Last Day of Summer

Whatever effect the author was aiming for in Last Day of Summer, it wasn't realism. That's okay- from the set up I was expecting slightly sentimental magic-realism like in Dandelion Wine. This didn't exactly materialise.

(Spoiler - click to show)I first went east and found a boat that couldn't be untied. Aha! I thought, I will need a cutting tool. Went west and found a knife lying helpfully on the ground. A bit easier than I'd anticipated. Later I find myself in the town. My first playthrough of the game ended prematurely because I'd timed it out using the xyzzy command, so I restarted and did everything as before. An NPC is upset, but its all very vague. I do the rest of the puzzles, which are easy to work out but aren't very realistic (maybe that's the point?). The game ends happily enough and I wonder what the point in all that was. The writing was pleasant enough and everything obvious worked with no bugs (though I didn't really stretch it), but other than that there's not really much to say.

(I should note that to my knowledge this was the game the author used for learning Inform- and there was at least enough promise that I'd certainly play any future game he developed).

Together with Cold Iron, Playing Games, and The Life (and Deaths) of Doctor M, this game was part of a meta-puzzle in IFComp 2011. The idea was that four games would have connections, and by pursuing clues in one, you could open more in the other games.

Last Day of Summer is probably the slightest of the games, finishable in just a few minutes. You have to sell you cranberries, so you go to town. You wander through 5 or 6 scenes, examine stuff, take stuff, etc. It's hard to guess the right verb some times.

The ambiance is charming. Playing all 4 games at once really blends well together (except for Life and Death).