Intelligence

Intelligence is an object lesson in polish. Fundamentally, it's closest in kinship to Kinophobia by Bruno Dias or Jeremy Johnston's The Roottrees are Dead, albeit with a fraction of the objectives of either. As a mid-level military intelligence officer, you are tasked with deducing the fate and location of eight human starships, as well as seven alien assailant vessels. So far so good, but what makes this game truly shine is its presentation.

Intelligence is neither parser nor choice-based, but is presented as a star map stretching from Earth to just beyond Saturn. Progress is made by inputting data into a variety of tools (telescope for coordinates; engine signature analysis for electromagnetic traces; etc. etc.), and comparing that against archival info to deduce the characteristics and current status of each unknown ship. If that sounds boring to you...well, it might be, but I found collecting and logging each new scrap of info riveting, in a way that typing "hit goblin with sword" has never done for me.

I'd be remiss not to call specific attention to the game's visual design. Fully graphical IF is already a rare treat, and Intelligence may be one of the most striking; classic sci-fi with elements of modern computer-aided astronomy. I find that some games trade a more traditional UI for slick graphics and lose the sense of playing as a beleaguered underdog, but Intelligence keeps just enough clunk and clutter to feel like the player is fighting against a system that doesn't want them to find out more. Which, of course, is a polite way of saying "you can neither resize nor move the text windows, and if you have more than two of them open at a time it looks like a productivity tool designed by Satan," but I interpreted that as part of the challenge.

There's a (non-IF) game called Stellaris; a grand strategy RTS that, in gameplay, isn't really my thing, but I keep coming back to it because the atmosphere is so captivating. Nearly every campaign, while my contemporaries are researching new ways to blow me to smithereens, I find myself glued to the archaeology track, colonizing just far enough to get first dibs on digging up ancient technology spread across the stars. Then, of course, one of my well-armed neighbors usually decide my society needs liberating from the primitive throes of democracy, and all of my piddly scout ships get turned into expensive space trash. Intelligence scratches the itch I keep looking for in Stellaris, without the keyboard abuse that usually follows.

There are gripes to be had, sure. Veterans of the deduction game genre may find Intelligence a bit too easy, because I thought the difficulty was just right. The progressive hints feature is nice, but I think the gap between the penultimate tip and "here's the full solution, you big dumb baby" is a little broader than it ought to be. Finally...there are minigames. You can turn them off, so it feels unfair to rag on them, but they range from "kind of clever, once or twice" to "there is no way organizing rocket fuel is part of my job description."

While I'm complaining about things, I suppose I should mention that the plot of Intelligence isn't exactly revolutionary. I found the background details interesting, lots of corporate outposts with knowledge they really shouldn't have and research stations with their funding mysteriously slashed after a breakthrough, but the main twist is a bit of an an eye-roller. (Spoiler - click to show)Turns out, the aliens are only attacking because humanity wantonly destroyed one of their defenseless colony ships. As reveals go, it's only slightly less predictable than "they were secretly humans all along."

Nothing I mentioned in the last two paragraphs actually reduced my enjoyment, though. Intelligence is so good it makes me want to break IFDB's policy on profanity, just to emphasize how much I love it. If it weren't for the ego boost I get from seeing "2 people found this review helpful," I would have written nothing here but "game gud go play it," and that would have probably been a more accurate depiction of my infatuation with this title. I only wish there was more of it...(Spoiler - click to show)and maybe a different ending.