9:05

by Adam Cadre profile

Slice of life
2000

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Number of Reviews: 57
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A clever idea in text adventure form, July 26, 2021
by dvs

My nephew and I were amused by this bare-bones vignette in which every turn another minute passes and we're already late and the phone is ringing and ...

We enjoyed the ambiguity of the game and we kept trying to guess the genre. Is it a puzzle to finish the tasks before the time runs out? A Groundhog Day game? A pointed criticism of the banality of corporate cubicle lifetyle? Clearly something was going to happen at some point.

In the end it was amusing but we were annoyed by the sharp edges of the railroaded short story format. Neither of us felt the ends justified the journey, even on a few replays.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A comment on reading conventions, March 24, 2021

This is a one-trick game which makes an insightful comment on the conventions which the player uses to interact with the game.

The twist got me, and made me laugh. It's more or less fair, though, as I saw on the second playthrough.

It reminds me of an Orson Scott Card essay on how to read science fiction: the experienced science-fiction reader is looking for the world-building clues in the story as they read, and constructing the world rules, how it works, in their head from the clues dropped in the text. A reader not used to science fiction can get lost, as did some of the students in his course.

The same approach happens when we play an interactive fiction game. There is a process of exploration to figure out the world model. There are also certain conventions, or shorthands -- as there are in science fiction -- where the writer can import a lot of assumptions at once, from previous gameplay (like previous SF), without spelling it all out.

(Spoiler - click to show)9:05 plays a trick with those assumptions.

This also engages with the discussions by many IF luminaries about the coercive nature of game design, where the player is given the illusion of choice but the author is actually restricting the player's options to the preselected ones. This is particularly apparent in second-person media like most IF. In fact, to avoid player frustration, it is standard design advice now to use the text to hint the player in the "correct" direction, and the player usually follows it. Of course, the author can also mislead the player. (Spoiler - click to show)And very elegantly, 9:05 does.

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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Was too confusing as a kid - I really like it now though!, December 22, 2020
by inte (USA)

I first played this as a child, years and years ago. It was too confusing for me. I couldn't figure out what to do, how to interact with the objects, where to go. I just kept getting errors.

I came back to it, and now find it very enjoyable!

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Fun little game to get you acclimated to IF, September 29, 2020
by RadioactiveCrow (Irving, TX)
Related reviews: About 15 minutes

This game only takes 10-15 to playthrough once, and I recommend you play through it multiple times. It is useful in getting a new player acclimated to the mechanics of IF, including the frustrating parts like being told you can't do something because of a minor detail you forgot (Spoiler - click to show) like having to specify to take your watch off before getting in the shower.

My first playthrough was over unexpectedly and anticlimactically, but I got to have some fun on subsequent playthroughs. After playing it by yourself a couple times I recommend reading a walkthrough to learn all its secrets. This will help give you an idea of what to look for in future parser-based IF games you might play.

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
9:05: an anWinnable State review, May 9, 2020
by unWinnable State (unWinnableState.com)
Related reviews: unWinnable State, Parser, The List!

Adam Cadre’s 9:05s most notable quality is its shortness. If it were much longer players may be unwilling to engage in what makes this work so fascinating, the fact that a replay of the game is thoroughly satisfying. When following the game through its logical progressions you reach an ending that re-contextualizes everything, enticing you to start again and interact with the world in a different way.

There is not much more to say about such a short game. If you haven’t yet played 9:05 by Adam Cadre, give it a go. It will surprise you.

You can find the SPOILER-Y portion of unWinnable States review of 9:05 here.

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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Awesome plot twist, May 16, 2019
by suchamazingdoge (Austin, Texas)

I didn't know what to expect when I first played this game. The story was great, and the plot twist at the end made the game perfect.

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0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
What a fun game!, April 4, 2019

What a charming, fun, and devious little game this is! Deceptively middle-of-the-road and cleverly laid out so that you follow it logically, hit the twist, and then just have to play it again.

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0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Loved it, March 10, 2019
by gblekkenhorst
Related reviews: qFrozt tested

Very good! So many twists and turns for such a short game, well worth it.

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
My first IF, July 21, 2018
by ialessan
Related reviews: beginner

This is the first IF I completed, and what really got me into the genre. It's quick, neat, and you won't see the end coming. (I certainly didn't.)

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Short, Enjoyable, Re-Playable!, June 28, 2018
by Tristano (Italy)

You can finish this game in about 15-20 minutes ... but almost certainly you'll want to replay it at least once. Can't really say much about the story without spoiling it, except that I recommend it. Well written, simple and fast paced, but there are some twists to the plot that might not be obvious until replay.

After ending the game for the first time you'll realize how clever the author has been on delivering that sense of urgency that will trick you into overlooking those details which are important to grasp what's going on — but being tricked in this game is part of the fun of playing it.

Nice.

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