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The Magpie Takes the Train

by Mathbrush profile

Episode 2 of The Magpie
Humor
2020

About the Story

A millionaire guards a fabulous ruby in her private train car. Countless thieves have failed to steal it. But they weren't the Magpie!


Game Details

Off-Site Reviews

Doug's World
Magpie Takes the Train” shares several features in common with its inspiration: an entertaining detective farce involving frequent costume changes; dialogue with an amusing cast of upstairs-downstairs society figures (but curiously set in the states). Both games have a well implemented full parser interface.

This game differs from “Alias” in its scope. Whereas Alias was a full length game, with multiple rooms and individual scenes, “Train” is an elaborate one-room puzzle box....

A delightful addition to the Magpie canon.
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Intfiction
Newcomb’s IFComp 2020 Reviews
However, it’s Inform’s broken implementation of darkness that really irritates me. Suddenly I can’t continue the conversation I’m in because it got dark. The PC is suddenly deaf and forgetful in addition to blind. I have never understood why. I’m sure I’ll need the darkness for a later puzzle bit, so I Z Z Z a lot until it goes away[...]

An NPC barks at me for touching the radiator – fine, I’ll wait until it’s dark to fill the room with steam or however this is supposed to change matters – but when it gets dark I can’t do anything again.

I’m done.
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Intfiction
Stian’s IFComp 2020 reviews
Having, as one should, duly enjoyed ‘Alias’ The Magpie, I was very excited to see this sequel among this year’s IFComp entries. To my further enjoyment, it turns out this sequel is almost just as good! Not that there is anything particularly wrong with it; I just wish it was longer and slightly more challenging, matching the length and difficulty of the original. Completing The Magpie Takes the Train took me 45 minutes.
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Intfiction
Viv Dunstan’s IFComp 2020 Reviews
Ultimately this is a logic puzzle, albeit a very forgiving one, without a time limit that I could spot. So you can try different things without penalty. Though in the end I switched to the walkthrough, to polish things up. I was pleased to see that some of the different commands i tried (different from the exact versions in the walkthrough) worked. And ultimately it was an extremely satisfying ending.

So good stuff, albeit for me some niggles over the conversation mechanism (that is never easy to handle smoothly), and some under implemented bits. But it was extremely competent, and good fun. Thanks!
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Intfiction
Anssi’s IFComp 2020 Reviews
This game is a perfect example of how the player, through trial and error, and through experimenting with the various possibilities that the setting offers, learns more and more about the environment and finally arrives at the goal. Even if this is just one scene, taking place basically in one location only, it is enough of a game due to the careful implementation and the multitude of things you can try. The humor is good - for example the ways in which the Magpie, in the different outfits, compliments the millionaire, cracked me up.
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Page Update History

v.15: 06-Nov-2020 07:52 - JTN (Current Version) - Edit Page - Normal View
Changed download links
v.14: 01-Apr-2023 15:17 - MathBrush
Changed download links
v.13: 04-Jan-2021 13:04 - Zape
Changed download links
v.12: 29-Nov-2020 12:57 - oceow
Changed external review links
v.11: 06-Nov-2020 14:56 - MathBrush
Changed external review links
  v.10: 06-Nov-2020 07:52 - MathBrush
Changed version number
v.9: 22-Oct-2020 15:54 - MathBrush
Changed version number, external review links
v.8: 15-Oct-2020 00:26 - MathBrush
Changed external review links
v.7: 15-Oct-2020 00:25 - MathBrush
Changed external review links
v.6: 08-Oct-2020 17:35 - Zape
Changed download links
v.5: 08-Oct-2020 09:51 - MathBrush
Changed version number, external review links
v.4: 04-Oct-2020 10:29 - MathBrush
Changed external review links
v.3: 02-Oct-2020 11:12 - J. J. Guest
Changed cover art
v.2: 01-Oct-2020 21:13 - MathBrush
Changed author
v.1: 01-Oct-2020 16:25 - MathBrush
Created page