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Story File
Competition version.
Requires a Glulx interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
Walkthrough
Word document.
Walkthrough and map
by David Welbourn

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Ariadne in Aeaea

by Victor Ojuel profile

Historical
2016

(based on 24 ratings)
4 reviews

About the Story

Isle of Aeaea, the eastern Aegean. 3,500 years ago. In the northern wastes, the Achaeans have a new and warlike chieftain. Palace after palace is falling to his armies. On the shores of Crete, the Minoan civilisation awaits at the eve of extinction. At her sanctuary of Aeaea, the cunning Circe struggles to coordinate a political counteroffensive... And somewhere in the sticks, a young Minoan priestess named Ariadne wakes up to a hangover of mythological proportions.


Game Details


Awards

Nominee, Best Setting - 2016 XYZZY Awards

12th Place - 22nd Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2016)

Editorial Reviews

The Breakfast Review
Suffice it to say that the game proceeds with heavy doses of piquant humour. Ariadne is a naughty, naughty girl, and completely unapologetic about herself. She doesn't quite fit in with the priestesses or the system of advancement, but she's far from being a loser: she has too few regrets, and as far as she's concerned, she has yet to actually fail at getting what she wants. The attitude comes through in the writing, and it was fun to walk around for a bit in her sandals.
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Catalypto
A mid-length puzzly parser game, Ariadne in Aeaea appears to take some of the feedback the author’s previous game received to heart.[...] Ariadne has a strong sense of forward momentum, of wanting to find out the next big secret, and–other than the puzzle in the middle–was fairly good at delivering on that momentum. Recommended.
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The Stack
Ariadne is the player character. She’s supposed to be training as a priestess with Circe, the better to serve her family’s interests, but with the license that royalty affords, she spends her time carousing with local goatherds instead. This leads to serendipitously discovering evidence of Achaean spies on Aeaea’s shores, resulting in a secret mission to learn more, and it’s kind of cool how that happens.
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Lab of Jizaboz
This is a parser-driven game written in Inform7. It's a pretty amusing story, but none of the humor made me laugh out loud. I was hoping the topless ceremonial lady in the cover art was somehow depicted in the game, and she was! Old auntie. Nice.
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Reiko's Ramblings and Writings
The broad strokes of the relevant history have been researched and clearly presented, although the author admits that a network of priestess-spies isn’t at all supported by the historical record. Still, the historical record is rather thin for that time period, so it’s not completely out of the question, either. The specific island setting is itself fictional as well. The character’s voice is very strong here, if rather too modern-sounding. The prose is colorful and descriptive.
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Member Reviews

5 star:
(4)
4 star:
(10)
3 star:
(7)
2 star:
(3)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 4
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Most Helpful Member Reviews


6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Easyish linear game with a well-realised historical setting, July 17, 2020
by ChrisM (Cambridge, UK)

This is an amusing little game with some strong writing and a well-drawn player character in Ariadne, a sassy novitiate priestess who gets caught up in a little light espionage after a night in the sack with a couple of local goatherds. The map is fairly small and the story very linear: you are more or less trundled along from one scene to another with quite a lot of heavy hints and signposting to help you along the way. That being so, the puzzle coefficient is pretty small, but the whole feels immersive and convincing enough (thanks to the writing) for that not to matter too much. If you're in the mood for something not too taxing then this makes a pleasant diversion for an hour or so.

There are a few typos in there, and some other minor issues (for example, at one point you're told that you converse with a character while you walk to another location, but you don't actually leave the location that you are in), but nothing too egregious to distract from the overall experience.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Light-hearted parser game in a Greek setting with well-written characters, December 9, 2016
by dgtziea
Related reviews: IF Comp 2016

Semi-historical (Greek) parser game, not too long; light-hearted, well written. You're a young member of the royal family (the unruly one they might say) hoping to be ordained as priestess to the Goddess despite sniping from your aunt and sister, as you move about your small theocratic island kingdom. It is wordier than some of the other entries I've played so far, but it does a great job earning those words with personality and veneer.

The dialogue is excellent; you quickly get a handle on each of the characters, their relationships, and their motivations. You're also given a good sense of your own character early on (this is not a faceless/nameless adventurer you're controlling here). This all helps in making the game feel purposeful.

Puzzles are pretty straightforward: Talk to this person, find this item here, show it to this other person, etc. But they're not the focus here, and they're still enjoyable.

Maybe some of the descriptions are a bit hand-holdy in terms of guiding the player; I think having other characters tell you what they need or having your own character express goals is great, but having descriptions say pretty much what to do next seems like hand-of-the-creator reaching down and pointing something out. I think some of them were one step more explicit than they needed to be. But some players, I'm sure, will appreciate that.

The writing is the star here. The world, the setting, the characters: all are very well sketched out, and just exploring this small world was really enjoyable.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Adventures of a hungover wannabe priestess, November 8, 2016

This is a relatively short and simple puzzle game taking place in ancient Greece; there were a few times where I struggled to figure out what I was supposed to do next, but I never had to look at the the walkthrough. I really like games that give you a well-defined protagonist with strong motivations and flaws, rather than making you a faceless "you"-entity, and this game provides an excellent one in Ariadne, a lecherous lush who mostly wants to become a priestess so she can show up her obnoxious kid sister. In order to do that, she's got to solve a mystery related to a mysterious lion brooch and... honestly, I actually found the mystery itself a little hard to follow, but it may be easier if you're more familiar with the time period. Fortunately the next actions you need to take are usually hinted at fairly strongly, and the world model is robust enough to stand up to some poking around.

A few things could stand to be improved. You have to advance conversations by 'talking to' people repeatedly, clunkier than just pushing space to advance--since the conversations are linear anyway, why make us advance them with the parser? The hint system has some strengths--it's neatly integrated into the story, with Ariadne talking to herself in order to straighten out what she needs to do next--but a few glaring weaknesses too. Sometimes when TALKing TO ME I got Ariadne musing that she needed to do things she'd already done, or things she shouldn't know to do yet. (Most egregiously, she wanted to interrogate 'the boy', but the only evident boy couldn't be interrogated--as it turned out, 'the boy' was another boy she hadn't even met yet.)

Overall, the game is a solidly implemented and fairly quick play that runs to the easier end of the puzzle spectrum, with an appealingly debauched heroine and an original setting. Contrast this one with 2015's One Night Stand--both feature a young woman protagonist who begins the game by waking up with a hangover after a night of casual sex, but there's a big difference in how they're treated. Ariadne is judged by some of the other characters, but not by the game, or by herself--you don't get the impression she's going to lose any sleep over not knowing these random goatherds' names. She's got shit to do.

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Ariadne in Aeaea on IFDB

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Plot over Puzzle Parser by thecanvasrose
Looking for what it says on the tin.

games with female protagonists by X.W

For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible Best Games of 2016 by MathBrush
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