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The Dreadful truth is, this is not a dream, November 24, 2010The title of this review is the default response to >WAKE UP. It's also the response this game gives. Okay, okay, the description of the game was dream-like, so that doesn't mean it's a dream.
>F***
Real adventurers don't use such language.
Am I an adventurer, or was this response never updated?
The reason I question this, is because you start in a dog house (with a dog in it). This gave me the impression that I was a dog. (Especially since I seem to want to get at that bone behind the sleeping mastiff).
Am I a dog? The game does not say so. (>X ME... As good-looking as ever!) The default responses imply no. I found one response that mentions fingers, so maybe I'm not a dog. However, leaving the doghouse is futile- I can see a swirl of leaves and eventually I am forced back into the doghouse.
One one hand, the writing is provocative, the leaves in particular. (They swirl around, getting me lost when I try going somewhere which is not north. However, perhaps UP and DOWN should have gotten different responses, as I suppose trying to enter the solid floor would not have failed only because of a swirl of leaves around me).
The game includes no hint/help/about file, which makes it difficult to see what to do. The only objects to be interacted with are the sleeping dog and the bone behind it. The bone you can't get, and the game warns about waking the dog (and ">LET SLEEPING DOG LIE" does nothing either!). Certainly "Violence isn't the answer to this one.". The tagline of exploration seems misleading, as there isn't much area to explore here. If I'm a human, why do I want a bone or to be in a doghouse? I'm pretty sure I'm not a dog too.
The game tells you that there is unfinished buisness in the dog house, though most interactions with the dog yield the same (or a default) response, there is no inventory, and many verbs you might think exist do not. (Don't expect to whistle or call to the dog).
With very little implementation here, I got frustrated after a while, and gave up. The writing here implies that the author put some effort into this, and it might be a simple guess-the-verb issue: including hints or a walkthrough could clear that up. Maybe it is supposed to be a dream. Maybe there's nothing to do here after all.