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Review
Pogoman GO! was written by the winners of the 2009 IfComp and the JayIsGames Casual Gameplay competition (one where heavyweights like zarf and Stephen Granade entered).
From any other authors, this would be an impressive game, but I ended up disappointed. This game is intricate, well over 100,000 words of code. It has dozens of locations, an intricate minigame with many characters and a combat system, and a well-thought out plotline. Tons of little fun response are added, and so on and so on.
So what's not to like? First, it's a parody of a flash-in-the-pan social event that was already outdated when the comp started. It's an in-joke that's not 'in'.
Second, it parodied the most annoying parts of the original: crashes, grinding, pop-up achievements, etc.
Third, the 'good part' that comes after the parody part is itself somehow dissatisfying, as if the beta testers didn't get to it themselves. There are good puzzles and interesting locations, but the cluing is off.
The cluing and storyline both suffer from the zaniness of the game; it introduces humorous elements, but fails to integrate them into the internal logic of the game. The solution may be funny, but why is that the solution out of all solutions that should work?
This is a lot of complaining, when the truth is that this is mechanically one of the best games of the last few years, and most people should have a good time with it.
