Lawn of Love

Santoonie Corporation was a group that sprang up in the early 2000's promising a very advanced game called Amissville that never materialized in completed form. They went on to release a series of games, including Delvyn and Zero, and, finally, Lawn of Love.

Each of these games has an ambitious opening scenario that is mildly under-implemented and contains some sort of offensive or bizarre standard responses before eventually petering out in a section that cannot be finished.

This game is no exception. This game has an opening picture, a preface, an introduction, and a prelude. It features an opening scenario with conversation and detailed rooms, but with basic features missing (like when moving in an unavailable direction, where no text is printed. Apparently a sound was supposed to ping).

The story involves you meeting a pair of interesting young women, neighbors, one of whom plays a game with you. The game peters out shortly after.

If you find this interesting, try Delvyn, Zero, and the TADS Amissville.

This is a short, parody romance story. According to the help message, the Santoonie devs have a habit of making games too vast to be fully completed, and in this game, their fifth attempt, they're dialing it back to be more manageable. This is all part of the joke, being that their games are intentionally short and unimplemented, but the game can feel a bit odd without that context. Some objects don't exist or have no descriptions, and trying to use a wrong exit will output no text (just play a sound).

The plot is that you are a fourteen year old boy, Todd Gack, spending the summer at your grandparents' house. You hear beautiful music from the woods and meet a girl on horseback who comes to visit your grandfather, who you fall in love with. The game ends with you meeting her in an abandoned spa and kissing. With how many items you can pick up, and how 60 of the game's 100 points are earned with the final move, I was expecting it to be a bit longer. I think that's the joke.

A few of the lines in this game really catch you off-guard, like what it says when you try to leave the room without your pants on, and I laughed at the line "GACK! THE SACK!". Inspecting unwashed spinach includes "I should not eat of this." The highlight for me is the letter your mother sends you:

"Todd,
Me and your father are enjoying the Bahamas so much. You would really like it here. Your brother stepped on a crab and your sister won a free glider ride at the dunes. I bought you some salt water taffy. Hope you are having a wonderful time. We sure miss you.
Love,
Mom
p.s. I’ve enclosed a little weed for you, don’t tell your father."

It's a bit hard to judge an intentionally bad parody game, but I'd say this is one of the funnier ones out I've played. The implementation issues never got actively frustrating to play through, and it did make me laugh.