This year, I'm presenting all the reviews in a single page. This is
because I tried to keep these short and sweet, giving my overall
impressions of the games without getting into too many spoilery details.
I've found that big reviews don't really suit me. The reviews are listed
in the order that comp03.z5 gave them to me because that's the order in
which I wrote them, but I've also put in the option to sort by other
categories.
Some of these reviews I have revised, based on discussions with other
players on rec.games.int-fiction, or after further playing and reflection.
As an author in the 2003 comp, I couldn't vote in the public ranking, so
it doesn't really matter if I decide to change my votes after the fact!
If I've revised a score, the original score appears after it in parentheses.
(Sort listing by: author | comp placement | name | score) (View only results summary)
Curse of Manorland
Author: James King
Language: AGT
Genre: Fantasy
Score: 3
The introduction, most notable for its lack of proper punctuation or
capitalization, pretty much sets the stage. I found the game frustrating
for nonexistant synonyms and character motivation. After a little
walkthrough-related progress, I abandoned the game in the midst of
constant reminders of how cold I was.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Cerulean Stowaway
Author: Roger Descheneaux
Language: TADS2
Genre: Science fiction
Score: 6
The infodump intro does a good job of presenting the world, but is still
way too much text to display at the start of a game. Don't expect to be
surprised by the turn of events as you progress through the game. On the
other hand, it is quite surprising at how easy it is to get the game stuck
in an unwinnable state. Some objects had standard denial responses to
some perfectly reasonable actions, but otherwise the world was adequately
modeled. The context-sensitive hints mostly worked, though in some cases
they failed to provide any help later on in the game.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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little girl in the big world
Author: Peter Wendrich
Language: custom
Genre: Children's
Score: 4
With a simplistic parser, this game's greatest contribution is probably to
the author's programming experience. It's interesting in that the game
alternates between having you perform the actions yourself and telling the
title character to perform them, but that's about it. There's not that
much to the game itself, and if the parser doesn't recognize an action,
you get a very default "That didn't work" in response.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Scavenger
Author: Quintin Stone
Language: TADS2
Genre: Science fiction
Score: Not Rated
This was my game. So no, I didn't review it. Everyone should play it.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Internal Documents
Author: Tom Lechner
Language: z-code
Genre: Espionage
Score: 5
The game starts out with the possibility of being something beyond the
usual exploration/puzzle-solving. My hopes were not realized. NPC
interaction felt constrained, especially when I tried to answer the
bartender's question and found there didn't seem to be any way to engage
him in conversation. The map seemed overly large for the game's content.
There's a whole section of outdoor area which didn't seem to have any
relevance to the game (or at least as far as I got in it). When I entered
the maze of similar basement passages, neverending doors, and
non-reciprocating exits, I decided to call it a day.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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The Recruit
Author: Mike Sousa
Language: TADS2
Genre: Puzzles
Score: 7
An unabashed puzzle game. As you soon discover, your entire purpose is to
beta-test a "real life" adventure game. Though it's been done before, I
found this game did a pretty impressive job of implementing it. The
puzzles were certainly original with some clever solutions, and those are
major pluses if puzzles are your game's major focus. The most freaky
moment was when I restarted the game and it came up with my name for the
PC, complete with the uncommon spelling. Mike included a large number of
RAIF/RGIF regulars in his list of random PC names and didn't, as I briefly
thought, include some kind of telepathic link. So 1 point off for
disappointing me there. (Kidding)
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Hercules First Labor
Author: Bob Brown
Language: JavaScript
Genre: Mythological
Score: 1
It would have required a Herculean effort for me to play beyond the 10
minutes I devoted to this game. Unfortunately there is no immortal blood
running through my veins. I'm sure a lot of work went into this
JavaScript game. That doesn't make up for the lack of basic IF
functionality we've come to expect. Like, for instance, room
descriptions.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Bio
Author: David Linder
Language: TADS2
Genre: Science fiction
Score: 4
This isn't a completely awful game. It's easy to think that it is,
because you'll die in the first 15 moves. And you will die. There's no
avoiding it... unless you look at the walkthrough. And the reason you'll
die is because the author absentmindedly changed the name of a piece of
scenery in the start room description, but didn't rename the actual
scenery object that you need to open in order to live (or possibly vice
versa). If you can make it past the first 15 moves, you'll encounter what
would seem to be a first attempt at IF. Not a particularly stellar one
either. Some rooms even lack descriptions, few scenery objects are
implemented. But there is a cohesive story, at least.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Sardoria
Author: Anssi Raisanen
Language: Alan
Genre: Fantasy
Score: 7
In a nice twist, instead of the backstory being presented in a started
introductory infodump, it's shown when you examine yourself. From there,
the game proceeds fairly linearly, as a series of puzzle obstacles one
right after the other. It's nicely executed, with only a few problems
(ham the game tells you isn't edible, a drawer that closes but doesn't,
and a whopper of a bug that can make the game unwinnable if you do a
certain thing).
