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About the Story
Caduceus was written in a day for Event One of the Second Quadrennial Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction, whose challenge was to create a game in Inform 7 with beautiful source code text. The code is written in the style of a rhyming poem. The game it compiles into is limited but playable, and technically also winnable—though it helps to read the code first.
Awards
1st Place, Event 1 - Second Quadrennial Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction
Ratings and Reviews
| Average Rating:   Number of Reviews Written by IFDB Members: 3 |
This game took first place in Event One of the Second Quadrennial Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction.
Entries in Event One of the Second Quadrennial Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction were written over the course of one weekend. The challenge of Event One was to create a game in Inform 7 with beautiful source code text.The trouble is, all of the top-ranked games are unplayable without the source, and Caduceus is no exception. It has two "guess the verb" puzzles, whose solutions make no sense, even in hindsight. (Spoiler - click to show)The gangplank is "fixed in place." Despite that, you have to "push" it. Why? Why do I have to "wave" the caduceus? None of this is explained, even in the source. (Why not "reclaim" the caduceus?)
So how did an unplayable game get four stars from me? Well, the source code is very, very good.
Form follows function, October 26, 2021A game that is functionally unplayable without the source code, for the contest that for which it was designed. The source is lovely poetry and tells a story on its own.
All of the entries in the pretty-code contest have their strong suits, but it's not just that Caduceus' source has a lovely poetic flow to it. The game it creates has a very different, mostly-prosaic vibe to it, while telling the same story with the same terse descriptions.
As a game Caduceus just looks like a short proof-of-concept with a less-than-obvious final move. As source, even the wasted space (such as the adjectives borrowed for this review title) serves a purpose. Top honors were warranted.
1 Off-Site Review
Ryan Veeder's Judgment 9.5 points out of 10
This is extremely clever and I love it. I feel anxiety about awarding a perfect score, and if I look closely I can find enough small flaws to justify an assertion that this Entry is not perfect. Therefore I award Caduceus 9.5 points out of 10.
See the full review
Tags
Game Details
First Publication Date: February 3, 2020
Current Version: Unknown
License: Freeware
Development System: Inform 7
IFID: EBE38820-B683-4063-BA5D-3759CE5647C2
TUID: 5z1avk9srfvgme1s
Caduceus on IFDB
Polls
The following polls include votes for Caduceus:Poem-based games with puzzles/endings by Andrew Schultz
I enjoy seeing people trying to mix poetry and puzzles. Even if it doesn't work, it still is fun to see people try, and quite bluntly, it's brave to attempt at all. I'd like to remove works like Phenomena or 100000 years from...
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This is version 11 of this page, edited by JTN on 29 September 2024 at 12:04am. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page
