Serving Your Country

Entered in the ifLibrary's competition for 2003, this game bills itself as a work of Adult Interactive Fiction. I don't play many such games, but I thought that I would try this one since it was part of a mainstream competition.

Alas, it suffers from many of the things that put me off of other AIF games: not the presence of sexual content, but the absence of much else. Room descriptions are sparse to the point of non-existence, which is a pity; I've been told to investigate this man's home for evidence of certain shady dealings, but there doesn't seem to be much for me to pick through. Where objects are described, their descriptions are likewise brief: one frequently has exchanges of the type,

On the table is a glass.

>EXAMINE GLASS
It is a very fine glass.

>EXAMINE TABLE.
The table is exceptionally well-made and luxurious.

Everything is given this same gloss of vague luxury, not specific enough for me to envision it. (Which seems odd to me: if this is a game aimed at providing/evoking a, well, sensuous experience, I would expect it to be more vividly descriptive of the sensual enjoyments at my PC's disposal, whether or not they are sexual. But no matter.)

What made me actually quit the game, though -- or rather, fail to restart -- was that I got to a point where I was doing something that I thought was going to get me closer to the revelation of the mystery, and it turned out to result in a total loss of the game. Moreover, it was an action that I thought was one of the main goals of this particular genre. So, as a player, I felt rather cheated; I didn't know what I was supposed to be trying to do if that wasn't it, and I gave up rather than try to guess what was in the author's mind.