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Pick Up the Phone Booth and Aisle

by David Dyte, Steve Bernard, Dan Shiovitz profile, Iain Merrick, Liza Daly profile, John Cater, Ola Sverre Bauge, J. Robinson Wheeler profile, Jon Blask profile, Dan Schmidt profile, Stephen Granade profile, Rob Noyes, and Emily Short profile

Satire
2001

(based on 106 ratings)
12 reviews

Game Details


Awards

Nominee, Best Use of Medium - 2001 XYZZY Awards

Editorial Reviews

Baf's Guide


Take the structure of the poetic and experimental one-move game Aisle, combine with the premise and stupidity of the one-gag game Pick Up the Phone Booth and Die, and add a liberal sprinkling of in-jokes and references to other games. The result: self-indulgent silliness. Sample quotation: "Pants? What pants?"

-- Carl Muckenhoupt

SPAG
The result is one of the most side-splitting things to ever be uploaded to the IF Archive. Not only do we see the two games mentioned above being ripped to shreds, there are more inside jokes than you can shake a stick at. This has Sins Against Mimesis beaten hands down.
-- Adam Myrow
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Member Reviews

5 star:
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4 star:
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(31)
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Number of Reviews: 12
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Most Helpful Member Reviews


15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
The Gateway Drug of IF, February 20, 2008
by Michael Martin (Mountain View, California)

Despite being admittedly wholly self-indulgent and packed with in-jokes, this is actually the work of IF that I've had the most success evangelizing with. It's a one-turn game, so there's no investment of time, the large development team means there is an enormous amount of widely varied responses are available, and a half-dozen or so players each on their own copy will end up bouncing off one another's attempts and - in some cases - actually working out a lot of the basics of IF interaction on their own. It's one thing to read up on how to give commands to NPCs in the standard IF idiom; it's another thing entirely to be rewarded by five or six new endings for ordering the booth around.

And even if they don't, a lot of the in-jokes are pretty funny even without the context. I approached this game entirely ignorant of the newsgroups and the general community in question, and not only did it enthrall me for hours, I laughed until I cried at least twice.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Hilariously nonsense, witty, free-roaming fun, August 7, 2008
by Maze (Rome, Italy)
Related reviews: one move

This is one of the games you just download and keep there forever, to give it some more try. One turn (yep, it's a one move game), and then fun ensues. And, other than an "ending", you also get an "ending title" which is overtly funny by it's own.
The guys (and girls) that did this not only have a great nonsense of humor (i felt some heavy Monty Python nostalgia here), but they're also very intelligent. Mix the two: you get a blast. Or better: a one second blast (you won't need much more time to reach an "ending").
Only thing that disappointed me: the beginning ends with "a shiny metal booth sits in the center...". But there's no "Booth, stand" command!!! :-D

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Oh so silly!, November 2, 2010
by tggdan3 (Michigan)

First I played pick up the phone booth and die. As I began to play this, I had no idea how there could possibly be so many authors. What did the original take, like 10 minutes to program?

But then I tried it. Of course, the responses to the old game's commands were here, and silly. (This game assumes you played the other). Then there are endings for just about whatever you do (or at least whatever I tried to do).

The writing is very clever (and some reminiscent of Monty Python!). What's nice is it's a game about PLAYING, and not WINNING. Just go out and see what they thought of, and what the responses are, instead of trying to get ye flask or finding the torch room, or SUVEH TIA ANI MATO... instead it's just a nice little game to play with, I'd give it my vote for IF game that most resembles a Flash Game you would find on addictinggames.com.

My only regret is that it didn't seem to understand "Dial".

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Pick Up the Phone Booth and Aisle on IFDB

Recommended Lists

Pick Up the Phone Booth and Aisle appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Best of Comedy by Cryptic Puffin
IF comes in many packages, from sci-fi to fantasy to surrealistic, but it's my opinion that the best of them all come in the form of comedies; is there anything better than adventuring and laughing at the same time? The correct answer...

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These are games that can generally be completed in 30 minutes or less. Some can be completed much faster. Included in this list are games that have multiple endings that can individually be reached quickly. It also includes several Twiny...

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Polls

The following polls include votes for Pick Up the Phone Booth and Aisle:

This Is Who We Are by Sam Kabo Ashwell
A considerable number of games exist largely as the commentary of the IF community (or some subset of it) upon the medium and the community itself. These works are likely to be befuddling to outsiders, but provide windows onto blah blah...

One Room Non-Escape Games by tggdan3
I'm looking for a one room game, where the purpose is NOT to escape that one room. (Eliminating games such as Enlightenment, Suveh Nux, 69,105 keys, etc). I'm not sure if there even ARE many such games, but I would be interested in...

No Mazes, please! by AndyC
I am a returning player to IF (which I loved 30 years ago) having recently discovered the fantastic Frotz for the iPad. Looking at some of the old games again has really blown me away. I don't enjoy drawing maps but I love reading good...

See all polls with votes for this game




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