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Review
This game was part of the Text Adventure Literacy Jam.
It's written in the Thinbasic Adventure Builder, and is quite a bit better of an experience than most Basic-written download-only windows-only adventure games I've played: shortcuts like X and I are recognized, for instance, and there's a character that can move around as well as context-dependent hints.
It's still a bit rough, but I only ran into one or two actions I really struggled with (one of the last actions of the game is to (Spoiler - click to show)POUR VIAL ON PEDESTAL but I kept trying (Spoiler - click to show)POUR MERCURY ON PEDESTAL, POUR MERCURY IN PEDESTAL, PUT VIAL IN PEDESTAL, POUR VIAL, PUT VIAL ON PEDESTAL, etc.).
The map is a bit confusing, especially as magical connections open up that lead in circuitous loops.
Story-wise, you're in search of the elixir of life and have to find ingredients in a monastery. Puzzles typically revolve around getting info for passwords or codes in one room and using them in another (like asking a character about 4 items and then combining the ones they tell you to).
The writing and plot felt very standard Catholicism-influenced fantasy, like the Deryni books or parts of David Eddings, but with a lot of elements that were both hyperspecific and generic. Orders and symbols were alluded to and not explained, characters were introduced but not commented on or involved, and there wasn't a clear progression or escalation of story. All in all, it reminded me of AI-generated plotlines and text that had some human editing mixed in, not necessarily because AI was used (it might not have been), but perhaps because AI was trained on a lot of stories similar to this one.
