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Beta Tester

by Darren Ingram

2009

(based on 14 ratings)
3 reviews

About the Story

The goal is discovery. The fun is walking around and doing and seeing, with an emphasis on games and puzzles.


Game Details


Awards

14th Place - 15th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2009)

Editorial Reviews

Baf's Guide


Jokes about an incompetent company whose product you're testing got old I don't know how long ago. In addition, in this game, they are presented in a way that is most inconvenient and annoying for the player. There is little more than those jokes here, except maybe for a few bugs (due to one of them, you can make one of the NPCs strip... Not that it affects the story in any way). And yes - the game can't be beaten without the hints; at the same time, to use the hint system, you have to overcome the same dubious major game gimmick.

--Valentine Kopteltsev

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Member Reviews

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Number of Reviews: 3
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Fun first room; falls apart in second half., March 3, 2010
by Danielle (The Wild West)
Related reviews: short games

Beta Tester is good for a couple laughs here and there. The hamster in the first room is probably worth the download. But once you're past the first room, the game falls apart.

I had a hard time figuring out what the objectives were in the second room--in one case, I found the solution to a puzzle in another room without being aware that a puzzle existed, while in another area, an objective is present, but I can't figure out any way to accomplish it. The funny writing helps delay the sting, but can't eliminate it altogether.

I eventually gave up. When objectives are so ill-defined that I can't figure out what to do, it's time to move on to a work that's had, (say it with me, now!) better beta-testing.

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
*Regrettably* lives up to its name, October 11, 2009
by Felix Larsson (Gothenburg, Sweden)
Related reviews: gambol, [5]

‘Objectively’ the game is nothing but a series of easy puzzles set in a silly nonsense environment: you play a beta tester of a virtual reality world called “the Toybox”.

The whole thing lives solely (and well) off it sense of humour and its central gimmick, viz. the long—sometimes very long—and funny descriptions of items and certain actions (spoon)fed to you by your hitting any key after having read so far. This allows a kind of timing of jokes and punchlines that the author uses to very good effect.

However—there’s a first and a second part to this game. The first part is great fun (if you like silly fun) thanks to the witty writing. After solving the 1st puzzle though, things become more buggy and less implemented. Actually, the game seems simply unfinished—at least in the version entered in IF Comp ’09. Suffice it to say that I really do look forward to a final version where Game Dame Hellaine and her Fun&Games-room is anything like implemented and where I can’t put Jorry the famous stand-up comedian in my backpack.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
An interesting puzzle game marred by implementation issues, August 15, 2017
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 1 hour

This game has you trying out various products in a puzzly environment. It has a snarky parser that jokes about a corporate environment, uses text pauses extensively, and has you assemble a complicated system.

It's actually pretty interesting, but the implementation has increasingly greater issues, making the latter half impossible to complete.

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Beta Tester on IFDB

Polls

The following polls include votes for Beta Tester:

Games with Toys by IFforL2
I want to distinguish toys from three other IF game elements: Puzzles require the player to find a solution to a problem in the narrative. If she can't find a solution, she's stuck. Branching allows the player to steer the plot of the...




This is version 1 of this page, edited by David Welbourn on 4 October 2009 at 2:31am. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page