of the easy puzzles, but also fun for the seasoned professional, who would get more of the IF jokes.  Recommend it?  I'd go even a little further than recommend it.
It lacks story, characters and difficulty but somehow it works.  Bring on the stuffed aliens.

- tggdan3 (Michigan), December 1, 2010

Don't be scared of the title. It's misleading, anyway., December 1, 2010
Some smart-aleck was eventually going to riff on the IF trope in the title name, and I'm glad it was someone clever. GtV isn't a long game--the central joke would grow old--and it's not tough, but you can extend the experience by examining everything and rifling through hints of problems you've solved. I haven't seen anything this odd that actually worked in text adventures since _Nord and Bert_.

As an 11-year-old lost at a fair, you find a robot named Lalrry who will let you Guess the Verb for a shiny quarter. You have a dull one, and there's a useless quarter-shining machine nearby. Cue the twisted meta-humor to manipulate the genuinely creepy, though harmless, Lalrry. Each verb you guess sends you to a scenarios featuring an evil wizard, a mad scientist, a dwarf, a spaceship and the author himself, in a particularly metafictional computer lab. The last one actually works.

You're not really guessing the verb in these. You just need to find where to use it. You even help some poor souls who can't quite guess their own verbs or solve a puzzle while your nemeses guess theirs.

Given how small the areas are, the puzzles can only have so many solutions, so there's a ceiling to trial and error, unlike true verb-guessing. Still, GtV's effortless surrealism makes the game feel much bigger than its solution, and it may help you laugh off stress in the next game that requires actual verb-guessing.

- Lea, January 15, 2010

- Audiart (Davis, CA), January 8, 2009

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