Lightiania

>VERBOSE -- Paul O'Brian's Interactive Fiction Page

You are an inventor, and a flying saucer has crashed a few miles away from your house. You try to get this ship flying again. Why does it matter that you're an inventor? Where are the aliens? Why would you try to get the ship flying before finding the aliens? What does "Lightiania" mean in the first place? These questions, and many others, go unanswered in the game. What's worse, the game's one puzzle is virtually unsolvable without a walkthrough. It requires you to find a piece of a lock-and-key mechanism by LOOKing UNDER a piece of scenery. No problem, right? Well, the problem is this: that piece of scenery is never mentioned in the game. Until the walkthrough told me to "LOOK UNDER WARDROBE" (not the real solution, but analogous), I had no idea there was a wardrobe in the room. These are very serious problems. Many would be fixed by a good proofreader, or beta tester, or (dare I dream it?) both. I'm not saying these things to be harsh, and I definitely believe that someone with the imagination and enthusiasm displayed in this game should write again. But please, please: don't release it until it's in English and it makes sense.
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