Lazy Wizard's Guide

LWG is a fun game that I feared might not get many reviews in IFComp 2022 due to a custom web-based parser, but I was glad to be proven wrong. While some homebrew parsers have been bare-bones, this one is technically impressive and manages to eliminate some outdated conventions and bring useful ones in. Here, the most obvious things are detailed headers, or small buttons with rounded edges that you can push with rounded edges to toggle things like dark mode. It's stuff you maybe shouldn't have to use the parser for, and I know a lot of times, I've fumbled what command to give to certain options, or I've had some overlap with more important verbs. This hybrid parser model makes sense, as I think a big draw of parsers is to type in a command to do something, and tweaking presentation is a lot less exciting or rewarding.

So, about LWG. You're not exactly a wizard in this one. But you want to be. You have wizarding exams ahead. The only problem is that you haven't studied much, or really, at all. The Wizards in charge, though, don't know that, and so they give you the exam, and you have to run around your magic school looking for reagents and finding places to cast spells. They start relatively small, such as unlocking a cupboard, which you have to do a couple times. This requires replenishing reagents, which isn't hard, but it helps you meet a few characters and gives some color to your unnamed school.

It's a small pity the school doesn't have a name, and it's a recurring theme throughout LWG. It may even be LWG's major fault, but having said that, as major faults go, it's not a bad one. The author gets so much right, but nothing really soars. I think what happened was that the author spent time nailing down technical stuff and putting out fires so that the parser worked well, and it does. But they left out potentially interesting details in the game proper. I've been there. Creative stuff distracts me from technical stuff and vice versa. And while I definitely sympathize with technically-heavy stuff, I'd still be interested in stuff like a school name or a small storyline for all of the characters. As-is, they do some things such as upbraid you appropriately for requesting reagents you already have, but fleshing out something beyond the game flow would be really neat in a post-comp version. They feel utilitarian.

There's still a lot of fun, of course, and it wouldn't have been worth holding up LWG to drop in the details. I think the author did well with the exam jinn who is there for hints if you want them, but it explains your grade drops a bit if you do. (Well, of course! But it's a creative way to discourage asking for hints too much. ) Also, I like how it transforms a lot as it follows you around. (Even) more of this, please!

Another thing that's right: the school size. There's enough to explore and get lost a bit but relatively few meaningless passages. And the puzzles are satisfying. At the start you're given some ideas about how you may be able to bend the rules a bit, which presents an interesting moral dilemma. If you've learned all the spells straight-up, you deserve a good grade, but if you learned a way around cramming, that's learning how to learn, amirite? LWG touches on this, but the restrictions given by the examiners feel fair, and they are so much more creative than "you can't go that way."

As for the puzzle content: this is tricky! An eighteen-year-old potential wizard probably doesn't need super complex stuff, so you don't need to do anything spectacular to win, and nothing weird is expected of you. But on the other hand, you don't get to do anything spectacular. Or the one potentially spectacular thing you do feels like a puzzle for puzzling's sake: you summon a vampire only to unsummon it immediately, and you just need to be prepared to dispel it. Perhaps this is a wry commentary on preparing strictly for a test and not looking for general knowledge, or maybe it is just a case where the final puzzle got stuffed in so that the player has a bit more to explore. If the second, that's no crime, but I sort of have to wag a finger at it affectionately.

This is technical stuff, though. Given the fun I had sneaking out of the grounds, during an official exam no less, or reading the forbidden books in the library that I had all semester to read but didn't, was quite satisfying. There's a forbidden attic and a dark basement that have been done before, and I knew they'd been done before, but I still enjoyed them.

LWG was certainly a lot of fun, but when I went to poke at it, I noticed a lot of details had fogged over. This isn't a bad thing. I really enjoyed the magic helpers. But it sometimes felt like it hoped to have a bit more of a story, all while throwing puzzles in your way. It does a lot right, though, from allowing you to leave with pretty much any grade, to hiding some tough extra credit. If you're willing to do a bit of legwork to replenish reagents in case a spell goes wrong and put up with a little recipe book reading and a few repetitive spells (but not much--it's hard to recommend how to do it better) you'll have a very pleasant game that deserved the strong placing it got. I've dropped a lot of quibbls here, but if the author keeps adding stuff to their custom engine (as an Inform author, I'd love to see pronouns implemented, e.g. X CUPBOARD.UNLOCK IT.) LWG was, I think, a success, and its relatively high placing was a pleasant surprise. And since the custom parser is probably more stable and needs fewer features added, the author may have more time to concentrate on the story for their next IFComp entry, and that could make it something really special. But if it's "only" as fun as LWG, I'd welcome that, too.