The Elysium Enigma

This XYZZY-award-winning TADS game shows off a lot of the power of the engine, like tracking what the sense can detect and from how far away.

You play as an officer in an Empire of planets, sent to check on a small backwater. Your goal is to talk with the local technophobic elders and leave. While there, though, you meet a strange, disingenuous but beautiful woman.

I like quite a few of Eric Eve's games, which tend to be very polished, have highly interactive characters, and fun puzzles. All of his games tend to have attractive women who either already know you and are attracted to you or just met you and are attracted. This game leans kind of heavily on the latter; in fact, if you ignore the girl and just complete your mission, you can only score 10% of the points!

This game is both easy and hard. It has many objectives, but you can end the game at any time. Winning at all is super easy; getting the maximum score is incredibly hard.

Smells and sounds matter in this game, as does physics. Objects can be pushed around, etc.

I do think it's a bit too hard to complete fully, and somehow I found the open-ended nature of the game a little less personally satisfying than his other games, including my favorite, Nightfall, which has stronger pacing. However, it's clear why this game was a candidate for (and winner of) the XYZZY Best Game award: it is impeccably polished, responsive, and clever.

When you build a game with conversation, particularly conversational puzzles or conversations that set flags, it's not enough for it to just offer a challenge and a compelling story. "The Elysium Enigma" has challenge and it has an interesting story.

What it doesn't have are good characters.

There are essentially three NPCs in this game; your PC is a generic male Star Trek space guy and doesn't really have a personality.

The main NPC is a farm-girl named Leela; she is immediately described as attractive. When you first meet her she's dressed in rags and begging for help; the next time you see her she's stark naked and perfectly happy to walk around in that state indefinitely. You can give her femme accessories like combs and mirrors and talk to her about herself. (Spoiler - click to show)She will also kiss you, unprompted, and you can flirt with her and ask if she's up for a relationship. At one point she even throws herself on a bed. If you're thinking "hey, this is a ridiculous heterosexual male fantasy woman who exists solely to be a sexual object," then I'm right there along with you.

(Spoiler - click to show)Until it's revealed that she's a spy from an enemy space nation that wants to go to war with your space nation. This becomes incredibly obvious when you find a tight-fitting alien jumpsuit that fits her perfectly. Of course, the second she's exposed, she becomes a vicious ice queen who does nothing but try to kill you -- in other words, as soon as she begins acting intelligently she becomes a dire threat.

While one could make the argument that "Leela" is a disguise intended to pander to the PC's libido, she breaks character so briefly and solely for a fight scene so it's hard to consider that an excuse. You can do everything short of actually bedding her, and that feels less like forbearance and more an attempt to keep this from being classified as AIF.

Then you have Petroc, who is the SOLE person in the town and is a grouchy Luddite old man. While he certainly seems more realistic -- this is what you expected when you came to the planet, after all -- he's almost entirely one-note. Talk to him about anything and he'll turn it into a jab at the concept of technology or offer to let you give up your job and settle on the planet. (He makes this latter offer over and over.)

(Spoiler - click to show)That's all I really have to say about Petroc, but I had to have a spoiler here so the one for Leela doesn't make her blatantly obvious.

Finally you have Soolin, your ship's pilot. She, too, is immediately described as attractive. Despite the fact that she spends the entire game sitting in the shuttle trying to get you to give up and come back, she's probably the most likeable and realistic character in the game. Her responses to conversation aren't a syrupy male fantasy nor completely predictable. I liked her.

(Spoiler - click to show)Again, nothing more to say about Soolin.

I also have to say, having no one in the town but Petroc feels like a huge cop-out. You're visiting an alien planet with a vastly different culture! (Spoiler - click to show)Not that the culture has anything to do with the plot, but it's still interesting ... Give us some random NPCs hanging around, maybe split some of Petroc's information among several characters, anything to make this planet not seem so completely deserted.

This is a technically competent game. I only ran into a single bug, and it was just that an automatic numbering system couldn't spell the word "twelfth." It has some pretty good puzzles, like finding the flag, actually using the raft, and obtaining the passwords. The basic plot -- (Spoiler - click to show)a brief and boring mission turning into a hunt for a spy -- is serviceable.

But frankly, when you build a game where conversation is so crucial, having your characters consist of an irritating fanatic, mission control, and little miss Captain-Kirk-Teach-Me-Of-This-Thing-You-Call-"Kissing" feels like the missed opportunity of all missed opportunities.

The Elysium Enigma is a competently made game that easily drew me into its world of intergalactic politics and subterfuge and I eagerly rushed through it. Unfortunately, the story and plot turns were unsatisfying and I felt like a spy left out in the cold.

As a diplomat checking in on one of the Empire's remote planets, you are presented with the choice of following your basic orders and bringing the game to a swift and boring ending, or defying your orders and getting your hands into the planet's affairs. Defying your orders essentially leads you to doing text adventure things: talking to others, exploring, picking up everything, and shooting stray dogs. You know, the usual. It becomes quite clear, quite early, the motives of the game's three NPCs. And then the rest of the game is solving fairly rudimentary puzzles to uncover somewhat interesting but nonewhat surprising information.

I certainly had fun pulling back the curtain one puzzle at a time. But ultimately I was left not caring about any of it. The PC is never not incredulous, except when faced with blatant evidence contrary to his beliefs. He is never not classist, even when shown repeatedly the problems of his culture. He doesn't grow in any way no matter what choices you make. So the "winning" ending doesn't feel much different than the default ending. Not only do we not learn much about the PC, we are not given any reason to root for him. In fact, I wound up rooting for everyone else but our hero. There was ample opportunity for deeper NPC interaction and character development that sadly never materialized.

The game plays well, with fair puzzles and a layered hint system. While some of the puzzles are directly related to the story and fit well within the world, others are there for pacing only. For example, an optional puzzle involves having to make a fishing rod to catch a fish to give to a cat to get the cat to move off of a box. I just wanted to throw something at the cat.

If you're looking for a fairly easy and fairly short puzzler, spending a couple of hours with The Elysium Enigma could hit the spot. Just don't expect much more than what you see on the surface.

Interesting setting - by far the best part. NPCs sometimes surprisingly well-drawn, sometimes a bit trope-y. When the dialogue worked, which it didn't always, it worked well.

What was up with the cheese smell? Never figured that out.

Puzzles were occasionally a bit formulaic - find the green widget to use on the green whoozit, et cetera.