The Semantagician's Assistant

The answer is a short but sweet wordplay puzzler from an author who is clearly familiar with many of the amateur era's most famous works.

After playing this one on my own for about ten minutes, I put it aside so that I could suggest it to my play group. We all had a lot of fun with this well-fashioned game that seems to have drawn inspiration from a whole range of titles, but most resembles Counterfeit Monkey (to which overt homage is paid) blended with the array of magical devices seen in Metamorphoses (plus perhaps bits from Junior Arithmancer's framing story, The Impossible Bottle's iconic centerpiece, and the learn-magic-to-escape-the-room structure of Suveh Nux).

The puzzles fall into two main categories: deducing the function of various magical devices and then using those devices to craft the items needed to escape the room. Both of these types were well done. I don't know how long it might have taken me to finish the game on my own, but the group was able to do it in about 45 minutes.

The game is a bit poker-faced in the beginning, though there are definitely clues to get one started. Once the function of each machine is worked out, there is plenty of fun to be had in trying out the various implemented transformations. As with Counterfeit Monkey there are many more of these than are necessary to reach the end of the game, so a good part of the fun is just playing around. The game has no score, and I don't think that there are anything like achievements set up, so this is purely for one's own amusement.

Gameplay was 100% bug-free, and none of us spotted a single typo, so this work appears to have been very well tested. There is still room for improvement in player friendliness, however, due to uncharacteristically finicky interactions in a few places. (Spoiler - click to show)(We must have typed >PUT X ON TABLE a dozen times. It would be nice for this to automatically reroute to >PUT X IN CHAMBER instead of just disallowing it.) If there is to be a post-comp version, then an achievement system might encourage a more thorough exploration of the possibility space that the author has created; my sense is that we saw only a relatively small portion of it.

This would be a great game for introducing people to parser IF if you're prepared to help them get used to the conventions of the command prompt. Players both young and old are sure to be charmed by Weldon, the world-weary talking rabbit who occasionally provides light hints to nudge you on your way.

I extend my thanks to author Lance Nathan for producing this smart little gem and sharing it with all of us mere players. I certainly hope to see more games by Mr. Nathan in the future.

This was a solidly coded and enjoyable game that I found just slightly under-clued.

In it, you play as someone who gets drawn into an interview to become the assistant to a word wizard, or semantagician. The interview is a locked room puzzle. You're locked in the room, and need to get out. But there's not even a door!

Your tools consist of a few objects you can find laying around in addition to a half-dozen or so implements that can alter words. Some of these are easy to figure out (like a 'sawing in half' table, although that one had a catch I didn't quite get at first), while others are pretty obtuse (like the chimera box).

Helping you along the way is a cute rabbit named Weldon who can answer your questions.

The puzzles here are fun and funny. I liked how there were a lot of animals in the game but, instead of implementing lots of details about animal sound and behavior, etc., there was a lot of discussion about how these aren't real but simulacra, and the strange implications that has philosophically.

I had a great time with the puzzles, but I did get lost pretty often. In a way, that became the puzzle. I did consult the walkthrough because I never thought of how to handle the robe. Opening it, I saw the solution to a couple of later things ahead of time.

I wonder if it could have used a little more guidance here and there. On the other hand, it's a small, constrained environment and not too long a game, so there's some wiggle room on how clear it needs to be. I guess it comes down to player preference. If you want a puzzle game and not have your hand held (but still have some hints in-game), this is great for you.

This is a one-room wordplay puzzle game; the conceit is that it’s a sort of audition for the titular job. To get the job, you must escape the room using five machines that transform objects in mostly word-related ways. A talking rabbit stands by to offer assistance should you need it.

The number of objects available to manipulate is very small, and in most cases the machines won’t work on anything they don’t actually need to work on. On the one hand, this means you can’t learn the rules of the machines by throwing stuff at them; on the other hand, the fact that something being possible to do almost always means it’s useful to do provides helpful guidance in the early portion of the game, which otherwise doesn’t give you much direction.

Once I got past that point, though, the puzzles flowed smoothly, and I enjoyed figuring out each step in the chain of transformations.

While the game is certainly puzzle-forward, the writing is also solid, with fun stage-magic flavor and often entertaining descriptions of the items you create. There are some good jokes (I enjoyed the business with the drawer that you create being basically ontologically closed even though it’s not attached to anything), and the talking rabbit companion, Weldon, is an endearing hint-dispenser (in a somewhat sarcastic kind of way).

I wouldn’t say the ending felt abrupt or unexpected (it’s pretty clear what your final goal is), but it does feel like you don’t get a lot of time to revel in using the mechanics to solve puzzles after the initial stage of figuring out what they are. I think this game would make an excellent intro to (or prequel to?) a longer game set in this universe, and I would happily play such a game if it were to exist.