Advent Door

This game is a small, well-executed puzzle that includes enough atmosphere and hints at backstory to keep things entertaining.

The presentation is excellent — the player must use an unconventional mechanic to navigate through locations in the game, but the parser clearly indicates when the puzzle's rules are blocking the player from attempting something. When the player does attempt a move that's allowed, the parser is very generous about understanding actions without getting too fussy about procedures.

(Spoiler - click to show)The process of opening doors, closing doors, taking doors, and placing doors was much more streamlined than I expected. I ended up typing out a lot of extra commands before I realized that some of the actions didn't need to be explicitly spelled out.

"A Plotkin?", you say. You are intrigued. You've heard of these before, usually spoken of in reverential tones.

"Indeed, indeed, the genuine article. True creative spirit, the author; just can't stop him. Remarkable plumage, the Norwegian Blue."

"The what?"

"Hmm?" inquires the salesman. "The Plotkin. It's a remarkable little puzzler and no mistake."

"No, but you'd said... never mind", you sigh; best not to start another Python skit.

You take a good look at this Plotkin. It seems rather small, but rather imp-ish, a bit devious. You decide to ask about these characteristics.

"Oh, every Plotkin is devious up to a point, Sir/Madam/Non-Binary. Oh yes. That is part of what makes them fun."

"Fun," you repeat, deadpan.

"Well, certainly, some people find it fun. Others, I admit, less so. It's certainly rather cerebral, possibly for the true conoisseur. A Plotkin may not be everyone's cup of tea, but there are those to whom it is a truly exquisite experience. Nothing like it, no sir/ma'am/non-binary."

"Are they all this small, then?"

The salesman looks positively horrified for a moment. "Oh, NO, sir/ma'am/enn-bee; not at ALL! There are great gargantuan Plotkins, and some Plotkins may be comparateively small but be so tight as to take up a tremendous amount of time and brain-teasing fun! This is indeed one of the smaller models, but it does come together with two other Plotkins which comprise a sort of Tryptich. One feels it would have been more than that, but, life being as it is, these three Plotkins are probably all we will see of that series. Which makes it all the more valuable."

You scratch your chin thoughtfully. "How does it handle the prose?"

The salesman is now positively beaming. "Ah, you are a shrewd one, a shrewd customer, and no mistake! There is no pulling the wool over your eyes! Fear not, it is exactly as you'd expect from any other Plotkin. A superficial glance will show that the prose is utilitarian and practical-minded, but start scratching away at that surface - even an inch, s/m/nb, even just a mere fraction of an inch! - and fascinating wordsmanship will start oozing out, as rich as pus on a festering wound!"

"...what?!"

"What what?"

"What did you just say?!"

"Merely that the writing will astound and mesmerise you, even as it retains that simplicity and utility which most befits a single puzzler."

"But you... no, never mind," you say again; this salesman seems stranger and stranger. "And how does it handle?"

At this, the salesman's countenance darkens for just a second (is that sulfur you smell, very briefly? It goes away as soon as you notice it, though), and his tone is lower as he intones "Ah, there, s/m/nb, I admit there have been some remarks of a less than positive nature. Not that it will not astound you, s/m/nb, once you've realised what it intends to do; it plays with the very laws of physics, and that is a remarkable feat, truly remarkable. Can it really be faulted if sometimes it handles a little bit less than perfectly? But alas, I have heard it say that attempts to use disambiguation to resolve more succint parser inputs"...

...is it just your imagination or is his tone shifting into something that's more similar to an IFDB review?

He continues: "... sometimes doesn't work as well as can be expected. Indeed, very often, when trying to PUT something ON somethingelse, it will disambiguate that somethingelse with something from your inventory. Which is usually the very 'something' that you were trying to use. In order words, although it'll be tempting to reduce your inputs to the smallest possible numeber of words, the parser is likely to try to put something on itself if left to its own disambiguation."

"Are you feeling allright?", you ask, more out of politeness.

"Never better!", he cherfully belts out, returning to his previous style. "And that is because, regardless of whatever little hiccups may occur, you will find this Plotkin to be so streamlined, and so daring in concept, that such trifling details will be completely forgotten as you solve this brief and simple puzzle!"

"Brief and simple?"

"Did I say that? Did I say that? Those very words? Could my very tongue have - well, ok, yes, it's true, relatively speaking the puzzle is concise and will tax the greatest of minds only for an instant, and give merely a passing headache to those of a lesser cerebral nature. BUT", he attempts to rally, "brilliance is not merely in the puzzle itself, but in how it is presented! A Plotkin that is a tasty morsel is no less filling than a gargantuan Plotkin; it is merely the difference between an exquisite snack and a full blown 12 course banquet."

"You've already said 'exquisite' and 'garguantuan' before."

"This is running too long and I'm running out of synonyms", he snaps back at once. His countenance - another word which has already been used - smoothes over as he says "In short, this is well and truly a Plotkin. In every sense of the word. All that you've come to expect from a Plotkin; nothing about its author is diminished."

"I'll think about it", you say, thinking mostly about getting the heck out of here - but also thinking about grabbing this Plotkin on your way out.

"A word of caution, however", he remarks.

You look quizzical, showing off your great muscular abilities in raising your right eyebrow a full five inches. You always were proud of that particular trait, useless though it is except for that one TV commercial those many years ago.

"This Plotkin and it companion pieces are best experienced... with a healthy period of pause between each. Think of it as cleansing the palate. The distilled experience of playing all three in a row may be somewhat... overwhelming... for some."

You sense the atmosphere has become rather oppresive, suddenly. With this, and with the clear feeling that the writer of this review has reached the end and doesn't really know how to conclude, you say your goodbyes and decide to visit a cheese shop on your way home. You hear those cheese have beautiful plumage.

I don't have much more to say than what's in the title--this was a quick game with a clever mechanic that required mapping and doing some careful thinking to figure out how to achieve what I needed, and it was very satisfying when I succeeded! The bits of worldbuilding and descriptions keep it from being too abstract. A nice way to spend a half hour.