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A babel fish puzzle, October 6, 2012I played Murphy's Law for the IFComp, so a couple of the minor problems I had may be worked out in subsequent versions.
This game reminded me of some old school Infocom in a good way. The descriptions are relatively terse, but the author did a great job implementing pretty much everything described,(Spoiler - click to show)(except for the robbers in each corner of the bank) and little details abound. The writing is full of very subtle humor; your goal is to pay your last mortgage payment so you will own your house free and clear. In the process of doing so, things go wrong, and the whole affair becomes more complicated. It reminded me quite of bit of BUREAUCRACY, the infuriating puzzler by Douglas Adams, but isn't nearly as complicated as one would first think given the concept. I was never unsure of what to do except during one major bug:
(Spoiler - click to show)
>get in car
You get into your station wagon.
>close car
You close your station wagon.
>start car
You'll need to get inside first.
>get inside car
I only understood you as far as wanting to get inside.
>enter car
But you're already in your station wagon.
>start car
You'll need to get inside first.
>put keys in ignition
You put your keys into the ignition.
>start car
You'll need to get inside first.
>enter car
But you're already in your station wagon.
>get out
You can't get out of the closed your station wagon.
>start car
You'll need to get inside first.
>open car
You open your station wagon.
>start car
You turn the key, but the car only makes some pathetic whining noises before falling silent.
This type of game setup is a classic babel fish puzzle - All you have to do is press the button to get a babel fish, but it falls through an unseen grate. Blocking the grate causes cleaning robots to steal the fish...and so on. A simple task turns into a picaresque affair.
That said, I didn't think the game went far enough with it's machinations. There is one timed puzzle (boo!) at the beginning where you can die. The finale seems to set up an uber-puzzle that is thrown away by going nowhere. (Spoiler - click to show)You stand in a relatively short line at the bank and when you get to the window, masked men enter and stage a robbery, setting up would could be an intricate DOG DAY AFTERNOON type scenario, with four guards each in one corner of the bank, prompting me to think I would need to work out a four-way manipulation puzzle, or that each one would need me to do something for them to give up on the lead robber - IE the situation is rife with possibility and I could see how your mounting frustration through the game could wind up in a comic catharsis as you attempt to thwart the bank robbers...(Spoiler - click to show) but all you need to do is wait and the robbers are paid, they leave, and the bank continues normal operation. Even if this resolved as it does, I would have loved to have seen the bank teller report "All our money and paperwork is gone, so I can't do anything with your payment..." sending you off on another branch of the adventure, perhaps to a wacky post office. As written seems just a tad short and anticlimactic. However, I thought the denouement was great and just right, I just wasn't *frustrated* enough by the game for it to pay off like it seems it should.(Spoiler - click to show) The protagonist is pretty unfazed by this, and I believe the "frustration" is supposed to build up in the player. If there had been a little more backstory about how you've grown to *hate* this house and through the process something better had opened up, say a way to escape to the robbers' hideout in the Cayman islands with your wife and live happily ever after...or something.
That said, it's a great short game that shows promise and has lots of room for expansion into a moderately longer game.
