Sylvar

by KrisDoC profile

2022
Donjon

Go to the game's main page

Review

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Cool new system, but lots of rough edges in this brief fantasy game, February 17, 2022
Related reviews: 15-30 minutes

This French IF Comp game has you sent as a spy to an alchemists lair to search for evidence of misdeeds.

You are equipped with a camera of sorts to take images of suspicious things. There are several secrets to find and a few hints of world-building.

This is written in the Donjon language, a native French language alternative to Inform 7 but also done in natural language. The file can be read in plain text, which I had to resort to to solve it.

My experience with the implementation was mixed. Playing IF in a language I'm not completely fluent in is always a challenge. It was hard to tell if something was implemented weird or if I was the one who was being weird.

But here are a few things that I think are definitely the game's issue:
-Several nouns are mentioned but not implemented. For instance, a desk has notes on it, but the game doesn't recognize 'notes'. In the end game, there are (Spoiler - click to show)chains but trying to 'regarder' them or 'prendre' them makes the game confused.
-There's a big issue with the 'taking' code: (Spoiler - click to show)the source code has special results if you 'deplacer' the rug or the alembic, but the game also lets you just 'prendre' those things without triggering the special event.
-Many objects have an adjective+noun name, but you have to type both. I became deeply frustrated with a 'livre verte' because I couldn't P Livre or P Verte.

So, overall, I thought the worldbuilding was cool and the camera device. But the frustration prevented a totally enjoyable experience.

Edit: as a side note, I had a little trouble due to my silly american keyboard not having any accent symbols. I got around it by copying and pasting words from the text, though.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment