Academic Pursuits (As Opposed To Regular Pursuits)

This game falls in the middle of the comp’s parser games for me. It’s reasonably well-polished, has a nice slow trickle of information, and has a well-defined progression. On the other hand, it’s fairly linear and could use some more emotional impact. So it was better than many other comp games for me, but it could use more to rise to the top.

In this game, you play as an academic moving into an office. You have a bunch of boxes stacked on top of each other. As you open them one at a time, you have to find a place to put everything. But there’s only a finite amount of room in the office, and a lot has to go into the trash and storage.

The idea of taking things out of boxes one by one and thinking about them while you decorate an office isn’t all that bad, but it’s not exactly action-packed (I say this as someone who wrote a game where you put things -into- a box while thinking about them while moving -out- of an office). The best parts are where you slowly learn more about the character’s background. In that sense, it becomes a mystery puzzle, and that’s completely up my alley.

The one thing that I think could be improved with the parser is near the end when you’re trying to wrap up. The game frequently told me I wasn’t done unpacking when I tried to leave, but all the boxes were gone (when I tried to leave the room). LOOKing usually gave me a hint, so I think if I could ask for anything it’s that the message for going WEST would change after the boxes are gone to give you more hints.

I was happy to play this, overall, and the name makes a lot of sense by the end of the game!

+Polish: The game was generally well-polished.
+Descriptiveness: The writing had a distinctive voice.
+Interactivity: I was able to make plans and execute them, which is nice.
-Emotional impact: The game's big moments didn't land for me.
+Would I play again? Yeah, it's pretty fun!