Order

SPAG

You are a spirit summoned from another place to help a group of wizards, properly armed with the power of creation. [...] I eventually understood the real idea behind the PC from the context of the introduction, death, and success messaging, but I would *never* have tried some of the creation suggestions in the hint menu because they seemed so inappropriate to the game world.
-- Carolyn Magruder
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SPAG

It seems that with Order, Mr. Evans has finally managed to restrain his own creative power, and to produce a game of an appropriate size for the Competition, which is quite playable (and winnable!) without a walkthrough. But the best news is, although the obscurity had to go (being replaced by sense of proportion), the nifty ideas stayed! [...] There was, however, a much more serious problem: it appears that the author was so thrilled by implementing the main gimmick he more or less neglected most other crucial game aspects.
-- Valentine Kopteltsev
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SPAG
If you aren't feeling this jaded you may enjoy bits of Order. Then again, you may not.
-- Dan Shiovitz
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>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

At this point, I feel like I could really save myself a lot of time and energy by just writing up a template for reviews of John Evans games. The basic gist of the template would be "This game has some cool ideas and a lot of potential, but it's not really finished and it seems untested, so it sucks." Then I could just fill in the blanks with some specifics about the game, and be done. Evans has submitted games to the last five IF competitions, and they've all fit this mold, so why shouldn't I just keep writing the same review over and over again? I kinda have to.

I mean, I guess they're improving. The first couple (Castle Amnos and Elements) were way too big for the competition, and that problem got corrected. Unfortunately, it got corrected by switching to total unfinishability due to scores of heinous bugs. I gave a rating of 1.0 to Evans' last couple of games because they were just totally incomplete. Order isn't as bad as that. It's the right size for the comp, and it is finishable. But it is still not finished.