Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight

I beta tested this game.

Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight" is a delightful game from Drew Cook (author of Repeat the Ending) that is inspired by the old Zork CYOA books (which I haven't read, but I definitely got old-school CYOA book vibes from the writing here.)

This is a highly polished Parser game with several illustrations, cinematic 'cut scenes' and act changes, several layers of help menus and a lot of independent actions by actors and scenery changes. It has a lot of custom responses as well.

The idea is that you are a highly intelligent cat and you're exploring an abandoned movie theatre with your human friend that you've been locked inside of as part of an adventure. The movie theatre is mysterious and dark, and it's up to you to guide your human around.

The text is rich and expansive, while the geography is small and limited. I'd say that this game is designed (intentionally?) to be accessible to those familiar with gaming in general but unfamiliar with parser conventions and tropes. It has extensive tutorial comments early on, a constrained list of verbs that can be accessed at any time, a list at the top of available locations and important items, and hints in the text at which actions are appropriate to progress.
It's not too long; it's divided up into six acts and a finale, with each act solvable in just a few actions. The story does feel complete, though, which is another reason I think this makes a good game for those new to parser games. I've found that when starting parser games (or playing parser games in a new and unfamiliar language) that it really helps to split up the game into distinct sections, limiting the geography, and keeping a running list of important items makes it so much easier (I write this as I'm struggling with a long French parser game).

The pictures were a real highlight, very evocative and fitting of both the setting and the style of writing. They worked for me in both downloadable and online versions but I preferred the overall look of the online version.

The HELP text at the end suggests that the game was made with learning and/or teaching new Inform techniques like scenes in mind. I hope the source code becomes available, as the game does enough neat stuff that I think people would benefit from seeing examples of it.

I appreciated the little 'paw pictures' that let you know when to press a button, as there are often large amounts of text at once.

Veteran parser players will enjoy the Zork references (which manage to be both pretty faithful while also being creative) and newcomers will appreciate the help systems. Fun and not too long.

The Story

Marbles has a simple story: you’re a cat, and you’re investigating some sort of creature at a stage show alongside your human owner, D.

D is just the secondary protagonist. For gameplay purposes, you are strictly working from the perspective of Marbles the cat. I really like the way she is written: she’s conceited, but she’s also ignorant of human things and willing to gloss over that.

Just as important as those two characters is the one that’s not in the title. The creature you’re trying to deal with is a (Spoiler - click to show)grue from Zork.

I’ve never played that game, so the fact that this centers around one of its characters didn’t make a huge impact on me. I did recognize the name, though, and I know it’s not something you want to come across.

Marbles tries to balance feelings of slight terror but also compassion toward the creature. The writing gets the tone across effectively in its own right, but I can’t say exactly how effectively it does that in relation to the source material.

Gameplay

Onto the game mechanics. Since Marbles has you playing as a cat, you rarely manipulate objects directly. Instead, you direct D’s attention to them. (And later, you direct the other character in another way.)

In some ways, this approach to gameplay is straightforward, since it advances the plot significantly after each successful action. However, as the game progresses it asks you to negotiate some spaces and draw attention to objects in very specific ways. None of these have very strong conceptual links in their own right, IMO.

In other words, I think Marbles really demands the player to build up a mental space of how the stage/auditorium is laid out. If I had played with the pictures on, that might have helped, but only a few would work as useful diagrams.

In the end, the game isn’t terribly difficult, and it’s probably about as easy as the author intended. But I’d say that’s mostly due to the small map and limited number of objects. I think that the gameplay would quickly become complicated in a larger game.

I did check the hints a few times. Speaking of hints, this game does something smart: it only allows you to see hints for the part of the game that you’ve reached. So there’s no way to spoil things for yourself accidentally.

On top of all that, the game can be even more straightforward — it also gives you the option to read it as a linear story.

Themes

What is the game about? It’s a short story that touches on themes of family, empathy, being together with someone else, and knowing what they’re like. (Those things are all nicely contrasted with a setting in which the characters are alone).

As I said, I don’t know much about the source material, so I had to create my own premise for the plot. More specifically …

Based on the initial D, and based on the fact that Drew uses a cat in his profile picture, I couldn’t stop myself from assuming D is the author’s childhood self.
Maybe it’s him as a child daydreaming about both the thoughts of his cat.

That’s the premise that I made up in my head – since it’s the sort of way I imagined myself with fictional characters and animals as a kid. And even now, I guess.

But the game didn’t validate me whenever I accidentally typed “Drew,” and the character D is apparently from one of his earlier games.

So that may or may not be what he was going for.

Animal Player Characters

One more thing. A few of the games I’ve recently played have had animal PCs (or secondary PCs). During IF Comp, there was Draconis's Miss Gosling, and I also played CMG 's Toby’s Nose and malacostraca’s free bird at some point.

Broadly, animal PCs can serve as a basis for a unique gameplay style — a chance to reduce the number of actions that the player has to deal with while adding in extra considerations.

And apart from that … it’s just fun. Similar to Toby’s Nose, Marbles gives you a chance to freely act like a cat in ways not directly tied to the plot, which is fun. (I don’t think I tried in Miss Gosling since Watson the dog is the secondary character).

Anyway, in Marbles, you earn a score for being appropriately catlike. I’m not sure whether this actually affected the final outcome, but scoring oneself on performing properly feline actions seems in character for a self-concerned cat.

Come to think of it, there was also Octopus’ Garden last Spring Thing, which was enjoyable but probably didn’t fully realize the alien mindset of an octopus in its gameplay. I know there many others, but I don’t see a list on IFDB, so I’ll leave it at that.

Note: This review was written during Spring Thing 2025, and originally posted in the intfiction forum on 29 April 2025.

This is a charming cat-themed adventure, where you play Marbles the cat, who has to help her person, while investigating a mysterious theatre. It’s set in a vaguely fantastical world, but the game’s action is located firmly within the geography of a theatre, so is easy to visualise for contemporary audiences.

I had so much fun doing cat things especially. The parser implementation was very responsive. Though I didn’t manage to (Spoiler - click to show)knock something off or over, which was a disappointment! I may have missed an opportunity there.

As Marbles the cat you alert your person to items of interest by meowing at the items. Which is delightful in itself, but also makes the game extremely newbie friendly. There are also sporadic “CAT NEWS NETWORK” snippets, telling you more about how to play the game, which is all very well handled.

There were only a few places where I struggled with the parser, unable to get the message across, sometimes not trying the right thing at the right time, or in the right place, or both ((Spoiler - click to show)the ladder and the door combination were a particular challenge). But the built in HELP command responses are comprehensive, with well-written multi-step clues to reveal.

As a player I appreciated the episodic nature of the game, built around a series of short acts. With this structure I felt like I was making progress, and it also helped break up the story.

Best thing though was the implementation of Marbles the cat. Who clearly adores her person. I had so much fun exploring the many cat things she can do, and increasing my score of them. I was proud of my final “Outstanding” cat report!

Thanks to the author for the end of game additions to the HELP command. It’s nice to read more about the game development process. Including some Inform coding tips!

Highly recommended.