Forbidden Lore

(based on the IFComp 2024 version)

You’re in your grandfather’s library, looking to bring his studies into the arcane to an end, and carry out the implied task that reveals itself through the research.

When entering the library, I had expected it to be the starting point of an oldschool quest to the Illuvian Empire. It soon became clear that, aside from a few short magic-teleportations, the bulk of the game is the library.

Instead of grand halls, twisty little passages and ever-winding corridors to navigate, you must make your way through the shelves and heaps and stacks of books and tomes. Instead of using a compass-rose to traverse a map, you must sift through layers of implementation during your search for the necessary bits of information and, to prepare you for what may come, for sources of magic to enhance your powers and protection.

This design makes Forbidden Lore a bit of a textual hidden-object game. Most libraries in IF-games have a few books mentioned by title, signalling that those are the important ones. Here, the books named in the first layer of description, upon X BOOKS, comprise but a small fragment of the total of books you need. You’ll need to examine separate sections of shelves, individual thematic categories in the bookcases, parts of parts of parts of the library.
There’s at least one game-critical non-book object in the room that is hidden in a similar manner. I only stumbled across it buried in an object-description while fastidiously examining all the nouns. ((Spoiler - click to show)The armchair is standing on a rug.)

Now, I enjoyed this. Digging through layers of description and finding new books to read, and then trying to infer what to do with the information I learned was fun for me. However, I would have liked it if the nouns were a bit more distinguishable: in place of expecting the player to X BOOKS ON DESK, it would have been easier to find the right command if, instead of another pile of books, there had been only rolls of parchment on the desk, enabling X ROLLS.

The few trips outside the library are welcome intermezzos, they open up the space of the game and cut through the catacomb-like feel of that single book-filled room. The final such outside trip leads to the endgame, and it was there that I felt let down.

The player’s expected to enter a bunch of commands that were not foreshadowed enough or introduced in some sort of training-wheel circumstances. After checking the walkthrough, I did think : “Oh, yes, that was mentioned in one of those tomes I ploughed through in the beginning.” The amount of references and information in the books makes it difficult for that one particular piece of knowledge to stick though, especially without a chance to practice beforehand.

I also noticed more disambiguation failures (“Did you mean the (Spoiler - click to show)shrine or the (Spoiler - click to show)druidic shrine?”) in the endgame, which makes me suspect this game was finished while Mr D.E. Adline was looking over the author’s shoulder.

I really liked the detailed library search, the hints and glimpses of ancient history, exotic cultures, powerful spells in the myriad of tomes. Player-friendliness could be improved by clearing up unintuitive commands and more obviously distinguishable nouns.

Good game.