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Review
Note: This review was written during IFComp 2024, and originally posted in the authors' section of the intfiction forum on 16 Sep 2024.
This is a short but exasperating (in a good way!) Adventuron parser game. Where you’re driving in a British car, trying to exit right from a car park into busy traffic. As a fellow Brit who passed my driving test too many years ago, this is a scenario I can relate to oh too well. Even if I haven’t driven for many years for medical reasons (my license was eventually revoked on medical grounds). I can still remember the anguish of trying to drive right out of a car park into never-ending traffic. And still experience it today as a front seat passenger.
As you try over and over to get out of the car park into traffic the game repeatedly confounds you, racking up the tension and frustration. And the sense of constant near accidents. This writing is strong.
I especially liked the visual display at the top showing the road. Very Frogger like! But, like another reviewer, I wish this had updated to show the other traffic as you play the game. That would have been awesome, and enrich things so much.
The downside with the game for me is that I’m the type of player who can repeatedly type a single command over and over and over and over and … I have no quick limit on that one. And what was most rewarding about this game, as I found on replay, was trying other options. If you’re willing to blindly type the same command over and over, you don’t necessarily get the full sense of immersion that you might otherwise.
One option I really wanted to try was to hoot my car horn. And the game wouldn’t let me. This was the one case where I battled with the parser: HOOT HORN and SOUND HORN didn’t work, but HONK HORN did. Well it recognised it, but wouldn’t actually let me sound the horn. Which I really, really wanted to do. I was also a bit disappointed that when other drivers hooted their horn in game I didn’t hear them. I would have loved to have jumped out of my seat on hearing that!
So a good and atmospheric game, but I wish it had been a bit more fully developed. And suspect that my own way of playing was not the best for experiencing it to its full potential.
