Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe

Note: This review was written during IFComp 2024, and originally posted in the authors' section of the intfiction forum on 26 Sep 2024.

This is an ambitious but well written parser game, that immerses you in a complex story spread across different time zones, uncovering a mystery involving Edgar Allan Poe, plus musings on the nature of writing, authorship, and identity.

The two time zones are the present day and 1849. The former episodes are a series of vignettes, light play throughs, with little in the way of the puzzles. The 1849 scenes, by contrast, are a much more sprawling puzzle based world to explore. Which gradually opens up, as you get further into the story.

The way the world is expanded organically by the game as you play is one of its neat tricks. I also greatly appreciated the journal system, which automatically keeps tracks of the clues you find. In the absence of any scoring in the game, that helps give you a sense of progress. Because you know the total number of clues available to find from early on.

Many of the game’s interactions involve conversing with NPCs and showing them objects you have found. This works well, and the game has some neat in built techniques to keep it smoother, for example suggesting topics you might talk about.

I did occasionally have some fight the parser moments, which was a shame. But in such a large game these were few and far between. And it otherwise felt very smooth.

I also struggled a little with unfamiliar words in places. I sometimes have transatlantic challenges with IF. But I was not expecting to be puzzled by (Spoiler - click to show)gibus or (Spoiler - click to show)toper. Admittedly very much of their time. But I did need to google for those.

The absolute ending was great, but I found the toing and froing re reveals before that overly complex. Partly this is me, struggling to keep up with (Spoiler - click to show)who was who and what was going on. I wonder if a slightly simpler resolution might have been better. At least for this concentration challenged player!

However overall I loved it. I only needed to look at the walkthrough occasionally, though I used the built in hints a little more often. But I had a marvellous time playing, and felt totally immersed in the world.

Best of all I really want to learn more about Edgar Allan Poe’s life story. So that’s something to follow up. I have enjoyed many of his stories, in print or movie version. Now I think it’s time for me to learn more about him. Thanks to the author for some post-game leads to follow up on this topic.