I-0

I appreciate the work required to create a non-linear adventure game, and I think I-0 could be a really great game with some more effort, but "sophomoric" is the best way I can describe it.

Probably the game's greatest asset is the humorous nature of its prose, written in an irreverent tone that somehow fits the bratty 17.99-year-old protagonist quite well.

The core mechanic is fairly innovative, in that the player has many potential ways to move to their final destination. But the overall game design is very poor.

After messing around with the game for a while, all of the routes to the destination seem to require hitching a ride and getting assaulted by a rapist/murderer. I agree with other reviewers that this is one of those things you might want to disclose to players in advance.

However, the player can hop into the bed of a seemingly random pickup truck, which turns out to be driven by her cousin and takes her directly to victory -- a total deus ex machina, which feels cheap.

Many visible objects cannot be interacted with; IMO, this is the cardinal sin of most "bad" IF.

On the other hand, there are many unnecessary annoyances and complexities, like having to unbuckle your seat belt and open the door manually before getting out of your car, or having to look both ways before crossing a highway, or having to wait for many turns before a vehicle randomly shows up, or a simple taco restaurant parking lot involving a confusing array of separate locations.

I feel that the core mechanic could be the basis for a much more amazing game in the hands of a writer willing to put in the effort to make it more immersive and less cheap.

First IO and the reviews don't lie--takes a bit to get started but its a fun sotry.

After all I'd heard about this game it ended up not being anything like I was expecting. It is true that you play a 17-year-old girl who can take her clothes off any time she wants, but that doesn't affect game play nearly as much as I expected. In fact, if you completely ignored this option (which I would recommend on your first several playthroughs) then the game hardly plays any differently and only a few of the branches are closed off to you.

This game isn't really a story-based game (there's almost no plot arch) and it isn't really a puzzle game (unless trying to figure out how to accomplish certain task with the parser is considered a puzzle). It is just a trying-a-bunch-of-stuff game, but that can be fun too.

I did have a few frustrations with it, however:
(Spoiler - click to show)
I think the parser's response to certain phrases could have been more robust. There were at least two instances when I typed something (for example: "get out from under car") and the game responded by telling me I had to do what I had just asked to do first (the response was literally "You have to get out from under the car first"). Also, I asked the server to use the phone, got a reply of "sure, whatever" but then couldn't use a phone.

I also hated how much waiting the game required at certain points. Typing "wait" over and over again doesn't make for fun game play.


Overall, fun for 3-4 playthroughs (each only takes 15 minutes or so) to try to figure out how to get home, but not much depth past that.