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Slouching Towards Bedlam
Author: Anssi Raisanen
Language: z-code
Genre: Surreal
Score: 8
A good intro not only sets up the background, it also establishes a
certain mood. Bedlam's introduction certainly fulfills this obligation.
It left me feeling somewhat unnerved and wary. Perfectly suited to this
unusual game. After some initial discoveries, though, a certain feeling
of directionlessness settled on me. The very well-done hints certainly
addressed this, though I feel that the game could have done a better job
of providing the player with a sense of purpose. Certainly there is a
mystery to solve -- there's just little information on how to begin.
This isn't helped when important object interfaces (the console's buttons,
the pyramid's dial) are somewhat obfuscated. Without the triage's help,
there's no mention of the pyramid's dial that I could find. The console's
description doesn't give any indication that deeper examination is
necessary to discover the vitally important buttons. These things got me
in the habit of relying on the hint system and I never recovered. So
while I could see that there was some brilliant work put into this game, I
found myself unable to truly appreciate it. It can be hard to approach a
game like this during a comp, where you are somewhat jaded by the previous
games of low quality. And so when you come to one like Slouching Towards
Bedlam, with its low-key mystery plot and quite bizarre features, you
begin to wonder if the author just made a mistake or if you're using an
incompatible interpreter. So my suggestion is to sit and play the game
and set aside some time for when you can really devote some serious
attention to it.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Amnesia
Author: Dustin Rhodes (writing as crazydwarf)
Language: TADS2
Genre: Parody? Homage?
Score: 1
Probably the only game that has ever made me cry. Well, not so much cry
as just tear up at the utter awfulness of it. Apparently the author
recognized that the game was poor but, rather than try to improve it,
simply accepted its inadequacies, announced his acceptance, and felt that
this would make up for it. It doesn't.
Revised: At least one fellow reviewer on rec.games.int-fiction has
suggested that Amnesia is a parody of bad first-time games. That's the
tricky part of writing a parody. If it's not well done, no one can
distinguish it from the subject you're lampooning. Scary
House Amulet, from the 2002 IF
Comp, did a slightly better job of it (if it is, indeed, also a
parody), but even SHA straddled the line for me.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Temple of Kaos
Author: Peter Gambles
Language: TADS2
Genre: Fantasy
Score: 5
I've never cared for poetry. Not surprisingly, I don't particularly like
the idea of IF done in poetic form. The focus is on form rather than
details, style over substance, leaving me unable to properly visualize
much of anything I encounter. It was also a minor bother that the game
felt inconsistent. Some responses were poetry, some were not. At least
the descriptions were brief enough that it was easy to figure out what was
important. Still, play felt murky and vague. I found myself relying
almost entirely on hints as the game progressed. The idea of
contradictory concepts is an intriguing one (an idea I've explored for
possible games of my own) and it's a shame that it was eclipsed by the
somewhat opaque nature of the writing.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Delvyn
Author: William A. Tilli (writing as Santoonie Corporation)
Language: TADS2
Genre: Fantasy
Score: 3
At first, I thought this game required multimedia support to play. I mean,
it was pretty inconceivable that the start room would be missing a
description. So after a few minutes in Linux, I shelved it until I could
give it a go on a Windows machine. That was when I discovered that, even
though there are some graphics and sounds in the game, the start room's
missing description remained inexplicably AWOL. A frustrated "x all"
revealed that you can examine the bedroom explicitly to see it. Ugh. Oddly
enough, this is the only room I found this to be a problem with. The start
room. I mean, come on! It's the very first room you see. How could this
get by the testers? It's inconceivable. When I died from hunger in my own
kitchen, in front of my mother, I decided that I'd had enough of this game.
