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Showing All | Show by Page - Jonathan Verso, August 2, 2023
>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction
You've already overcome dozens of obstacles, collected lots of treasures, and scored 240 points out of 250; now there's just the little matter of getting past a canonical troll bridge and scurrying out of the caverns with your loot. But how? In the game's words:
If only you hadn't used your Frobozz Magic Napalm on that ice wall...
If only you hadn't used your TrolKil (*Tm) to map that maze...
If only you hadn't sold your Frobozz Magic Tinning Kit.
If only you hadn't cooked and eaten those three Billy Goats Gruff...
... or that bear ...
If ONLY you'd checked the bloody bridge on your way in.
This brief excerpt is representative of the writing in the game: it is both a very funny parody of the Zork tradition as well as an enthusiastic participation in that tradition. In fact, as you can see from the above quote, the game actually features some familiar parts of the Zork universe, such as Frobozz Magic products, rat-ants, and even certain slavering lurkers in dark corners... Sly allusions and in-jokes abound, but they're never what the game depends on, so if you don't catch them, you're not missing anything important. Of all the one-room games I've seen this year, Enlightenment is definitely the best-written.
- Edo, March 31, 2022
- William Chet (Michigan), July 19, 2020
- Zape, April 28, 2020
- mrfrobozzo, July 25, 2017
- Christina Nordlander, June 17, 2017
- Audiart (Davis, CA), February 27, 2017
- Xavid, December 7, 2016
4 of
4 people found the following review helpful:
A hilarious and difficult game for Zork/Adventure/Enchanter fans, February 3, 2016In this one-room, complicated game that upends IF conventions, you must extinguish all of your many lightsources to let a grue eat the troll blocking your way.
Adventurers may recognize the lantern from Adventure and Infocom games, the elvish sword from the Zork games, and the amulet from Spellbreaker. There are several other lightsources to deal with. Other items from Infocom games include the stock certificate from Zork III (I think), the grue repellent from Zork II, Zork III, and Sorcerer; the screwdriver from Zork I; and many others.
This game is hard. Like many others, I played for over a half hour without extinguishing a single light source. But once you start to get a feel for the game, it gets better and better. Because of an early experiment, I got the wrong idea about one item and never solved one of the harder puzzles on my own.
I recommed trying to get half of the points before using a walkthrough.
- dosgamer, April 10, 2015
- Thrax, March 12, 2015
- Lorxus, April 20, 2014
- lisapaul, January 14, 2014
- nf, November 4, 2013
- N.C. Hunter Hayden, October 25, 2013
- Indigo9182, August 14, 2013
- Jim Kaplan (Jim Kaplan has a room called the location. The location of Jim Kaplan is variable.), June 11, 2013
- DJ (Olalla, Washington), May 9, 2013
- DAzebras, April 22, 2013
- loungeman (Bilbao, Spain), May 30, 2012
- Mr. Patient (Saint Paul, Minn.), April 5, 2012
- Muskie, August 13, 2010
- schifter (Louisville, KY), July 21, 2010
2 of
6 people found the following review helpful:
Illogical Yet Immersive (For Masochists Only), January 1, 2010As others have noted, the writing is top-notch and places the player in a believable penumbra of the Zorkian universe. The over-the-top humor is also well done. The first glaring problem, however, is that the PC's actions and restrictions just don't make sense. Adventurers are known for trying all sorts of things in order to solve puzzles; it's their nature. Thus, the game fails right from the outset with a PC that is effectively straitjacketed.
The responses are entertaining -- at first, until they become tiresome and opaque. Apparently the puzzles depend upon doing random things until you figure out the secret parts of various objects that allow you to solve them. I say "apparently" because after 100 turns and still not a single point, I gave up in frustration.
Beyond the mindlessly illogical PC, the unclued nature of the puzzles, and the ridiculous catch-all behavior of the troll, there's not much to really set apart Enlightenment as a game. Don't misunderstand -- the writing is excellent, but the game mechanics are not, so as a game, Enlightenment just doesn't deliver the goods. I suppose you could spend an afternoon banging your head against the wall, but why do that? If you need to resort to hints to get even the first point, you might well love this game. Me, I'm not in favor of games that frustrating.
Enlightenment is basically for masochists only.
- perching path (near Philadelphia, PA, US), December 19, 2009
6 of
7 people found the following review helpful:
Well Thought Out, Poorly Implimented, December 8, 2009First of all, I love the premise of this game. You are already finished with an adventure in the underground, bundled up with light to avoid (grues) and there's a troll guarding the exit. To defeat him, you must turn out all the lights so the grues will eat him.
Sounds great, right? Problem is that the puzzles have seemingly random solutions. I like games like this, but when I was forced to look at the hints and say "Um... what?" I knew the game had problems.
