Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight

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.