Jack Toresal and The Secret Letter

It has been 15 years since Textfyre released this work, the first in its intended lineup of introductory interactive fiction targeting a young adult audience. Although at the time it was shipped with a novel graphical user interface for playing it, the technology stack on which it was based has since aged into obsolescence, making it hard to experience the work as originally intended. Fortunately, the work itself is not lost, as David Cornelson, the moving force behind Textfyre, decided to release the game to the public in normal Glulx format after its day as a commercial offering was done.

It took me some time to pin down the reason why I was so disappointed by this game, which is that it systematically reneges on its implied commitment to the reader/player at every stage of the story. Let me explain: I believe that a well-written story engages in a kind of contract with the reader, i.e. "If you spend the time to experience me, I will make it worth the time that you spend." This is the basic idea behind the dramatic principle of Chekhov's Gun, i.e. that the author shouldn't place a potentially plot-significant item into the scene without making it plot-significant in some way -- by placing it within the fictional world the author cues the reader to think about it, think about its potential uses, and watch with anticipatory tension for which of those potentials will be realized. There are many methods by which a good story cues the reader to certain expectations, with the implicit promise that it will later either fulfill those expectations or deny them with deliberate artistic intent.

Again and again, Jack Toresal and the Secret Letter implies things about character, setting and plot that are simply not followed up or which are flatly contradicted later in the story. Some examples, but in no way an exhaustive list:

* (Spoiler - click to show)The player character styles herself as a top-notch street thief, but she never demonstrates those supposed skills. Every one of her thefts from market stalls is spotted. Is this intended as comedy, i.e. that she only imagines her capabilities? Is she just in such a rush that she's not using her usual subtlety? It's not clear. She later barely manages to pick a lock, seeming unused to the process.

* (Spoiler - click to show)Early characters made to seem important such as Teisha, the baker and the butcher, are never seen again despite substantial conversation menus that invite significant engagement with them. Additionally, at least one of these characters introduces an implicit subplot (the butcher's love interest in one of the PC's caretakers) that is never subsequently mentioned.

* (Spoiler - click to show)The player character's heritage is supposedly a secret, but a surprisingly large number of people in the town seem to know about it -- even the servants of the main antagonist.

The result is that there is no point at which the reader/player can properly "settle into" the story and become part of it, and thus it ultimately fails as both fiction and as interactive fiction.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the gameplay is rather devoid of actual play after the first chapter, which involves the player character escaping from a group of ill-intentioned mercenaries in pursuit in a crowded marketplace. Upon reaching the end and looking back, there were only three things that seemed to count as puzzles in the whole game(Spoiler - click to show): the escape from the market, refinding the secret entrance to get into the ball, and optionally escaping from your bonds in the climax scene. In a work that has about 140,000 words of source code, that's surprisingly few, and of the three, only the first feels properly designed for its target audience. (Spoiler - click to show)(The second is obvious enough to an experienced player, but I would expect some fraction of newbies to get stuck. The solution for the third just doesn't really make sense given the described physical situation. While solving it is technically optional, failing to do so results in a wholly unsatisfactory ending.) The first chapter implies that the rest of the game will be gated with similar light puzzles, but it presents the "hardest" mandatory puzzle of the entire game. Functionally, this makes it the climax of the game part -- which in the long run leaves the game feeling over before it started.

On the plus side, Michael Gentry's writing is very good. At the microscale of words, phrases and sentences, it keeps one's interest and keeps one reading. I doubt that I would have managed to finish the entire game if it weren't for the steady reward of being able to read another paragraph by that very skilled author. The IFDB entry lists both David Cornelson and Gentry (of Anchorhead fame) as authors. I can't be certain, but my impression is that Mr. Gentry was more or less writing to spec for this game, with the story and puzzle design largely originating with Mr. Cornelson.

One very interesting design element was the way that NPC conversations in Chapter 2 imply the passage of time as the player character moves west-to-east through the town for the first time. The earliest conversation with the baker has an out-of-breath tone reflecting the fact that the PC has just escaped the market, while later conversations imply that there has been time for the PC to calm down and rumors of the happenings at the market to make their way along the grapevine to the other side of town. It seems a risky device -- I'm not sure that the conversations are responsive to the actual order in which they occur, so it counts on the human player following the path of least resistance -- but the writing does a great job of guiding the player along the intended path.

On the minus side, the implementation of NPC conversations as a whole is particularly poor in this work, for the most part amounting to little more than the menuization of an ASK/TELL model over a relatively small set of standard topics. Only a handful of choices result in additional context-sensitive branches of the conversation, and this for only one or two successive replies at most. The result encourages a repetitive lawnmower approach that eats up time without offering much in return beyond extensive confirmation and reconfirmation of certain background information. One of my co-players joked that the PC seemed to be secretly conducting political polling for the fictional town's upcoming election.