Revised: The author took issue with some of the statements in my
review. Apparently the lack of a start room description was because "you
had been living there for quite some time, to view any changes, would take
x bedroom." This assertion, of course, is ridiculous on its face. The rest
of the house rooms had descriptions. Wasn't my character just as familiar
with them? Besides, room descriptions are for the player, not the
player character. I haven't lived there for any amount
of time. That's why I need a room description. Also, my character's death
was apparently due to "the ineptitude of the puppetmaster". In other
words, yours truly is a dullard. Silly me for believing that a person (even
a "Grey Elf") could survive 10 minutes after gulping down a stack of
pancakes without needing to eat anything else. "Delvyn is a Grey Elf, and
the humidity factor in South Carolina created a very dangerous health risk
for the albino elf.... You learn to excell [sic] or go home early."
Some people believe that A. P. Hill and the rest of the "Santoonie
Corporation" are little more than elaborate trolls. I don't believe that.
My own personal belief is that A. P. Hill lives in a different reality from
the rest of us. In other words, he's crazy. The rest of the Santoonie
Corporation are probably his multiple personalities or something. There's
just too much work and effort here, flawed or not, to chalk it up to a
person (or people) playing some kind of grandiose prank on the IF community
over all this time.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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The Adventures of the President of the United States
Author: Mikko Vuorinen
Language: Alan
Original score: 2
Revised score: 3
With a single step, I traverse continents. I'm the President of the
United States, the most powerful man in the world! Which isn't saying
much, since there are only around 10 people on the whole planet (which I
can easily circumnavigate in a matter of minutes). This is definitely one
of the more unusual games I've played. It's both extremely abstract and
detail-oriented at the same time. Even so, I just didn't care for it. I
guess it was meant to be funny and some people might find it so. I
didn't.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Rape, Pillage, Galore!
Author: Kristian Kirsfeldt
Language: Windows
Genre: Random text generator
Score: 1
Is this even interactive? There are only two commands, and all they do is
produce what appears to be randomized text of either violent or sexual
conquest. And it just goes on and on like that, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Episode in the Life of an Artist
Author: Peter Eastman
Language: TADS2
Genre: Slice of life
Score: 6
Starts out with the tedium of dressing, article of clothing by article
clothing. A deliberate comment on the tedious life of the player
character? Maybe, but at the start of a game it's just irritating. The
game, I think, tries to be both funny and creepy at the same time.
Doesn't quite achieve either one in my estimation. It will definitely
require some knowledge of Infocom and their games to get every reference.
The game did have a few good moments that made me smile. It's just a
shame they were too few and far between.
Revised: Another reviewer pointed out the play on words between
"artist" and "autist". The PC of this game came across to me as simple,
yes, not quite autistic. Still, the idea is too compelling to ignore. A
pity that the author didn't do more with it (assuming that it's true).
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Sweet Dreams
Author: Papillon
Language: Windows
Genre: Graphical
Score: Not Rated
I didn't play this one enough to feel comfortable rating it. Walked
around some, went to sleep, appeared in a strange room with no
explanation, wandered around, then gave up. It simply didn't interest me.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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The Atomic Heart
Author: Stefan Blixt
Language: z-code
Genre: Science fiction
Score: 7
I thought this was a fairly innovative idea: you play as a robot (and
unlike some other games, you are well aware of your status from the very
beginning). As such, there are some actions you are quite incapable of
taking, but other abilities beyond those of normal humans are available to
you. The downside is that the implementation felt somewhat clumsy.