For example, you have to target pieces of items that are not adequetely described. The size of items is not described and is relevant. One puzzle didn't make sense even after I solved it. (It makes sense, but I still don't see how I was supposed to guess it.) And guessing is the key to solving the puzzles.
I like the concept, and the writing is solid, but keep in mind, you'll be finding yourself typing "put all in [x]" just to see what fits where. And don't be surprised if things that should work just don't.
- tinroof, October 12, 2009
- GDL (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), July 30, 2009
- Stephen Gilbert (Canada), July 24, 2009
- googoogjoob, May 20, 2009
- Wesley (Iowa City, Iowa), September 1, 2008
- tylluan (Vermont), August 24, 2008
- Anders Hellerup Madsen (Copenhagen, Denmark), July 21, 2008
- dfreas, July 1, 2008
12 of
12 people found the following review helpful:
I hate to be contrarian, but..., June 6, 2008This game seems to be quite well-regarded by many, popping up in conversation fairly frequently despite having been released way back in 1998 by an author who has not to my knowledge done any IF work before or since. I wish I could say it impressed me as well, but it left me rather cold, both when I first played it back in the day and now when I return to it.
It certainly does have its strengths. The premise is that you are at the end of a much longer game, faced with solving the last few puzzles to escape a (if not The) great underground empire. This "ending of an (imaginary) longer game" riff is an idea that has been used several times since, to the point that it's become a bit cliched, but I can't hold that against this game. The writing is both technically proficient and generally clever, if unoriginal, being a rather slavish imitation of the "high Infocom" style. Technically, the game is also worthy of Infocom, being polished and bug-free.
But then we get to the puzzles. They're difficult. Very, very difficult, at least for me, and difficult in all the wrong ways. I don't see myself ever solving this without just trying random actions for the hell of it -- not really my kind of fun even then and certainly not now. When I give up on a game and go to the hints, I am guaranteed to react in one of two ways: either to be angry at myself for failing to think about THAT, or to be angry at the game for not playing fair. Suffice to say my reaction here was always the latter. Its worst sin is a failure to properly describe to me essential properties of objects that I need to be aware of to solve its puzzles: one object is sharp enough to be used for cutting, but I am never informed of this; a couple of others' sizes are of critical importance, but said sizes are never described; etc. It's a pity, as the central thing you are trying to achieve, and from which the game takes its name, IS clever and DOES give you a nice Ah-ha! moment when you figure it out. Unfortunately, solving the meta-puzzle just opens the door to lots of fiddly, under-clued frustration in trying to enact that solution.
I'm probably the wrong audience for this game in the end, which is why I'm not going to blast it too badly in scoring it. I'm just tired of puzzles that are an exercise in patience and frustration, and Infocom homages are not really what I'm looking for in my IF these days. If you do carry a hankering for the old-school days of Zork, though, and want to really be challenged, this may be right up your alley.
- Dave Chapeskie (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada), April 23, 2008
- Orthos (London), March 10, 2008
11 of
11 people found the following review helpful:
Nails that classic Zork feel..., March 10, 2008I knew I liked Enlightenment right from the start. Sure, Taro Ogawa (the author) has appropriated just about every last detail from the Zork universe, but he does it so well that you can't help but forgive him. This game is not just fan-boy homage or unimaginative plagiarism, this game is something new that was lovingly crafted using familiar elements. This game is Zork turned up to 11.
As in Zork, the game's terse replies are just encouraging enough to get you to continue for another few moves even when you feel stuck. Perhaps it's because this game emulates that iconic look-and-feel so well that I had the patience to keep trying after nearly an hour of play without a single point scored. Yes, there is that much non-essential material to keep you busy, with many jokes to discover, footnotes to unlock, and interesting-but-not-useful things you can do with the assortment of equipment you start with.
The game's title is well-chosen; once that first point is scored, they become easier and easier. For the last few turns of my game, everything fell into place, and I felt I truly had achieved enlightenment.
The game's end notes state that this piece is actually 19K larger than the original Zork I. I am surprised, but not too surprised. No course of action seems inherently off-limits or "wrong" for this game -- a difficult-to-achieve perceptual illusion that is no doubt the product of vast amounts of coding work and exceptionally careful playtesting on the author's part. Mr. Ogawa is to be congratulated for having pulled it off.
Enlightenment is a one-room game that you wish would go on to "feature length." Though Mr. Ogawa seems to have never produced another piece for public release, I sincerely hope to see more by him in the future.
- flatluigi (Massachusetts, USA), March 6, 2008
- J. Robinson Wheeler (Austin, TX), February 22, 2008
Baf's Guide
A real adventurer never passes up a magical light source with unlimited power, but when darkness is desirable, all those extra photon producers can become seemingly-insurmountable obstacles. A fun one-room Zorkian game with difficult but solvable tinkering puzzles. Features adaptive hints.
-- Carl Muckenhoupt
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