A Cock and Bull Story

This review is mainly for me to come back to should I ever decide to update this game (maybe when my development skills have improved). A year has passed since I wrote this game. I decided to play it just for kicks. Honestly, I think giving myself 3 stars is rather generous. There are a number of bugs, it's incredibly difficult to figure out, and I couldn't even remember what the correct euphemisms to use in order to move forward in the game.

I still think the premise is promising. There is an underlying story in it about DJ Ahard, the owner of the cabin, which I hope encourages the player to replay the game a few times in order to get the full story. I think the idea of euphemisms is still good, too, except that it probably excludes non-American players since they wouldn't know what euphemisms to guess. I think there are two ways we could go here: either by removing the requirement for the player to type in euphemisms altogether, or find a way for the player to "inadvertently" type in euphemisms using the commonly used commands like take, drop, turn, etc. For example, "break the ice" would still work, but "toot your own horn" wouldn't.

I didn't get very far with the game, but enjoyed the writing, as well as stumbling across or puzzling out the various combinations of objects that yield results - some of those results really quite delightful. Tiny example: (Spoiler - click to show)Breaking the window on the fourth wall unlocks some running commentary by the author.

Doing certain things makes you lose the game, but unfortunately this occurs with a few turns' delay... so the "undo" command wouldn't save my bacon (har har). I quit after losing this way a few times.

The amount of objects is a tad overwhelming, though perhaps that's hard to avoid given the game's gimmick.

I encountered a few strange bugs, none of them game-breaking. Trying to examine the hatchet a couple of times gave me information about the bird instead, for instance. And though I was allowed to take the rifle at some point, before that it seemed to parse my effort as if I were trying to take the (immobile) mantle.

Anyway, my overall impression was positive.