Moondrop Isle

I'm going to structure this review in four parts.

-A brief description
-Something for authors (players don't need to read)
-Something for prospective players (not intended for authors)
-Talking about myself (written selfishly and only for those interested in hearing about me and my games)

First, a description. This is a game that uses Vorple to combine nine other games. It was built around a code scheme that autosaves information from Inform and shares it with other games. Clicking links in one game autosaves your info and opens the other seamlessly, with a color-based transition. Two of the games are special: one is completely choice-based and the other is a hybrid parser like Gruescript (I believe it's in the author's custom language though).

The idea is that you are exploring an abandoned resort just for fun. As you explore further you realize that there is a rich group of other explorers and former workers that have both left clues and still explore to this day.

Okay, first for the authors:
(Spoiler - click to show)Congratulations! You all did something remarkable. Each area seemed like it was made with love. The writing was all good, all contributing to a feeling of decay and exploration and wonder and feeling. Something I loved about each area:
-Shore: I love language puzzles so this was fantastic. Favorite part of the game.
-Fortune teller: really clever meta puzzle, and the change of pace was relaxing and fun. Really adds to the piece.
-Tunnels: creepy. I love your work in general and the one easter egg reminded me of the chumba wumba earworm in your Cragne Manor piece. Best atmosphere imo.
-Gardens: I was so shocked during the big change in this area, great effect, and love how the area is initially so surprising in its change in interface.
-Moonlight Meadow: I felt like I was really there. I could smell the rotting, sodden tent in the pool, feel the plywood on the slide, feel the damp concrete under my feet, hear the creaking of old equipment in the wind, see the color of the sky. Great writing.
-Shopping Center: This had the most variety and reminded me of my favorite old parser games, especially Not Just An Ordinary Ballerina.
-Lunarcade: This had the most interactive content (imo) and felt like a really substantial complete game on its own. Most well-rounded area I think.
-Sanctuary hotel: the emotional centerpiece of the game, great character work and lovely feeling. Gross tangle of sheets in that one room.
-Monorail system: Loved the mechanical feeling. Reminded me of Fitter Happier from radiohead. The extra dials were neat.


For prospective players:
(Spoiler - click to show)This game has a lot of great content but it's spread out and mixed with red herrings and unnecessary or empty parts. Think of it like the best drink you've ever had that fills a glass, poured into a pitcher and filled with water to reach the top.

The beginning is just a vast empty void where you do little besides find room after room where you can do nothing. Objects in one area are used far away in areas you might not even conceive of.

Room descriptions are vital. Important exits can lurk in the middle of dense paragraphs. Over and over again key items and objects are named in inconspicuous places. Sometimes you just have to hit every room over and over to see if new things you have are useful.

This game is best enjoyed by those who enjoy detailed maps and careful lists of inventory and unsolved puzzles. Running through recklessly is futile, especially with tons of non-intuitive map connections and diagonal or vertical directions.

Is it worth it in the end? The journey is the real goal, here; the ending is neat but not substantially more than the rest of the game, so I'd take your time and enjoy the roses.

Selfish part:
(Spoiler - click to show)
I didn't play the game for almost a year due to some shallowness on my part. I loved the Quadrennial Ryan Veeder Expositions; the first one I entered was with one of the first games I ever made, and I was excited to come in second. The second one I was thrilled to win. I have the plushie I won from it on my desk; I use it to cushion my hand when I type too much. I was really looking forward to the third.

I was saddened to hear that it was a private event that had already happened. More than that, most of the participants were people who had entered the year before. In fact, I was one of the few people not invited. Had I done something wrong? All of them were people I considered friends; I've interacted quite a bit with Joey Jones, Jason Love, Mark Marino, Caleb Wilson, Sarah Willson, and respected and liked Carl and Zach and Nils' work. I thought Ryan had really enjoyed my games; we had collaborated in the past on Cragne Manor, and I had reviewed every game of his for fun before. So it felt like being part of a friend group that gets together each year at the same time, and you're really looking forward to this year, only to see on social media that they've gone on a best friends trip and you weren't invited. I felt like the only real explanations were either that my work in the previous years was actively disliked, or I simply was not important or considered. I didn't really want to play. I had trouble reviewing any of his games, in fact, wondering if what I had done in the past mattered at all.

