Live and Get Pie

Recently, I’ve had occasion to think about what the most unique feature of my reviewing style might be (the occasion is the use of paratext in WITHOUT Corporation). Sure, there’s the obvious stuff, like the opening anecdotes, monomaniacal focus on “prose quality” which I never even attempt to define, and abuse of conjunctions to make it seem like various disconnected arguments actually add up to something coherent. But beyond those stylistic tics, I also considered whether there were particular viewpoints I hold that are completely distinct, whether there are sentences no other reviewer active today could possibly write. And so it brings me a fair amount of pleasure to say “Live and Get Pie isn’t bad, but its opening act compares unfavorably to that of Constraints (2002).”

2002 was the first Comp I played through (and fully reviewed – the more things change…) and Constraints was my favorite game in that formative year. A triptych examining the limitations of parser IF through a series of different lenses, its first bit involved the protagonist plummeting helplessly towards the ground. But while nothing you could do changed the outcome – see “plummeting helplessly” – the player actually had a surprising amount of agency: almost every verb you could think of, and more besides, were implemented, allowing you to roleplay what you’d do in this situation (scream, cry, etc.), make various non-physical attempts to escape the situation, etc.

Despite having a notionally-similar start – you’re in free-fall, though here that’s because you’re a spy on an incredibly dangerous mission, albeit you don’t actually know what the mission is or why it involves parachute-less skydiving because you zoned out during the briefing – Live and Let Pie doesn’t boast the same reactivity. Here’s an excerpt from my transcript, right after the game told me I was plummeting past a clothes-line:

> take line

Now listen close: I fear that object is not here.

> close eyes

Alas! Alack! Aday! That verb has gone away.

> wake up

Alas! Alack! Aday! That verb has gone away.

> wake

Alas! Alack! Aday! That verb has gone away.

> scream

Alas! Alack! Aday! That verb has gone away.

> shout

Alas! Alack! Aday! That verb has gone away.

Now, Live and Get Pie is prioritizing different things. In particular, as those non-responsive responses show, the game is written in AA/BB/CC/DD/etc. rhyme. This is a hideously challenging feat, even for a short game, though there are some recent runs at the concept (Frankenfingers being the largest, and to my taste most successful), and it’s to the author’s credit that they mostly pull it off, or at least manage to throw up an entertaining shrug when they don’t:

The city’s growing near - it fills your heart with fear.
Most buildings far below, as you still fail to slow
But the highest stretch to where you are (you wretch).
Flag poles and anten(na) approach - are gone again(na?)

For all its low-key appeal, though, the game feels very thinly designed beyond the lack of alternate actions. There are two main puzzles to get through the game’s two set-pieces, both of which are pretty much guess-the-verb endeavors where you’re given various bits of prompting towards the solution, without those solutions feeling particularly reasonable.

Saying Live and let Pie is a bit slapdash isn’t saying anything the author wouldn’t cop to, at least. The – also rhyming, charmingly enough – blurb admits as much, saying it was written in a day and level-setting at the likelihood that that are bugs (though for what it’s worth I don’t think I ran into any). It doesn’t fully commit to the bit, in other words, which is of course fine given that the bit is a short doggerel-rhyming parser game that’s halfheartedly gesturing towards a James Bond parody. But still, I think it would have been both funnier, and more fun, if it had.