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Game Details
Language: English (en)
Current Version: Unknown License: Freeware Development System: Inform 6 Baf's Guide ID: 1328 IFID: ZCODE-1-001218-DDAF TUID: c6x835i6o9zqfc59 |
Awards
Nominee, Best Individual NPC - 2000 XYZZY Awards
22nd Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2011 edition)
32nd Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2015 edition)
Editorial Reviews
Baf's Guide
-- Emily Short
Brass Lantern
Although the puzzles present almost no challenge and the plot is rather thin, the game is worth playing, if only to experience the interesting format. As a game, it falls flat, but as an experiment, I would say that it succeeds. (Alex Weldon)
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IF-Review
Don't Put Me On Hold
FailSafe is not a conventional work of IF, although I'd hesitate to label it as `experimental.' It's not an experiment -- the departures it makes from the `standard' model of IF are all carefully chosen for their effect in presenting the story, such that it is the story and the world behind it, rather than any kind of `gimmick', which dominate at least my memories of the game. (Adam Biltcliffe)
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Jay is Games
Big game developers spend enormous amounts of time and money developing concepts that can reel players in like squiggling little fishies. And here Jon Ingold does it with a few lines of text and a whole lot of intrigue. (John Bardinelli)
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SPAG
This is possibly the strangest piece of IF I've ever encountered...
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Member Reviews
| Average Rating: Number of Reviews: 10 Write a review |
Most Helpful Member Reviews
Suspended's cynical little brother, January 11, 2010Fail-Safe is very short, and as mentioned elsewhere, does not permit saves or restores, which is less painful than it might sound. Once you have figured out the basic plan of the game, you can quickly get back to the part where the crucial decisions are made (and where the game's black humor really shows itself). You'll definitely want to replay a few times to make sure you get all the endings. At one point, there's an unfortunate guess-the-verb problem, but for the most part Fail-Safe is entertaining, well-written, and definitely worth playing.
Intriguing experiment in player-narrator relation, February 10, 2011This is impossible to discuss without spoilers, so I suggest you play it before reading on.
(Spoiler - click to show)Fail-safe has an unreliable narrator. Not just that, it has a narrator that actively tries to trick the player (or rather, the narratee) into forming a wrong idea about the world. If she does form the wrong idea, the narratee will take an action that will be great for the narrator but disastrous for herself. The puzzle consists in the player (a) finding out that the narrator is lying; and (b) responding with an appropriate double bluff. Great stuff that I would like to see explored further in a more substantial game.
Innovative and Polished, July 9, 2010See All 10 Member Reviews
If you enjoyed Fail-Safe...
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Recommended Lists
Fail-Safe appears in the following Recommended Lists:intriguing games i want to play by vincent
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My list for best sci-fi games has grown too large again, and so I'm splitting it off again. This list only includes games whose primary action is off-planet, or which feature exploring an unfamiliar planet, or which feature...
my favorites by namekuseijin
Everyone got theirs, here are mine. They're in no particular order and feature varying difficulty and/or size. Every single one is great. I also have my favorite authors and I'm biased towards their IF. Good thing this is my favorites...
Polls
The following polls include votes for Fail-Safe:Best sci-fi games by Ant-Fan
I'm looking for games from the sci-fi genre. I would prefer classic-style games, even if they're not classics (such as 'Across The Stars') because one of my all-time favorites is Planetfall, but really, anything goes.
Best Short Games (5-60 minutes) by Sasha Davidovna
I'm pretty new to IF and am having a lot of fun, but in between a toddler and a job and other real life stuff, I'm having trouble finding time to finish many of the longer games I want to play. Can you please recommend me some fun and/or...
No map necessary by Divide
Pieces which can be fully enjoyed without drawing map, ideally without taking any notes whatsoever. Ones which you could play on a bus, on a break, laying on bed, etc. with nothing but a portable player. Games for which you don't need...
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