| 5 star: | | (144) | | 4 star: | | (259) | | 3 star: | | (108) | | 2 star: | | (19) | | 1 star: | | (5) |
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Number of Ratings: 536
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6 people found the following review helpful:
The most-reviewed game on IFDB, March 25, 2023As of writing, this game has 54 reviews on IFDB, more than any other game on the database.
I had a review of this game years ago that was mildly spoiler-y, and it was my lowest-rated review on IFDB by far (like 0 out of 9 people found it helpful).
I thought I'd give it another go.
This game is short but memorable, and its main defining feature is the way that it sets expectations. Funnily enough, this helps it serve as a great introduction to IF for newbies, since each command is hinted so heavily without feeling like handholding.
For instance, in my games, on the first turn I'll say something like 'You can PICK UP the telephone', just holding the player's hand very heavily, while this game simply says 'the phone rings'.
The room prominently displays loose objects, encouraging the player to pick them up; mentions only a dresser, encouraging the player to try OPEN; clothing, encouraging the player to WEAR, which then triggers the need to shower, adding a little complexity.
Driving can be complex in other games, but hear any reasonable actions with the car will get you in and going. Even the (Spoiler - click to show)ID card, usually something people code in a weird way, is hinted nicely with saying the reader has a place for you to INSERT the card.
For most people, at least in the years when this came out, the events in the game are completely reasonable and logical ones that they've either experienced or seen on TV (younger players may be confused you can't take the telephone with you). For experienced IF players, the bare-bones house descriptions are par for the course. So in this way, the author manages expectations in a brilliant way.
In my last review, I dinged the game for its bland prose, but looking back, it manages to add a lot of character in small ways. Like, if you eat the pop-tart, it says 'It's not Sunday brunch at Le Trop Cher, but it'll do.' That's clever. So it's not that the game isn't well-written and punchy, it's more like an optical illusion where it takes good descriptions and interesting responses but puts them into the same overall 'shape' as a bad, first 'my apartment' game so you just gloss over them until you realize they had more depth than you thought.
Overall, an interesting game, and an influential one.
1 of
3 people found the following review helpful:
short, sweet, with high replay value, March 22, 2023what a great little beginner's masterpiece! This could be a great intro to IF, and a springboard for so many IF opportunities. I really liked this one a lot. Played through it four or five times just to see what else I could do. 4/5 stars only because it's so short, and I think with a little extra detail it could really shine.
- Kastel, March 21, 2023
- sugar.freegirl, March 18, 2023
- shrimpylemons, March 16, 2023
- thesleuthacademy, February 26, 2023
- jaymesjw, February 6, 2023
- Ann Hugo (Canada), February 4, 2023
- Emanuelle, January 5, 2023
- brewton, December 11, 2022
- Itsame64 (Mcloud, Oklahoma), December 5, 2022
- tonietto (Berlin), November 7, 2022
- Cerfeuil (*Teleports Behind You* Nothing Personnel, Kid), October 11, 2022
- TheBoxThinker, September 2, 2022
- elco2, August 21, 2022
- Kinetic Mouse Car, August 15, 2022
- aluminumoxynitride, June 29, 2022
0 of
1 people found the following review helpful:
Quicky with a replay, June 27, 2022A quick little game (Spoiler - click to show), with nudge to replay after the ending.
Because of my play style of b-lining to the end (Spoiler - click to show)on first play and this leaned into that for a twist:clap:
- fuchs, May 12, 2022
- RustyBones, May 4, 2022
- lleon, April 24, 2022
- Second Lemming, March 25, 2022
- Zerthimon, March 9, 2022
3 of
3 people found the following review helpful:
A big step forward, February 18, 2022first, we need to look at 9:05 from the perspective of when it was created. certainly, there had been stories that concealed crucial facts from the player as a part of their structure, ranging from the clever (Photopia) to the merely frustrating (The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy). but the standard expectation of the time was that you could trust what the parser told you implicitly and assume you knew everything you needed to about the protagonist (most often there simply not being anything worth knowing).
a game like 9:05 challenges these impressions. the parser and protagonist are (Spoiler - click to show)telling a lie of omission. this is, obviously, a Generic Protagonist just going through the dreary opening moves of a typical slice-of-life game. (Spoiler - click to show)no, it isn't. you're not the Generic Protagonist, you're the person who robbed and murdered them.
9:05 is a very brief game that only rewards a handful of playthroughs before being completely explored. but those playthroughs have something very important to say about the nature of IF.
while i wouldn't exactly call a game that can be finished in three minutes and completely exhausted in ten a masterpiece, this is definitely an important work that signposted some of the narrative techniques used in many later games.
1 of
1 people found the following review helpful:
A humorous short game with multiple endings, February 6, 2022by Cody Gaisser (Florence, Alabama, United States of America, North America, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, Known Universe, ???) 9:05 is a game with a deceptively simple premise: You're asleep. The phone rings, waking you up. It's time to get cleaned up and go, and fast.
A single play-through is very short, so it's a breeze to reach the game's multiple endings (there are at least four).
There are some rough edges (the parser responds oddly sometimes when it doesn't understand the player's commands), but these issues didn't get in the way of my good time.
9:05 is well-written, with some amusing twists. Start the game with realistic expectations - it's not some masterpiece of literature, it's a funny little text game. By those standards, I consider it well worth playing a few times to see what it has to offer.
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