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A 'one letter' parser game with some tricky puzzles, July 14, 2023This game was kind of a rollercoaster experience for me.
I started it up, and it looked like a simple tutorial adventure, like a TALJ game intended to be succinct.
But I soon found that I couldn't type, as it looked like it was auto-completing everything I typed, and into weird things.
So I tried experimenting a while but just didn't get it. I saw that ? gave instructions, so I tried typing that.
It turns out that different keyboard keys are mapped to whole actions, and typing that key will give that action. It's not quadratic in complexity, it's linear (1 key 1 action, no nouns as they are context-dependent).
So overall it's an interesting effect, similar to Gruescript or other parser-choice hybrids. Some of the choices for commands were a bit odd, and some (like arrow keys) seem like they wouldn't translate to mobile well (which I didn't try).
Overall, the puzzles were clever and the game was polished. The interactivity definitely threw me for a loop and I'm pretty sure I'm not a fan, although it's hard to say if that's just because I'm not used to it or because it would be perennially awkward. I guess I could compare it to the text adventure equivalent of QWOP.
Overall the charming and complex puzzles are why I'm giving a higher score.