About that election, which is central to the plot: It is very hard to suspend one's disbelief enough to experience any tension. The ostensible political situation is the fulcrum on which the whole plot balances, but it took me and my co-players quite a while to figure out how it made any sense at all. (Spoiler - click to show)(The PC is the daughter of a well-liked but long-gone regional leader... but so what? Are we really to believe that an unacknowledged, illegitimate daughter would be given the slightest consideration during a vote by an insular aristocracy? Or that mysterious beneficial forces would be content to let the naif whom they are backing wander through the volatile political scene without firm guidance?) Direct lampshading of the plot issues in later scenes doesn't actually resolve them, and in the end the entire plot seems to be chucked aside as irrelevant in a cliffhanger conclusion implying that much deeper political machinations are underway -- leaving the player unsure about what the point of it all was.

This game is historically significant and worth studying, but I can't say that either I or my co-players particularly enjoyed it. Anyone enticed by the premise of young adult interactive fiction in a fantasy setting may be better off exploring another work -- perhaps Textfyre's second release The Shadow in the Cathedral or the relatively recent The Princess of Vestria. (Yes, the latter is written in Twine, but really there is little about this work that leverages the parser.)

This is a great adventure story for 10- to 14-year olds. Heck, it's a great adventure story for all ages. If it were a board game, I'd label it 8-99.

"Jack Toresal and the Secret Letter" is not, however, great IF.

I've seen reviewers that would recommend this game as a good introduction to the medium for newcomers to interactive fiction. I would not. "Jack Toresal" does not give the player that sense of engagement, immersion, agency that is so important in interactive fiction. Even though it is an exciting adventure story, the player does not get to do any adventuring. Examining and searching locations and objects yield well-written descriptions but no discoveries. There are no puzzles to be solved, not even the kind of bigger-picture-understanding that goes with most puzzleless IF.

Starting a new IF-game, I always enjoy that exhilarating feeling of controlling my character in this new world. Here, that feeling quickly wears off to the point that entering commands actually lessens the immersion in the story. It becomes a chore to make Jack do the glaringly obvious when I would have rather just flipped the page of a novel and read on.

That said, the story really is good, and the characters in it are lively, well-written (to the point of caricature, but I don't mind that in this kind of tale) and they have lots to say.

Since the story is the first part of an intended series, it stops with a cliffhanger. If anyone hears the call of the IF-gods to write a sequel, I'd love to read/play it. With a bit more adventuring, that is.

Notes:
-The first chapter does not suffer from any of the criticism above. It's a good and funny self-contained exploration puzzle.
-I found an extremely annoying bug that would have made me QUIT if this weren't such an easy game:(Spoiler - click to show)The game won't let you out of the library without the secret letter. The letter is in the chandelier. So if you enter the library without having lowered the chandelier from the room above, you're stuck.

Anyways: good story, bad IF.

Jack Toresal is a criminally overlooked game. It's the last release from an acclaimed IF luminary, and a major studio release in an era when major studio releases were thought to be extinct. But is it fun?

Yes. It's not perfect, but it's fun. Now that it's free, it's definitely worth a play.

(Side note: I played the Glulx version, not the full graphical FyreVM version.)

Story: Whatever else you might say, this story is fun.

It's like a rolicking boy-adventure novel, with elements of romance and character drama. Running along rooftops! Exploring secret passages with your crush! All told with the breathless uncertainty of a plucky but out-of-their-depth orphan, who doesn't quite know if they will make that jump... The twists are all pretty obvious, but really, what did you want to happen? This is how stories like this are supposed to go. It's a pulpy children's adventure story, and it sticks to the mold.

Some themes are surprisingly mature for a work aimed at children: (Spoiler - click to show)infidelity, murder, and so forth. The player is also expected to engage in (Spoiler - click to show)rampant theft, the repercussions of which are glossed over. It's an odd choice, but an interesting one: you can't win by being a Good Honest Hardworking Fictional Orphan.

But, fair warning: the ending is frustrating. Jack Toresal was intended to be the first in a series, so it intentionally ends on a cliffhanger. In some ways, though, the irritation of the ending is a testament to the strength of the game: I really wanted to dive back into the world of Miradania, but I couldn't. Now that Jack Toresal is free, though, this might be a prime candidate for the sort of fanfic-franchising Marco Innocenti did with the Andromeda series. Write me more Jack Toresal, and I will play it.

Writing and setting: Gentry is a talented writer, and it shows. His knack for mood and slow revelation, made famous by Anchorhead, is evident here.

