Luster

This game was one of the last place entries in IFComp the year it came out. It's a traditional treasure romp where you gather 4 gems and then put them in a museum.

It's buggy quite a bit; examining a sign can switch the room you're in, there's no way to get a "You've won" message, and some items have names like pedestal3.

Someone went through several years later and decompiled the game and wrote a walkthrough and made a map. The map and walkthrough are fascinating, and provide an interesting insight into game design.

Recommended (with its walkthrough) for those who are interested in writing games.

Despite its capitalized objects and oddities, there's enough good things going on here that part of me almost thinks that an established author is having a laugh at us- trying to make his or her own version of, say, a Phoenix-type treasure hunt. The few puzzles I solved really did have a nice sense of accomplishment to them. Also, there is an odd sort of narrative going on (the protagonist has a past that we find out more about throughout the game).

Those nice things are dampened by shoddy implementation and a woeful lack of synoyms (I personally got hung up on (Spoiler - click to show)a goblet, some dye, and some unintuitive liquid management). I probably won't be giving this game another chance until an updated version comes out, but if one did, I'd definitely play it.