The Argument

This is not a good game. It is almost certainly written by someone who has never written IF before, and it was presumably not beta-tested: as evidence, I point to the woeful underimplementation. In addition, there is nothing for the player to do. The story, about a man who has argued with his wife, tells itself as you walk through the rooms and examine the few objects that the author has bothered to implement. You end the piece by picking something up.

So, the basic criticism is: there is nothing to do. Nothing.

And yet. The plot revolves about a revelation, namely, what the argument was really about. The player may understand this anywhere between the first and the next-to-last room, but the careful reader will notice that the protagonist/focal character has already understood it when the game begins, but isn't quite ready to admit it to himself. So what we are witnessing here is one of those quiet moments when you let something sink in.

Of course there is nothing to do. We're watching something sink in.

That still doesn't entirely convince me that this piece is better as IF than it would have been as traditional fiction, and it certainly doesn't excuse the sloppy implementation. Still -- as an attempt to render a rather subtle state of mind, it deserves some credit.