Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Puddles on the Path

by Anssi Räisänen

(based on 4 ratings)
Estimated play time: 1 hour (based on 1 vote)
Members voted for the following times for this game:
2 reviews7 members have played this game. It's on 22 wishlists.

About the Story

In this game where proverbs are magical spells, you play as an apprentice to Larumis the Sorcerer. After two years in his service, you're on the road home for a well-earned summer vacation when, through an iron gate in a stately stone wall, you see a mysterious garden. You forgot all about curiosity killing the cat.

Awards

Honorable Mention - Spring Thing 2003

Ratings and Reviews

5 star:
(0)
4 star:
(1)
3 star:
(3)
2 star:
(0)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating: based on 4 ratings
Number of Reviews Written by IFDB Members: 2
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A game using proverbs as spells, December 15, 2024
Related reviews: about 2 hours

I associate Anssi Räisänen with the ALAN system and with well thought-out puzzles in a relatively compact game setting. I generally enjoy these games.

This game was pretty fun but its main attraction was also its main drawback for me.
The idea is that in this game, proverbs are magic. So something like 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' could (theoretically) transform a bird in your hand into two in a nearby bush (this example isn't in the game).

This is a brilliant concept and when it works out it works out well. For me, though, I had trouble trying to sift through all such sayings, even when a list of many of them was given. Also such sayings have variations, many including apostrophes (which aren't allowed). For me, the 'search space' of all possible sayings was just too big.

I am glad I played, though. Also, there are a few chunks that have just normal puzzles without any sayings involved.

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.

It's the journey that matters. Are we on the same page?, September 5, 2023
by Andrew Schultz (Chicago)
Related reviews: Spring Thing

Anssi Räisänen's games together really mark out a lot of territory. No one is particularly big, but they range from fantasy to realism, and they all have that very classic feel to them without flaunting their old-school credentials too intimidatingly. Puddles on the Path is distinctive among his works for the mechanic to solve major puzzles: many powerful spells are, in fact, common sayings. It's always good to breathe new life (ahem) into cliches, and this brief romp does that.

It's just good fun, as Anssi's works tend to be. You're a wizard's apprentice who can't help but be curious--you find a golden egg and try to get it, guards capture you, and then you must escape. Even though it's a null-sum game in this respect it's a lot of fun to find a magic sword and so forth and actually use the spells. Yes, I enjoy the odd syntax of ancient tongues, but it's also nice to breathe life into more well-worn words.

The game ended a bit soon for me, as I'd sort of hoped to use more than half of the proverbs you had in your spellbook to start. That would leave the door open for a sequel, much like Anssi wrote Ted Strikes Back in 2017 to extend his Ted Paladin game from IFComp 2011, which was the first of his works I tried. I remember hoping for a sequel to the original Ted Paladin game, but I didn't realize Anssi had sort of written one. Given it's 2023 and there was, alas, no Ted Paladin sequel within six years this time, it was neat to uncover Puddles on the Path.

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.

2 Off-Site Reviews

Baf's Guide


A brief, straightforward, charming game about a world in which proverbs have magical efficacy. Neither setting nor story is especially noteworthy, but the puzzles are entertaining and on a couple of occasions quite satisfying to solve. There are a handful of minor rough spots, but this is generally a friendly and solid piece of snack-sized IF.

-- Emily Short

IF-Review
Splish Splash
There are a handful of rough spots -- some phrasings (not of proverbs) that weren't immediately obvious to me and could have used more synonyms, a few places where the spelling or word use was a little off -- but not too many. It does seem to be possible to render the game unwinnable, though I am not sure whether or not this was the author's intention. There was one item that I wouldn't have thought to look for without the walkthrough, and one thing that might have been a bug.

On the other hand, it is such a friendly and generally solid piece that I had a hard time holding these minor flaws against it. Emily Short
See the full review

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Edit Tags
Search all tags on IFDB | View all tags on IFDB

Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Delete Tags

Game Details

Language: English (en)
Current Version: 1.0
License: Freeware
Development System: Alan 2
Baf's Guide ID: 2098
IFID: ALAN-96F3F722C5F2FC4F9429ABE595BD5E75
TUID: s4girkccjl8mtwh4

Puddles on the Path on IFDB

Recommended Lists

Puddles on the Path appears in the following Recommended Lists:

My new walkthroughs for March 2019 by David Welbourn
On Monday, March 26, 2019, I published new walkthroughs for the games listed below! Some of these were paid for by my wonderful patrons at Patreon. Please consider supporting me to make even more new walkthroughs for works of interactive...

Favorite ALAN games by Anya Johanna DeNiro
These are some of my favorite games written in the ALAN IF-development language. With a lower learning curve and a more natural-language programming environment, ALAN v2 definitely filled an important role in IF before the advent of...

Word-play games by Emily Short
Games where the text of the game is part of the puzzle.

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page


This is version 5 of this page, edited by Zape on 30 June 2020 at 7:43pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page