Dead Sea

Well, hey, how about this! A twine game that plays and feels like one of the very old Scott Adams text adventures. It has very terse prose, generic room names and items, and really a bit of charm from trying not to do too much. You know what to do, and you know there will be item swapping, but somehow an actual story gloms on to the fetch quest along the way, much to the dismay of purists who might demand heaps of treasure collection or killing an obvious big baddie.

It's hardly perfect. In fact, there are some clear bugs. I found a ladder near the end and knew where to use it, but on the way I actually got the "real end." (The bad ends consist of attacking NPCs who might help you, or attacking bad ones unarmed.) Inventory is rickety, too. You have a left hand, right hand, and a pocket, and it's pretty clear how items are sorted. Right hand for weapons, left hand for accessories like a salt shaker, and your pocket for valuables like invitations and keys. Your pockets are bottomless, which is a relief given how if you take item A in room B then item C in room D, item A seems to disappear. It actually goes back to room B, so it's not a fatal bug, but it gives a mysticism I don't think the game wanted. However, since the world map isn't very big, and it's pretty clear to see where and how to use, say, the fishing pole, this is forgivable. There are also statues to pray to to reset an area, but it doesn't seem like you can make the game unwinnable.

It has a sense of humor, too, as you wind up attacking a frozen slime to start, but later on there's some poetry and a love story. There's a white whale, too, not really a ripoff of Melville. You even have a doll you need to bring to life, which foreshadows other things. This contrasts with more pedestrian events like "guards tell you you can't cross the river without an invitation," then "you can't enter the castle without a gift," and then there is an elevator that needs a three-digit code.

But even when I got things right, the narrative provided clues to say, oh, hey, you kind of missed this. This sort of thing put Dead Sea a few notches above your standard fetch quest without any obvious bugs.

"It didn't try to do too much" sometimes feels like faint praise, but here, it felt about the right length, and it was ambitious enough. It felt like maybe the author had to downscope a bigger story they wanted to tell due to time constraints, but if they did so, they did it well. And I'd be interested in the bigger one later.