The Semantagician's Assistant

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.

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.

Following in the footsteps of games like Counterfeit Monkey and Retool Looter comes an escape-the-room game featuring several linguistic gimmicks.

After a long job hunt, you have finally found a position as a semantagician's assistant, but you have no idea what you should be doing. You are stuck in a dressing room with several machines that each have a specific function. You need to figure out how to use them to get out and pass the test.

While the premise may seem familiar to this community, this puzzle parser game feels a bit different to me. Even in one-room games like Oppositely Opal, there are many objects to interact with and try out. However, this game only provides a bit more than the bare minimum necessary to solve the puzzle. The main challenge is discovering the rules behind each machine.

This led me to think of so-called rule discovery games like The Witness, now popular in logic puzzle game communities like Thinky Games. As it turns out, the developer created this game for a Thinky Game Jam!

I started appreciating the game a lot once I realized how minimalist it actually was. The puzzle design allows for some really satisfying eureka moments, even when I started using the walkthrough for the later parts. If you enjoy word puzzles, this is a great game for a good brain workout.