Trapped in a One-Room Dilly

Baf's Guide

An entertaining diversion--you're trapped in a room with a whole slew of complicated objects, and the goal is to get out. Demonstrates some of the possibilities of the one-room approach--there are quite a lot of puzzles, for instance, as objects turn out to have more and more complexities over the course of the game. It's not quite as elegant as it might be--the room feels like an overstuffed attic, crammed with gadgets and toys, and it's easy to lose things in the shuffle--but it's still nicely done. One amusing touch: a bookshelf filled with books with plots that explain the one-room premise (e.g., alien abduction, mad scientist, etc.).

-- Duncan Stevens

>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

OK, probably the first thing I should confess is that I'm not hip enough to know what a "dilly" is. My handy dictionary suggests that it means "something remarkable of its kind" -- their example is "a dilly of a movie." Somehow I don't think that's what's meant here. So, judging from context, I'm going to assume that "dilly" means "relatively enjoyable puzzle game with good coding and writing, but a few guess-the-verb problems and sometimes not enough synonyms implemented." If this is what dilly really means, then Trapped In A One-Room Dilly has the most accurate title of any game in the 1998 competition.
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