I’m really enjoying these reviews. Keep them coming.
This year’s comp has a real mish mash of weird and wonderful formats. Some games are playable online, some are downloadable and some are both. I prefer to download games and play them offline. I spent all day downloading games and trying to get them working, so I feel your pain.
For ‘Moon-house Technician’ by Tyler Wright, this is written in an ancient mainframe language called Rexx and it’s the first time I’ve seen a text adventure written in this language. Here’s a direct link to the recommended Rexx interpreter on SourceForge. There is a bewidering number of platforms supported, so scroll down the list of files until you find one that looks like the correct one for your platform. As I use 64-bit Windows, I guessed that Regina396w64.zip was the correct file and I happened to be right. For a 64-bit Mac, it’s probably regina-rexx-3.9.6-x86_64-apple-darwin23.4.0.tgz.
Once the file is downloaded and unzipped, you should find a file called regina.exe (or something similar for the Mac). Just drag the downloaded game’s rexx file onto the regina.exe file and it will start.
For ‘19 Once’, the authors are credited on the game page as Yvonne Jeagon & Larissa Jemmy.
Rest assured, there are a few conventional parser games yet to come, so don’t throw in the towel just yet.