NPCs are strongly characterized, but their quirks sometimes feel overdone to the point of caricature. The arms dealer is sullen and shifty; the butcher gesticulates enthusiastically with his cleaver. As a genre convention, this isn't necessarily a problem, but after Bobby winks and grins for the nineteenth time it can become a little tiring. More depth emerges as the game proceeds, however.

Environments and objects are heavily condensed, to the point where an entire mansion might consist of five or six rooms and a few objects. Actions are also condensed - to take a bath, you needn't fiddle with taps; just type TAKE A BATH, and the entire event happens at once. This has pros and cons. It's much easier to implement and debug, and can allow for more artistic focus, but loses a sense of depth and free exploration.

On the flip side, Jack Toresal illustrates that immersion doesn't necessarily require detailed simulation. An single artful room description can make a location feel more colorful and crowded than a flock of fully-implemented NPCs.

Technical: On a scale of "unusable" to "bulletproof," Jack Toresal is "Ikea." It's well-designed and holds together well enough for everyday purposes, but it's uninspired and sometimes wobbles a bit.

Right off the bat, I encountered a guess-the-verb problem. (Spoiler - click to show)"Climb the boxes" doesn't work, but (Spoiler - click to show)"up" does. A bad first impression, but for the most part, problems like this are rare. Gentry puts a lot of thought into making things easy for the player: if you enter a room by going SE, for example, you can usually exit by going W or N as well as back NW. Fairly complicated commands work seamlessly.

There is some unimplemented scenery, mostly things mentioned in passing (e.g. "covered by a sheet"). However, players learn quickly that scenery is rarely important, so this does not break mimesis as much as it might.

More beta testing on first-time IF players would have been helpful; for example, there were a few times where you'd have no idea what to do unless you Examined the right thing. An experienced IF player would never have a problem with this, but a newbie might, particularly since the rest of the game sends the signal that Examining is rarely necessary. There were also a number of times where I knew what do to, but it took a lot of fiddling to figure out how to do it, which is not an ideal situation.

So here we have Textfyre's first finished product, the first serious attempt at commercial interactive fiction in a long while. The story is of a street urchin who is destined for greater things in life in a generic non-magical medieval world. This is part 1 of 3 and the story ends in a cliffhanger, so expect to pay for the whole trilogy if you want to see a full story.

The custom-made FyreVM interpreter imitates a book spread where the text is on the left page and illustrations on the right page. Mostly the picture page shows just the main character and occasionally locale pictures, and most of them are what look like halfway-done sketches. At the moment the illustrations are not much more than a waste of half the screen. Apparently Textfyre is adding more pictures for the upcoming versions so this is likely to change. The map spread is nice though, it's like a built-in virtual feelie. I was hoping it could be printed out to make it a real physical feelie too.

The puzzles are mostly trivial and the solutions are usually spelled out by the story or accompanying NPCs. The player is left to type commands given more or less explicitly in the previous paragraph. This is arguably more interactive than "press enter to continue" but not much. From this naturally follows that the story is not only so easy that it could even be called puzzleless, but also heavily railroaded. Locations are mostly void of anything else than the one thing you need for the plot to continue and in many places there's nothing else to do than the glaringly obvious action that advances the script.

The main character is suffering slightly from a lack of personality other than the ability to be nervous of everything. The (Spoiler - click to show)cross-dressing aspect has potential to say something meaningful, but unfortunately the narrative never leaves the comforts of reinforcing gender stereotypes (and this game has no "heteronormativity off" command!). This is of course understandable when considered that Textfyre intends to market the game to schools and libraries, but that doesn't make the underlying attitudes any less annoying.

That's a lot of nitpicking for a game that's still far better than the large bulk of amateur work, but if you're aiming high, you'll be judged against higher standards. For a commercial venue there's a surprising amount of rough edges, for example standard "You see nothing special about x" replies to examining many things.

There's a silver lining here: easy puzzles, handholding from start to finish, and flashy interface make this a perfect game to introduce someone to interactive fiction. I would not hesitate to recommend it to someone new to the medium if they are willing to pay for it. The only minus in this plan is that the most freeform non-railroaded gameplay is right at the beginning which might put off some people.

The existing IF community is not the target audience of The Secret Letter and it shows. Last time I wished for a version made for children - now I find myself wishing for a version made for adults. It's hard to predict how Textfyre's potential customers will react to the game. The expectations of a greater audience are often not the same as a niche group's so there's a good chance that it will find fans from outside the current IF community. It'll be interesting to see how the company and its products evolve over time. The next publication is supposed to be more to the tastes of current IF players, so I'm looking forward to that.