Barry Basic and the Speed Daemon

Winner of the 2022 Text Adventure Literacy Jam, and it's easy to see why. Solid implementation, generally intuitive puzzles on a nice difficulty curve, a charming NPC (the fairy), and a surprisingly elaborate story about three gamedevs going inside their game. I preferred Barry Basic's previous adventure (Barry Basic and the Quick Escape) as unlike that one, Speed Daemon is extremely linear: solve a room's puzzle and the exit to the next room will open, repeat ad nauseum. A large chunk of screen estate is given to a map which is frankly unnecessary given the lack of free movement, I would have liked some contextual pictures in addition to the character portrait: especially as some of the descriptions were hard to visualize (the (Spoiler - click to show)tunnel/vent/bulb puzzle in particular). As a tutorial game it works great, lots of help available from NPCs and the in-built hint system (integrated into the story). Overall, it's a good time despite these annoyances, and despite a few bugs ((Spoiler - click to show)I broke the slider puzzle: somehow ended up with the same word on two rows).

This game has the same storyline shown from multiple points of view. As you complete an easy one, a harder one unlocks. In an amusing twist, the 'help' system for each difficulty level is the PC of the next difficulty level. It's an adventuron game, and comes with a built-in map.

Each difficulty level is linear, solving one room at a time before unlocking the next room.

I found the puzzles pretty hard as the game went on. The first difficulty level wasn't too hard, but I couldn't figure out the wordplay puzzle in the second difficulty without the walkthrough (I had tried (Spoiler - click to show)GLASS and 4-letter words without success). I also had deep trouble with the wire problem, especially since the solution relied on a word not in the verb list, and the cake puzzle, well, I'm not sure how it worked even after the solution. This isn't bad, necessarily, since being stuck is a feature of puzzles, but I definitely did get stuck; other reviews say they had no problems in this game so it's probably just me.

Overall, the game was entertaining. I would have preferred some simultaneous puzzles so I could work on one while being stuck on another. I found the writing was clear and set the scene well in most problems.