The Triskelion Affair

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

So this review is part of the review sub-series “Second Breakfast,” a series of reviews that showcase light fantasy/heavy puzzle works that resonate off the early days of parser IF. Resonate so hard they are truly IF comfort food for those weaned on and appreciative of it. They are also, for those of us NOT so enamored, maybe one breakfast too many?

Here, you are a fantasy soldier charged with recovering a fantasy weapon from a church. Let the puzzles begin! My relationship with these kinds of works is very transactional. What newness do they bringing to the table? The general category is not really centered in my interests. Sure, I recognize their pedigree and anyone that watched IF invent itself will too. The impulse to nod to that history is not TERRIBLE, but for me, at this point, we’ve kinda seen a lot of them haven’t we? I need more than a nod to make an impression. There are two obvious ways to stand out: memorable puzzle play, or memorable storyline/characters. Both are challenging in their own way.

I kinda think innovative puzzle play may be the harder one at this point? Ok, that is an unverifiable assertion, but hear me out. At this point in development stability, the major parser toolkits are extremely flexible, but still fundamentally built around an object-in-world paradigm. Keyed doors are so convenient to regulate narrative, so easy to implement, it is no wonder they show up everywhere. Same for find-the-thing, put-the-thing-in-other-thing class of puzzles. Works that devise unique puzzle play really stand out against that background dynamic.

Conversely, realistic conversation remains HARD to implement, which often renders NPCs as clue-dispensers or permission-robots. This artificiality is certainly forgiven by the parser audience, it is practically in its DNA at this point, but also can’t help but bring up wishes of more robust interactions.

Both of these tropey traditions are not hard to create, rarely wow us, but also are paradoxically kind of easy to undermine. The magic of parsers is nominally opening the entire implemented language vocabulary to fair player use. When obvious synonyms are missing, especially plurals and singulars, it can actively deceive the player and almost always makes puzzles harder for silly reasons. A player might be forgiven not trying to “>search object” when “>look behind object” told him there was nothing there, or that it was fruitless. (Real example - object in question really only HAD a “behind” to search.)

Same phenomenon with NPCs. When required to ask or tell them specific things, but reasonable near-neighbor topics get stock “Knows nothing about…” answers, the player might assume there is nothing there. Parser players have some forgiveness on both these scores, it’s not like the old days didn’t have these kinds of artifacts. However, NEEDING to forgive these things requires some compensation in cleverness or storytelling. Triskelion definitely had enough issues in its traditional-style puzzle designs to need some compensation.

Ok, I kinda think storytelling may be the harder element to innovate at this point. What? I don’t know what I said four paragraphs ago, I’m focused on the future, reader. Art starts as a blank slate, with literally anything the author can think of as fair game. Characters, plot, tone, background lore, language, all of it infinitely flexible, just waiting some fill in! So much blank space… staring back at us… yessir, just start filling it any moment now… Our most beloved stories are singular in one or more dimensions, but singularity is hard! There are all kinds of things I ALREADY LOVE in this world, can’t I just love those? Why do I need to create a NEW ONE???

Honestly, the answer is, you don’t. You are not beholden to anyone but your own bliss. Making more of what you love is a totally worthwhile endeavor. MY bliss though, that’s a different story. Everything I love started as something I knew nothing about then won me over in its vision or execution. If you maybe get in first with your idea, hey, pole position! You get the Vision award! (Clive Barker, for me, was an early example.) If you don’t though, you really have to excel at execution and/or apply a twist of some sort to distinguish from that thing I ALREADY LOVE. (Fury Road was onesuch for me. I already enjoyed the Mad Max universe, but the raw execution of Fury Road was sublime.) (Early Alan Moore is kind of a cool example of both, somehow.)

It gives me no joy to report that the story here did not achieve those heights. It was a fairly low stakes, low NPC personality affair of unlock-and-fetch puzzle solving. Very much of a piece with its inspirations, admirably so. There is some wry humor in tombstone epitaphs, a well conceived cathedral setting, some capably integrated puzzles, but nothing that established a vibe of its own APART from its inspirations. For folks that really enjoyed First Breakfast and are hungry for more, this is a sturdy option. Yes, there are implementation issues to deal with, but you kind of expect that in breakfast at this point.

For me, I’m kinda full? I’ll leave my portions for others.

Played: 10/10/24
Playtime: 2hr, finished lose and win
Artistic/Technical ratings: Mechanical/Notable implementation gaps
Would Play After Comp?: No, experience feels complete

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless