Varkana

This was one of my favorite entries in the 2007 I-F Competition, second only to Lord Bellwater's Secret. The writing was the best of all the competition entries I played. The places were described vividly enough to see them, the initial area seemed the kind of place people actually maintain and dwell, and good dialogue is always a gem in I-F. The experience as I begin the game was believable enough that I might like to live here myself. (Fortunately, as an I-F, that isn't necessarily a vain wish.)

The game's opening did a lot of things right. Tone, setting, protagonist, and initial event become known to us before we're asked to make decisions. Being railroaded into leaving the opening scene with the friend is a further gentle introduction to the command prompt and its evil twin, the parser. If the useful commands were mentioned in bold print within the text, then this game would be a great candidate for "intended for I-F beginners".

But I didn't finish the game. There were two reasons for this. One, the more I came to care about the protagonist's problem and her (our) desire to thwart the antagonist, the more disappointed I was to leave this thrumming plot for mundane action with glowglobes or locked cabinets. (I asked the librarian as he should know these things, but he was useless.) The puzzles were both well-implemented and coherent within the gameworld, so I must give the author props for this. But it's just something of a paradox that, in I-F, anything and everything except puzzles are dramatized. So when the author's writing grabs the player, what's the player going to care about? And how is a plot-stopping puzzle then going to be viewed?

Secondly, I get lost easily when walking around. It's another problem only well-written works have: visualizing the map's cardinal connections gets harder as the prose gets better. Workman-like descriptions don't distract from the job at hand, but good writing -- strong imagery, precise details, memorable conversation -- seems to crowd-out my mental map. Perhaps it's rooted in a cognitive dissonance of the left-brain and right-brain trying to dominate at once, or perhaps only us new to the form see it as a problem, I don't know. I just know that the more I enjoyed sightseeing in Varkana, the easier it is to forget how to walk back home.

(Consider the town square: "East leads to the vineyards. The library is to the north. Northwest leads to the town center. The town bazaar is to the west. The school is to the south, and there's a road to an old temple to the southeast." That was just too much information for me, especially as I'm already trying to keep the plot and possible puzzle solutions in my head. A compass rose in the status line would help, but I would prefer a simple GO TO with something like, "Nearby are the vineyards, the library, the town center, the bazaar, the school, and the road to the old temple.". Such a command can always respond with, "You walk northward to the library," if it's important. As it was, I found myself navigating by scrolling back and re-reading my previously-typed compass directions.)

Though I have still not completed this game even after the competition, its locations and events are stuck in my head. I intend to go back and finish it... when I'm feeling patient enough for puzzles and parser nitpickyness. My overall impression of the work is that the author, obviously a writer, was hamstrung by her own tools -- tools which ease supporting I-F conventions, rather than ease what the conventions should be.