The Most Valuable Card in the World

First of all, I love Glumpus, and I would never let anything bad happen to him.

Well-written interactive fiction generally makes the player think "that description makes sense, I can see that object." One of the many routes to making great interactive fiction is to make the player think "Wow, that description makes sense, I want to see that object." Room descriptions, item descriptions, and action descriptions fit together here to create a sense of grounded whimsy. Nothing is absurd for the sake of being absurd; things are mundane to an absurd degree. There are so many pitfalls with comedic writing and the only one I can fairly accuse TMVCITW of is that there's some slang that's going to sound out of date within a year. Maybe sooner.

My playthrough took around ninety minutes. Backtracking was abundant and the game is good-natured about it. I stooped for hints once or twice, and by accident, got myself into the alternate ending the first time round. I ran into no significant implementation issues, and the game bends itself backwards to be polite, in a way that comes close to being cloying but never quite bothered me. The game's in on the joke. It wants you in on the joke too.

Puzzle design is a mixed bag. There are some classic archetypes, a few very practical, think-through-the-logical-ramifications-of-physical-qualities puzzles, and one or two that I found completely off the wall. But to the work's credit, I'm always left thinking "That makes sense, in its own way", and not "never would have thought to try that, not sure why it worked".

The writing, as mentioned above, is generally very good. It delivers the comedy and doesn't overstay its welcome. In one case, good writing completely saves a plot device that would be tiresome in almost any other title.

Everything comes together pleasantly. A minor annoyance struggling with a verb, a poorly cued puzzle, or a joke that doesn't land can sour me on a title quickly- but nothing here does because there's always another joke around the next corner, the puzzle is generally funny even if I couldn't make head nor tail of it, and the game goes out of its way to help me along with things that might involve struggling with the parser. It wants to be enjoyed, not fought with. I had a great time.

Exciting news, folks – it’s time for our third and final (at least for now) installment of:

Wait, Did I Beta Test This?

Yes! Just a month or two ago, so I actually remember doing so fairly well! God is in his Heaven and all is right in the world, nice work chaps, we’re all done here.

…

Oh right, the review. Knew I was forgetting something!

The Most Valuable Card in the World is a big comedy parser-puzzle adventure that’s at once highly traditional – like, read that description again and tell me if it reminds you of one or two other games you’ve played – and novel, incorporating some unique mechanics and centering on series of swaps that sees you upgrade, step by step, from what’s basically the worst Pokemon card imaginable to the eponymous treasure. It’s cavalier about killing off the player, especially in the opening, which can occasionally threatens to feel annoying – except those death messages are written with such good humor, the ways to avoid them are eminently logical, and a quick UNDO will get you back on the right track in a jiffy. There are some tricky puzzles – you’re going to need to push items from one location to another, and a simple X OBJECT won’t always tell you everything you need to know – but the clueing is very well tuned (and the hints are clear and always available), making them satisfying to solve.

For all the above seeming-contradictions, I was able to get a handle on Most Valuable Card in the World rather quickly. The chain of trades provides a clear, compelling structure to proceedings, and actually helps orient you towards what puzzles in the medium-sized map you should be solving next by providing a rough dollar value for each card you find – typically you need to be moving up step by step rather than leapfrogging. The authorial voice is also consistent and confident, managing to cram something funny into basically every sentence without seeming like it’s giving off flopsweat. Like, here’s a quotidian description of pushing a shopping cart around:

"Screeeee! Screeee! One of the wheels on this cart is so non-functional that it might as well be a cube of rock. You power through at the expense of the already damaged floor."

That made me smile, and it’s just the baseline of enjoyment that the big-swing jokes and set pieces push still further. Some of the more traditional puzzles are lampshaded, the supporting cast are an endearing set of weirdos, and the descriptions of what happens once you actually start throwing down in the ersatz Pokemon game are lots of fun. Most Valuable Card in the World isn’t my favorite story about a wildly-improbable sequence of escalating barter – the laurel goes to Gamma World RPG session I played in where I was able to parley an irradiated can of baked beans into part-ownership of the bombed-out remains of Powell’s bookstore – but it’s a heck of a close second, a real gem from this partnership between an enthusiastic neophyte author and one of the most seasoned implementers in the business.