Speculative Fiction

In this game, you play a wizard commanding a crow familiar. It is one of many long games set in a Zork/Enchanter-like world with light-hearted but increasingly difficult puzzles (such as Frobozz Magic Support, Augmented Fourth and Risorgimento Represso). In these games, I usually start out delighted, and solve some puzzles, then slowly get weary of it and give up, turning to the walkthrough and enjoying the ride. I think that one reason they lack the magic of Zork or Enchanter is that those old games had a real sense of decay and loss around them, and of personal growth. It's like the difference between milk chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate: a little bitterness goes a long way.

Anyways, this game is great for having its own magic system, for for allowing you to beat the game with only having solved 4 out of the big puzzles, and for making the first four easy. I smiled at the first bank puzzle. The last 3 puzzles and the endgame involve the old standbys of alchemy and complicated machinery that you have to experiment with.

Overall, this game is better-written and more funny than Frobozz magic support, and its two-tiered puzzle structure makes it more accessible and likely to be beaten than most such games, so I think this will be my go-to game to suggest to people in this sub-genre.

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