An Open Field

This game begins with an abundance of purple prose and/or spartan implementation. You are lying down, but you can't get up. You have a basket (which contains things) yet you can't open it. You can't move in any directions, so you're left to just try things at random until something happens. That's annoying. If there are preferred courses of action, it's the designer's responsibility to guide players towards them -- unless ticking off the player is the point, and this game isn't purposefully one of Those Games.

I eventually gave up trying to guess what I was supposed to do next, because the game just didn't have enough hooks to keep me interested. It was missing foreshadowing, clues, plot, and had very little emotion. I realize that sounds harsh, but it's more a statement said with a sigh than a landscape-wasting nuke. Maybe taking a look at how stories work and why they work will help for the next effort.

Finding what was meant to happen was a bit frustrating. When most of it relied on noticing things and not everything listed in a room was described, it was rather jarring. The flow of the story and small similarities between scenes makes me think the author meant something profound, but I couldn't say what, and for it to have more effect I would want more information or attachment to the character.

I think I only got through one spot without being terribly frustrated is that I (Spoiler - click to show) regularly >x me as a reflex. I was disappointed in the ending that was more prose than further action. It was okay for a first game, but I would not replay it, nor recommend it to anyone.