Cryptozookeeper

I've been reviewing the Introcomp version of Cryptozookeeper for SPAG somewhat more than a year ago. And yeah, it was like meeting one's old pals from school to find all the aspects I criticized in the demo unchanged in the full version.

The utterly unfair opening puzzle, for instance, still lurks there, unchanged. Fortunately, it's the only specimen of the kind - once you get past it, you can count on being treated more or less decently by the game, although the puzzle quality varies. For the most part, puzzles don't get in the player's way, except for occasional stalemates. In most cases, one just needs to pay careful attention to the descriptions to get out of such impasses. There was a verb guessing puzzle, and another one that seemed to solve itself without any efforts on my part (at least, I never understood how it worked), but both were optional. On the other hand, at least one puzzle was of top-notch quality; sadly, it was also the only one I didn't solve on my own, which is even more a pity, since, as it turned out, I was on the right track and just didn't realize it due to a lack of attention and patience.

The conversation system, too, remained as awkward as it was in the demo version, requiring the player to re-type the dialog mode activating command after each move, and to leave the conversation mode to look up the topics available. This awkwardness is accentuated by the fact that conversations are often used as plot advancing triggers, and this fact isn't concealed too well. This creates rather mundane action chains for the player, who has to go through a prescribed list of topics till (s)he hits upon the one that makes the story go on. (And yes - there were countless situations in the game where I badly wanted to discuss a certain topic with other characters, but this topic wasn't in the list).

Speaking of unnecessary mundane action sequences - I can't slide round the DNA combining process in this respect. This needs some explanation. Well, a large part of the game consists of the PC collecting DNA samples from various animals and then mixing pairs of them in a strange contraption to create cryptids. The contraption has two receptacles to hold the samples, and a button to start the process. Each receptacle can only hold one sample, and one has to remove and put them into the receptacles individually, so that it takes the player three to five moves altogether to perform a mixing. Just why not make a special command like "mix smth. with smth." that'd handle all these trivialities automatically?! Compared to that the fact you can pick up the activation button of the mixing machine and carry it with you is a rather minor issue.

Considering there are ten and dozens of DNAs to mix in Cryptozookeeper, and my moaning in the previous paragraph, you might be surprised by the fact that I did my best to try out every possible combination of the DNA samples while playing. The reason? Well, the aforementioned drawbacks weren't the only things the full version adopted from the demo; it also took over the splendid, characterful writing. Even more important, Mr. Sherwin managed to keep its level consistently high through the whole story - a remarkable feat, considering the size of the game. Thus, any successful DNA combination resulted in a reaction that was an adequate reward for the previous turns of mundane object juggling. Similarly, every cue of the PC's companions in distress justfied the agonizing topic-hunting preceding it.

The strong aspects - the writing, atmosphere, and character development - don't just redeem the game; rather, they prevent the player from paying attention to any weaknesses and disputable decisions of Cryptozookeeper. In addition to the ones already mentioned, I'd add to the latter the plot holes and the RPG elements. I won't say anything else about the plot holes, except expressing my firm belief there must be quite a lot of them, since the plot is kept pretty vague all the time. My unwillingness to expatiate about them has in a less degree to do with avoiding spoilers, though - the main reason is, I didn't have any chance to concentrate on them while playing, and didn't have any wish to do so afterwards. As to the RPG elements, they are optional for the most part, so that the player can more or less regulate how much of random fighting (s)he is having; on the other hand, there's still that scene towards the end of the game, where you just have to lean back for twenty or so minutes and watch an ongoing battle inactively. And yes - I didn't mind; it all was for me, as a Russian saying goes, like moles on a dear face.

Summing up, I'd say Cryptozookeeper is by no means a perfect game, but it has everything to make you fall in love with it.