Nerd Quest

by Gabor de Mooij

2008

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Nigh unplayable, October 23, 2008
by WriterBob (Richmond Hill, Ontario)
Related reviews: IF Comp 2008

This game is spectacular in being an exercise in frustration.

The premise is simple enough. Sneak past your manager so you can meet your girlfriend for a date. It is the execution that makes the game unplayable.

Common verbs do not function. "Examine," is not recognized. If you happen to type "Look," with a capital L, the game does not recognize the command. "Inventory," is not recognized, but its abbreviation, "i" works.

There are cases of guess the noun. For example, in one room if you try to "look at the PC," the game fails to understand. However, if you "look at the computer," the game provides a description.

Other fun elements -
You can't save the game.
You can't quit the game.

If the game were playable within the conventions of IF, I would forgive the inability of the game to display an apostrophe correctly. When the game tried to show “eight o’clock,” it came out “eight o ' clock” This was just added salt in the wound.

In the author's defense, he did compose this game using a language that he created himself. However, I suspect the language itself may have a few kinks to be worked out.

The in game puzzles weren't overly complex. Those were overshadowed by the puzzle of trying to guess how the programmer was thinking in order to phrase commands effectively.

I would recommend this game as an example of how not to implement an IF language or game.

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