There are some bugs (being able to pick up a giant robot and some
out-of-order lines of text) and a "death" system somewhat reminiscent of
Spider and Web, though not nearly as elegant. With some more attention to
these problems, this could shift from a decent game to a good one.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Baluthar
Author: Chris Molloy Wischer
Language: z-code
Genre: Fantasy
Score: 8
Though the writing in Baluthar was at times quite verbose, I really did
enjoy it. I doubt I would have found so much reading bearable had it not
been done so well. Likely I would have ended up skimming the long text
and, without the interest to really digest the descriptions, relied on the
hints or walkthrough exclusively. I still did need to refer to the hints
for a few of the obstacles. The rest seemed fairly straightforward.
Probably my biggest gripe of the game was the anticlimactic ending. The
characters ended up feeling a tad lifeless to me. I never felt a
particular sense of dread or danger from the beasties I encountered.
From a detached perspective, I could appreciate that they had very
menacing presentations, but I never really *felt* that. Maybe it's
because I didn't feel connected to the characters. Rykhard especially
came across as a rather hollow NPC, despite (or perhaps because of) his
speeches. But I consider this a moderately minor issue that only takes
away slightly from an otherwise well-done game.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Sophie's Adventure
Author: David Whyld
Language: Adrift
Genre: Fantasy
Score: 5
A large game I found more notable for its bugs than anything else. Each
is minor, but taken together they really bring down the quality. (For
example, the second room proclaims an exit that doesn't exist, I
repeatedly got dropped out of conversation menus with no explanations, my
score once "increased" from 2 to... 2, the walkthrough doesn't match the
map, and the game performed an action I typed right after telling me it
was impossible.) It definitely could have done with a lot more beta
testing. After a while I tried to turn to the walkthrough, but since I
couldn't get that to work and I didn't get the impression I had advanced
very far, I gave up.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Gourmet
Author: Aaron A. Reed
Language: z-code
Genre: Slice of life
Score: 7
I can't emphasize this enough: I like to be given a goal. I believe that
the days of fumbling around without a clue as to what you should do faded
away with the Golden Age of text adventures. Gourmet, happily, gives me a
goal. Even when I'm not sure *how* to achieve that objective, at least I
have some direction. This game had some great moments that really made me
chuckle, even though quite a few times I had to refer to the walkthrough
to get me through some of the more obtuse puzzles (and though I probably
never would have guessed the solutions, at least they follow a consistent
sort of logic and made sense within that framework).
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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The Fat Lardo And The Rubber Ducky
Author: "Somebody"
Language: z-code
Genre: Insulting
Score: 1
An exercise in implementing every verb for a single object. While
insulting the player in every conceivable manner. I don't see the point.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Risorgimento Represso
Author: Michael Coyne
Language: z-code
Genre: Fantasy
Score: 9
A setting perhaps a bit more cliched (magic fantasy) than the one in my
own game, though I am of the opinion that implementation is more important
than complete originality. And so I was cheerfully able to appreciate
this pleasant, light-hearted fantasy game. It made good use of a brief
pre-game, though it lacked a symmetrically elegant conclusion (the game
ends in an infodump of considerable length, probably my only real
complaint against it). The puzzles were good and even the trickier ones
had solutions that made sense in hindsight. One I felt was a bit of a
guess-the-verb, but I got over it. I give this game a hearty
recommendation.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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A Paper Moon
Author: Andrew Krywaniu
Language: z-code
Genre: Fantasy
Score: 6
Adequate puzzles with an overall lackluster implementation. Yet again, I
find a game that gives me no clue as to what I'm supposed to be doing or
why I'd do it. Only further into the game do I begin to gain direction,
and even then it's a naked treasure hunt with questionable purpose (not
dissimilar from the purpose in Risorgimento Represso, oddly enough). The
main NPC I meet is somehow immediately known to me, even though the game
doesn't imply I've ever met him before. The writing is fairly
inconsistent, with one of the rooms being a single line of text, some
rooms not listing an exit, and one of the room names being lowercase even
though all others are capitalized. The most interesting aspect of the
game, the oragami, was fairly well utilized and adequately implemented,
however I don't think it quite lived up to its potential.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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The Erudition Chamber
Author: Daniel Freas
Language: TADS2
Genre: Fantasy / Puzzles
Score: 7
In the real world, there is rarely one solution for any given problem.
