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winter.z5
Requires a Z-Code interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
winter.z5
original competition entry
Requires a Z-Code interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
settings.txt
note about the graphics

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Winter Wonderland

by Laura Knauth

Children's, Fantasy, Seasonal
1999

About the Story

"Young Gretchen could have only imagined the fanciful events that were to occur before finding herself lost in a winter wonderland." [--blurb from Competition '99]


Game Details

Off-Site Reviews

Brass Lantern
Although the writing varies in quality, and at times one wishes for deeper responses to EXAMINE the whole is ultimately greater than the sum of its parts. There is a distinct "you are there" feel to the wonderland: not only can the place be pictured without effort, but anyone playing the game is likely to feel a need for a warm wool sweater. Apart from a mischievous snow sprite, the NPC's are not individually memorable, not because they are badly drawn but because their function is to enrich and perhaps melt into the general ambiance, not to stand out as creatures.
See the full review

SPAG
Perhaps the best way to describe Winter Wonderland is that it fits very snugly within its genre, namely earnest and occasionally heart-tugging fairy tale, and does very little to push that genre's boundaries. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, especially since that in particular is ground less trodden than some areas of IF (et tu, trapped-in-the-research- lab?), but it does require that the reader accept the conventions of the genre and put aside even the remotest vestige of cynicism. Any work of fiction that deals with the holiday-time struggles of a poor family whose youngest child is sick is already toeing the self-parody line; Winter Wonderland does about as well as any game could to avoid crossing the line.
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>VERBOSE -- Paul O'Brian's Interactive Fiction Page

What Winter Wonderland does so well is to combine the nifty puzzles from Trapped in a One-Room Dilly with the sense of magical landscape from Travels in the Land of Erden, and adds to the combination a thematic specificity that is all its own and that works beautifully. The links between the puzzles feel very plausible because the entire setting is very consistent, and solving the puzzles rewards the player not only by allowing advancement through the plot, but often as well by presenting another appealing image to add to the already dense atmosphere. Romping around the snowy landscape encountering sprites, fairies and dryads was a great deal of fun for me, and the intricate and ingenious ways in which they presented interlocking puzzles was a real source of pleasure as well.
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Page Update History

v.8: 18-Apr-2021 04:59 - David Welbourn (Current Version) - Edit Page - Normal View
Changed download links
v.7: 06-May-2022 22:31 - Paul O'Brian
Changed external review links
  v.6: 18-Apr-2021 04:59 - Zape
Changed download links
v.5: 03-Mar-2013 08:06 - Edward Lacey
Changed external review links
v.4: 06-May-2008 12:56 - Paul O'Brian
Changed external review links
v.3: 27-Feb-2008 22:21 - David Welbourn
Changed description
v.2: 21-Oct-2007 12:11 - David Welbourn
Changed cover art, download links
v.1: 16-Oct-2007 01:50 - IFDB
Created page