It’s TALP Jam time - one of my favourite comps in the calendar!
I didn’t have time to make a TALP game myself this year, so I thought I’d try and review some of the entries instead Hopefully I’ll manage them all.
Their First Meeting by dravianis
Summary
The TALP Jam tends to attract a lot of first-time authors, so this debut from dravianis is a good place to start!
Their First Meeting is a short Adventuron game, part of a wider lore created by the author (which you don’t need to know anything about - the story is well introduced). There are two main puzzle sequences, the first slightly more straightforward than the second.
The tutorial, such as it is, is basically a short ‘how to play’ text. I would have preferred this to be integrated into the gameplay.
Object and scenery implementation is a bit light and patchy - I’ll give this a pass as it’s the author’s first game, but it’s often unclear what is actually an interactable object as the custom ‘you can’t do that’ messages are a bit obtuse. There are often cases where you can’t interact with an object until you’re at a certain point in the puzzle chain - I don’t mind this at all, but it could do with better ‘wait till later!’ hinting.
The main issue is guess-the-verb/guess-the-noun - allowing for a few synonyms would make this a much more enjoyable experience. I was really banging my head against the screen in a lot of cases, especially during the more complex second puzzle sequence.
I already mentioned the custom ‘you can’t do that’ messages - customising these is of course preferable to the standard Adventuron response, especially as it’s done here to fit in better with the writing style, but after a while I did get a bit sick of the tone as it felt like the game was telling me off or calling me stupid for trying things. I don’t think this would have been a problem if there weren’t so many guess-the-verb issues as mentioned above.
Overall, though, it’s a nice little story and with a bit of testing and polish (and a better integrated tutorial) would hold up well as a TALP game. As it is, beginners might find it a bit hard.
The game is a little rough around the edges from the off (it needs the Adventuron game information setup to be added etc.), but it has a great tutorial that ticks all the boxes.
This game uses choice options for dialogue, which I’m a big fan of. However, sometimes there’s only one choice, which is unnecessary.
The game design has some similarities with @Grizel’s Midsummer’s Eve from last year - in addition to the AI-generated fantasy graphics, it uses a similar menu line at the top of the screen where you can click on inventory, map and help functions rather than typing. The map function doesn’t seem to work though!
Unfortunately there are quite a few noticeable bugs, e.g. an NPC still present in a location after they’ve joined your party. There is also, annoyingly, a point where you have to use complex parser (PUT X IN Y) rather than verb noun, despite expressly being told in the tutorial that this is not necessary.
Sadly, I ran into a gamebreaking bug! You can keep examining the pedestal of the statue for the next clue and it keeps giving them, but if you do that, it thinks you’ve solved puzzles that you haven’t and so you now can’t get the sword from the statue (as the game thinks you already have it). So I can’t finish this one just now, which is a shame as I was really enjoying the story.
I would love to play a bugfixed version of this as it has a lot of promise. If I get to it again during the jam period, I’ll update this review!
UPDATE: played this one again – there have been some bugfixes (though I still encountered occasional bugs) and I was able to finish it this time. The story has a nice satisfying end and a well-placed cue to save before the final puzzle!
Some really nice music has also been added (in fact I liked it so much that I left the game open and let it keep playing while I was trying other games). This contributes to the lovely atmosphere of the game in general.
‘A Princess Saves a Dragon’ has now been updated. The Adventuron game information has been added so that you don’t get that initial Adventuron warning. We now know that the author is Cornei Eva and the version is now 1.0.0. (I’ve updated the IFDB entry accordingly.) It also has some really nice background music that I don’t recall from the initial release (though I may have just forgotten) and a downloadable version. CREDITS now tells us that it sometimes requires multi-word entry. I haven’t played it yet, so I don’t know if those bugs have been fixed.
I’ve been playing three different versions of this game on and off and the first two at least were very buggy. I haven’t poked much at the most recent version (uploaded 7th May as of this review) so I don’t know if the bugs I noticed are still there or not – I just speedran through it after running into a gamebreaking bug near the end of the version prior.
The parser is very exacting and so I’m not sure how beginner-friendly it is. I created a walkthrough for myself while trying to get through the game (I kept running into gamebreaking bugs and having to start again, as there is no save function) - have linked the walkthrough below in case anyone else is struggling for the exact command.
The game is coded from scratch in C# and I always find that pretty impressive! The author has also been very reactive to feedback during the jam so far, which has been really helpful.
A short game with a fun tone, so worth a go if you don’t mind persevering.
Lulu and the Asteroid of 100% Guaranteed Doom by Ben Ryan
Summary
This is the first game I’ve played in this TALP Jam that comes with a walkthrough. This is always such a welcome bonus when playing through lots of jam games!
It’s a large, sophisticated and well-constructed game with an interesting story and an engaging objective for most of the game (find your missing cat). There’s clearly been a lot of worldbuilding and it kind of feels like there’s something much bigger going on behind the game story. A lot of the locations and scenes feel a bit disconnected, like you’re floating from dream to dream, but the plot is mostly coherent and interesting.
