Worlds Apart doesn’t contain any information for the exact day that it was released, so let’s celebrate about halfway through the year.
For my part, I want to say that this game both solves some of the major pitfalls of parser-based conversations and justifies the use of the parser. Not only is there an excellent keyword system where you can just type a keyword once in a conversation instead of typing “ASK X ABOUT Y” or “X, Y” every time, but the game’s vibrant and imaginative setting makes it feel exciting and rewarding. In most real-world or fantasy games, the world is banal enough that you usually only ask about either what you need to ask about or you try to ask the parser about stupid stuff just to get a response. If Jimmy Maher’s comment about a parser-based game being better the longer you can play in it without trying to mess with the parser for laughs is true, then Worlds Apart has to be one of the best interactive fiction games ever.
The game accomplishes this feat by creating a truly original fantasy world that makes you want to learn more about it. This is not a grab bag of allusionary tropes such as “Zork” or “Planetfall” that gestures at a genre and tell your mind to fill in the blanks with all the other works that you’ve read from that genre in lieu of actual worldbuilding, and to think this game came out decades before that term was in common parlance. The game asks you to read an in-game book at one point and I couldn’t have been more excited.
I would go so far as to say that this game should be held up there with Photopia and Blue Lacuna when talking about games that blew the conception of interactive fiction as “Infocom-likes” out of the water.
Finally, if you want my single favorite interaction in the game, ASK SAAL ABOUT GODS. It’s the pinnacle of the game saying just enough to capture your imagination while letting you fill in the blanks.
