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Review
BBTA is right up my alley. It’s not the first spoof of adventure gaming, and it’s not the first twine game with directions out there (this could be inspired by the parser or by side-scrolling RPGs,) but I enjoyed it a lot, because I think having the word limit forced the author into stylistic choices to avoid elaborate jokes that maybe were heard before, or conventions which wouldn't add anything to the story.
Mages would have to worry about big long spell names. Priests? Praying and so forth. Thieves might be too obsessed with treasure. Bards? Well, you have to shoehorn in a song or two, to make them believable characters.
Barbarians are entities of few words, and they certainly don't futz about with spells! They are people of action. The result is a dungeon that is as big as it could be withe the word limit. I counted eight rooms when I mapped BBTA on a Post-it note.
BBTA also has a few deaths that you really should know if you paid attention. One is hinted particularly well. It is worth taking the scenic route for them. And as brevity is the soul of wit, they and the puzzles do indeed combine for a good deal of humor.
At the end, you get a choice of reward, and the unusual but in-character one is quite funny. About the only disappointment (for me) for this entry was that there wasn’t more in-game art like the image! That said, it was easy enough to imagine.
BBTA felt like more than comic relief as opposed to the more serious entries. There's craft and thought in there, like a Cheech and Chong skit featuring hapless idiots you can't help but like. (Hey, I like Cheech and Chong!) The decisions are surprisingly impactful. And it's fun to replay and see if the choices you make at the start matter for getting through the game. (Spoiler - click to show)They seem to make a difference with how much you get injured, but since you're a barbarian, you brush it off.
