She's Got a Thing for a Spring

My favourite kind of IF as I think I've said before on here are games where I feel emersed in the game world, and, on the whole, this is one of those games.
The writing is exquisite. For the most part I could ignore that I was typing in commands and listening to my screen reader jabbering away. I could imagine that I was there, looking for this spring, albeit being very inept at outdoor survival. I wouldn't have a clue what to do in that situation.
My lack of skills had me resorting to the hints, only to discover that more often than not I was almost there and just needed that little nudge in the write direction.
Then of course there's Bob. I've tried playing Spring a few times before, but never spent too much time with him. During this playthrough I spent nearly the whole in-game day in his company. He was wonderful to be with. The only thing I will say is that (Spoiler - click to show)he would have dealt with the wasp nest in his shed for me. There's no way I'd be going near it for anything. I felt that mortified that my disastrous attempt of getting rid of it burn his shed to the ground I restarted from the beginning. Sorry Bob.
The guidebook is a brilliant touch. I loved learning about the wildlife I encountered.
I would've given the game 5 stars if it wasn't for a couple of things. One is the (Spoiler - click to show)eucalyptus. The game doesn't mention any growing in the environment and I thought they only grew in Australia. Nothing appeared in the hints menu for that puzzle, so I had to resort to the walkthrough to find out that it was the pika's job to get it for me. There's nothing to indicate that it was fetching eucalyptus from anywhere.
The other thing is that (Spoiler - click to show)While reading the walkthrough, it mentioned about taking the egg from the nest. Maybe this was a throwback to Zork, but this was a game set in the US not the Great Underground Empire, so I felt uncomfortable taking the poor dipper's egg, so I didn't. Leave eggs where they are, people.

So to sum up this long ramble, go and play it, if only just for the writing and Bob. It's a treasure.

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