In this game, there are four, each adhering to a different principle.
Because of this, The Erudition Chamber, nearly a naked puzzle game, was
the only game I played to completion multiple times. Some of the
solutions are definitely more obvious than others. A few take some
definite thought. The great thing about this design: we all approach
puzzles differently, and here we have problems with solutions that should
be deducible no matter how your brain works. My only complaint is that I
never felt particularly immersed or in character. As such, the endings
were nice but my victory didn't give me too much of a thrill.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Shadows On The Mirror
Author: Chrysoula Tzavelas
Language: TADS3
Genre: Conversational
Original score: 5
Revised score: 8
I think I missed the point of this game. After playing and rating it, I
checked the hints and read that this "is a game about character
interaction." Problem is, there was almost no character interaction in my
plays through the game. Wanting to get a firm grip on my situation first,
I investigated my surroundings before trying to converse with the key NPC.
In doing so, it seems that I completely circumvented the need to talk to
him at all. And so I apparently reached one of the "happy" endings in
very short order. I suppose I've just played so many games with weak NPC
interaction that unless a game practically SCREAMS character interaction
as its purpose, I'll hardly even try. Perhaps a better cuing of this idea
in order.
Revised: This game can't really be appreciated until you've played
through it several times. The number of possible conclusions is quite
staggering (the author posted a more-or-less complete list of possible
endings). Slouching, on the other hand, tells you, with its appendices,
that you've only found one finale out of several. Probably the only issue
I can really take with this game is that there's so much more to it than
a player might guess.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Domicile
Author: John Evans
Language: z-code
Genre: Fantasy
Score: Not Rated
Played some, got to the point where the game referred to a non-existant
image file, and decided that maybe I'd try this again some other time.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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CaffeiNation
Author: Michael Loegering
Language: z-code
Genre: Office humor
Score: 5
Starts off with a clever and humorous (in my opinion, of course)
introduction, but slowly grinds downwards from there. A real pity,
because it had potential. A lot of the problems seemed to come from the
rough, unpolished implementation. Little things that, taken together,
spoil the atmosphere and enjoyability. There's a couple of disambiguation
problems, an exit uncovered that you are never told about, major scenery
objects not implemented, a room with no description, and even a section of
the walkthrough that didn't seem to work for me. It's nice that there are
alternate solutions to several of the obstacles. Just a shame that even
most of these are so obtuse I would never have gotten them without the
walkthrough.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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No Room
Author: Ben Heaton
Language: z-code
Genre: Single puzzle
Score: 3
The idea was to defy even the one-room game: this is a no room game. In
reality, this simply means that you interact only with the objects in your
inventory. Like Koan from 2002, this game has only a single puzzle.
This solution, on the other hand, is pretty obvious and doesn't try to
disguise itself as some kind of deep philosophical insight.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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Adoo's Stinky Story
Author: B. Perry
Language: z-code
Genre: Slice of life
Score: 5
Well, at least I start with a goal. Unfortunately, it's a pretty juvenile
one. This is another game where the introduction gives you a fairly good
feel for the rest of the game. The main problem with this game is that
the implementation just feels downright unpolished. For some reason, the
author decided to make doors available in the room's content list, rather
than the room description itself. The result is room after room
containing a "wooden door". The NPCs, while possessing a reasonable
degree of interaction, are still little more than two-dimensional paper
cut-outs. In the end, I felt more relief than satisfaction upon
completing the game.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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