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The Candy Striper of St. Asterix

by Charles Moore, Jr.

(based on 4 ratings)
Estimated play time: 3 hours (based on 1 vote)
Members voted for the following times for this game:
2 reviews4 members have played this game. It's on 4 wishlists.

About the Story

It's your last night of forced volunteerism as a candy striper. But the hospital is snowed in and the guy whose supposed to sign off on your volunteer hours is dead and may have been murdered. It's up to you to find the killer because you are NOT going to summer school.

Awards

1st Place - PunyComp 2024

Ratings and Reviews

5 star:
(1)
4 star:
(3)
3 star:
(0)
2 star:
(0)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating: based on 4 ratings
Number of Reviews Written by IFDB Members: 2
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Are we sure this isn't a lost Donna Rockford novel? , January 24, 2025

More than the sum of its parts. Maybe that's unfair - the parts are good - but what I particularly liked here is how the narrative development gradually builds things up from a low-key romp through expansive, nicely modeled hospital hallways into a properly suspenseful conclusion. Gathering the eight signatures gets the player to explore thoroughly and familiarize themselves with the rooms they can access at first, and there's plenty of background detail without it feeling superfluous. None of the puzzles are illogical and at their best they require some of that enterprising teen-fiction-paperback creativity.

None of the NPCs get truly deep characterization, but they don't need it at all. They fit neatly enough into well-trodden narrative tropes that the player gets a good idea of who to trust, who might be useful, and who represents a puzzle. The execution of the climax is excellent. A familiarity with the layout of the hospital and a careful eye for detail pay serious dividends.

There's no real parser fiddliness except for the service elevator, which I think I just didn't understand completely.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A complex hotel mystery, January 4, 2025
Related reviews: about 2 hours

This is a large and complex game with several independent NPCs spread out through a large hospital. Someone has died, and you (a teen volunteer) want to both find out who and also get enough recommendations to be able to move on from the place.

I was impressed and overwhelmed with the size of the game. The hospital has four floors, each with a hallway with 3-5 spaces, with each space having doors to the north and south. In addition to that, there are a dozen or so NPCs and complex devices like elevators, safes and a walkman.

Gameplay mostly revolves around going into every area possible, identifying issues and collecting objects, then finding which objects solve which issues. There were two puzzles I couldn't figure out involving NPCs, and I ended up using invisiclues with them.

Overall, the story didn't land for me emotionally. The NPCs were varied, had interesting comments about each other, and had realistic relationships and plots, and the locations were varied, and there are some active events that are creepy or threatening, so all of those things are good. So I'm not actually sure what I felt was missing.

On the other hand, there was something about the mechanics that really appealed to me, which is hard to put into words. It was really satisfying unlocking different areas and using ideas, and there are multiple solutions.

There were a few times I was frustrated by synonyms or getting default responses (like (Spoiler - click to show)trying to push or pull the tile without the ladder). Overall, though, I think people who enjoy exploration and note-taking in parser games should like this.

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Game Details

The Candy Striper of St. Asterix on IFDB

Polls

The following polls include votes for The Candy Striper of St. Asterix:

Outstanding PunyInform Game of 2024 by MathBrush
This poll is part of the 2024 IFDB Awards. The rules for the competition can be found here, and a list of all categories can be found here. This award is for the best PunyInform game of 2024. Voting is open to all IFDB members. Eligible...

Outstanding Inform 6 Game of 2024 by MathBrush
This poll is part of the 2024 IFDB Awards. The rules for the competition can be found here, and a list of all categories can be found here. This award is for the best Inform 6 game of 2024. Voting is open to all IFDB members. Eligible...

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This is version 3 of this page, edited by JTN on 1 April 2025 at 9:34pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page