Once and Future

Brass Lantern
[...] it will perhaps be a long time before the breed of player who enjoys classic adventure games completely dies out; perhaps there will always be a tiny but steadfast fanbase for such things: Those who love fiendish puzzles and fantasy; those who enjoy a game that takes a sizeable span of time to win. When the muse is with me, I'm one of them.

OaF rewards this type of player; GKW knew his (vanishing) audience well. In terms of design, OaF is superbly crafted. It plays fair; the Player's Bill of Rights is honored. What I liked about the design was the way each section, each puzzle, existed in its own territory. In this way, even if horribly stuck, I knew that there was a way out, a way to solve the problem facing me. The number of objects at hand was limited, the number of locations I needed to double-check was restricted; something I was holding, or something that could be had with a little more exploration of the available rooms, would do the trick. I asked a friend for exactly three hints; each time, I mainly wanted to know which line of guessing was unfruitful, because I knew I had to be flailing close to the solution already. At every new stage (the game works out to be episodic, with a large plot that breaks into subplots, and sub-subplots), GKW made sure that the player knew everything he needed to know to keep going. No, he says, you don't need to start over from the beginning because you forgot to do something; this area is self-contained. Keep trying! I enjoyed being able to rely on this trust I had with the author.
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IF-Review
Swords and Sledgehammers
I spent several weeks playing through Once And Future, and I'm not sorry I did. For one thing, it's an important part of recent IF history, and for another thing, as I said before, it's fun. Still, it was a bit of a letdown. I suppose that after the hype, buildup, and fanfare it got, it couldn't help but be a letdown, at least a little bit. On top of that, it was no doubt to the game's disadvantage that I played it in 2002. However unfair it might be to judge what's essentially a 1994 game by 2002 standards, it's impossible not to, because, well, it is 2002. Styles have changed, and parts of OAF haven't aged well. The bottom line is that it feels like the work of a beginning writer, one who has promise and may have matured through the process, but whose novice mistakes remain. That doesn't mean it's not worth playing -- it most certainly is -- but don't believe the hype.
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SPAG
Issue # 16 - "One and Future" Special
This is a rather special issue of SPAG. For the first time ever, the entire issue is devoted to a single game: G. Kevin "Whizzard" Wilson's "Once and Future" (the game formerly known as "Avalon"), recently released from Cascade Mountain Publishing.
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