Blizzard Pass

This is an old commercial IF game and is easily one of the most cruel IF games of all time. Many of the puzzles are desperately unfair. After spending about 20 minutes freezing to death in the blizzard, I finally opened a walkthrough and discovered the following first two moves: E, DIG (to find a garlic),

Dig? Why? There's absolutely no reason to dig. Nothing in the description indicates a reason to dig, let alone a reason why you might come up with garlic as a result of the digging. Numerous evil puzzles abound in the game. You will die repeatedly while attempting to solve them. Repeatedly.

So why 3 stars then? Because the game's cruelty is almost fair. The puzzles are so difficult to solve that you begin trying *anything* you can think of. And, yes, that will reasonably include digging in random locations. In fact, if I had been able to save my game using my emulator, I would have spent more time playing this game. It's the type of game that inspires true ambivalence: you hate the puzzles, but love them when you solve them. And despite the sinister nature of many of the puzzles, the game is fun to play and most of the puzzles are fun to solve.

The game is long. Even playing all the way through with a walkthrough in hand took me over 30 minutes. (Okay, I didn't make it all the way through even with the walkthrough. I took one extra action at one point that made the game unwinnable. Have I mentioned that the game is cruel?) Solving it completely may take you a year or a lifetime. But you'll gain eternal bragging rights and the assurance that your intellect is truly superior.