This is quite a vain and childish outlook concerning someone else's birthday celebration, so I did what anyone should do and just be quiet and wait to get over it. It took me a long time, though. I tried the game a few months later and got overwhelmed by it a bit, and realized that I probably wouldn't have done well if I had collabed as it's not the style I'm good at (more on that later). I also realized that they probably just thought I was busy as I was writing a lot of stuff at the time (although I even later realized that it started in 2022 when I wasn't busy and some of the people involved had mentioned to me they were working on a project at that time.)

Playing the game now, I got really frustrated, and not really for the reasons above. I thought about really big games a lot, specifically how to connect several smaller games into a big one, as part of preparations for making a couple of my own games. I came to the conclusion that for me, what I really hated in giant games was when you have a huge map and you constantly have to traipse across it with a big inventory and never knowing what you're going to use and where to use it. I had decided that I wanted the following in a big game:
-Puzzles should be grouped either by physical location or by clear connections between items being used; if an item for one area is used in another, it should have obvious theming (like gorgon's head being used in a classical area)
-Navigation should be as simple as possible. Diagonal directions should be avoided (I only used them specifically to evoke horror) and bottlenecks should be used to divide the map up into discrete chunks. All exits should be highlighted.
-Empty/useless areas should be avoided like the plague; in each of my big games, the only puzzleless areas are the very middle connecting lines (a big street in one game and a ship full of portals in another).
-All puzzles should be available as soon a possible so players have a lot to work with and can chew on the harder puzzles for later.
-Each chunk should be thoroughly, independently, and repeatedly tested for smoothness.

All of the above aren't my 'tips' or 'demands', they're just my personal style of what I like.

Moondrop Isle is exactly the opposite!
-Objects in one area can be used anywhere in the map for any purpose at any time. There's no theme; you can use an object in one area to find something far away that you use an object in a third area to open which gives you something to do in a fifth area!
-The game is chock full of hundreds of diagonal directions. Huge swathes of exits are not highlighted, hidden in text, or even just not there (like calling a room 'top of the stairs' but not saying you can go down). The maps interconnect like crazy, so in some areas you can't take two steps without warping into a new game and often resetting your inventory (especially frustrating at the Lunarcade sign board where one step north can reset your whole progress).
-The vast majority of the game is just transit, empty hallways and beach fronts and atriums with no content but descriptions (which are often full of either red herrings that make it harder to find things that should be there).
-Puzzles are all gatekept so that almost nothing is available early on. It is very difficult to find any puzzle at all for a while.
-The game is riddled with missing synonyms and implementation, which is really surprising given that I've seen what these authors can do in other games, some of which are pinnacles of sophistication. One big example is in the waterpark, where there are prominent fences and walkways you can't examine or interact with but critical pipes that are not mentioned in any way whatsoever, or prominent, puzzle-critical 'jacks' that aren't implemented at all. This happens everywhere. Here's just one example:

"The letter N is held fast by securing bolts, welded in place.

>cut bolts
You can't see any such thing."

(you must, in fact, cut the bolts. That's the whole puzzle).

At one point I wondered if the game was specifically designed to be like that, if they were told to make it have as many weird connections and items being moved around as possible, and that's when it hit me: it probably was! To showcase the save-transferring feature of Vorple, you'd most want the games to be highly interconnected on the map and in item use. So it was really built-in from the start, it seems.

So for me, I had a rough time for most of the game sprinkled through with those wonderful things I mentioned in the author post. I came out bedraggled and frustrated. But I did love what happened in the end.

I wish I had swallowed my pride and played earlier when more people were excited and involved with it, and I missed a critical opportunity. But it does make me rethink the way that I interact with others; because if that's how I felt about an imagined slight, how would others feel about a slight from me?