The tutorial is well set out - you are led around the basic environs of your own home and guided through the basic commands. Once the story starts, though, you’re very much on your own.
My feeling is that this would be a difficult game for beginners. The game uses a complex parser and sometimes the commands are a little hard to figure out - I was often reliant on the walkthrough. As someone more familiar with the tropes I could also have done with better clueing in general - for instance, at one point there are some lanterns you have to light, but it isn’t clear you can just LIGHT LANTERN as there’s nothing in your inventory for lighting lanterns - and the medieval fantasy setting would suggest they’re not electric lanterns with switches! At other points it’s not very clear you need to talk to characters to progress the story.
A few slightly wonky moments with responses and implementation, but on the whole the game is really solidly coded. I really liked the ending puzzle and final scene – it was very satisfying.
It’s a big game for a TALP game. It felt nice and meaty – but I think it would need to be at a slightly easier level to be friendly to beginners.
This game has a really fun and simple premise. You are Hermes and you need to deliver a letter to your father, Zeus. It’s a colourful and enjoyable Adventuron game with hand-drawn illustrations and styling that fits well with the Ancient Greek theme.
The tutorial is great and very straightforward - it’s an easy-to-follow introduction to all the basic commands and commonly used shortcuts. The game also makes good use of a fairly limited parser, sticking to basic verbs and simple noun-verb commands throughout. The only slightly uncommon verb (WEAR) is fully explained in the tutorial.
For me, this game is pitched at exactly the right level for TALP. When I first started out in the world after the tutorial, took to the sky and could seemingly go anywhere in any direction forever, I was a little worried the map was going to be huge. However, the story quickly limits the player’s movement and the game becomes a simple and fairly linear (but still very enjoyable) adventure.
The only time I got stuck was when I couldn’t find an item and didn’t seem to be getting any help with it from the in-game hints (you need to be in a certain location to get the hint you need, which doesn’t make much sense). I was able to find the hint I needed for this by looking through the comments on the Itch game page, but there is also a walkthrough provided.
It’s solidly coded (I only came across a couple of tiny bugs) and well written. A very good addition to the TALP canon.
This is an interesting Adventuron game that you can play through multiple times to experience different mini-adventures. The game has a pleasant aesthetic style, characterful tone and fairly trippy vibe as far as the story and puzzles are concerned.
The author is a non-native English speaker and there are quite a lot of language errors; sometimes this feels like sloppiness rather than just due to the language barrier. For instance, the game setting (the city of Torino/Turin, I assume) is variously referred to as ‘Torino/Tortino/Tourin’.
Occasional bugged responses, and also a few irritating non-responses due to the language issue - e.g. ICECREAM is recognised but not ICE CREAM.
There’s no tutorial to speak of as far as I can see - instead, you can type HELP for a list of basic commands. HELP and HINT do generally give you enough clues during each mini-adventure to get you through it, but I would have liked a defined tutorial section as set out in the jam guidelines.
There are a few places that could do with slightly better clueing/clarity. For instance, at one point you have to type YES after being asked ‘Are you free today?’. This is likely to throw a player expecting to have to type verb noun commands or similar - a simple ‘(Type YES to continue)’ would go a long way here.
Generally, items in the location descriptions are unimplemented, and directions are usually LEFT/RIGHT rather than the more standard NSEW etc. This fits with the style of the game, which in some ways is not really a traditional text adventure, but I do prefer to see those traditional elements (such as being able to examine things) included in games where teaching beginners is the aim.
The initial objective is a bit confusing. Am I having a ‘day out’ or not? I’ve suddenly been told I need to go to work. When you do get to the office, things generally become clearer… but never any less weird!
I really like the game design of playing through four times to get a secret message leading to a fifth mini-adventure (though the message is easy to work out after playing two of them). However, I would like to see a bit more polish and clueing (especially in the early stages of the game) to make it more beginner-friendly.
A fascinating PunyInform game based on Japanese mythology.
The game starts off with a really thorough and solid tutorial – the Garry Francis model for tutorials has been well studied and used as inspiration here, including the classic ‘pocket as a container’. There are also occasional but well-placed further tutorial hints elsewhere in the game when players might encounter a command new to them.
The game starts out fairly slow and standard, with an introduction about arriving back in your hometown to meet a friend. The descriptions of the ryokan are lush and beautiful, and it all feels very relaxing and then… combat! Out of nowhere in this seemingly staid Japanese bathhouse setting! Yes, you do have to fight the occasional monster in this game - the combat is simple and puzzle-based, but very fun.
I thought the game might be a bit big when I left the first building, but it turned out to be a really nice size. The puzzles are straightforward and well clued, and the list of important topics provided in the notepad neatly avoids the guess-the-topic issue usually inherent in ASK X ABOUT Y dialogue systems.
There are a few small bugs and occasional writing errors, but nothing major.
I did encounter some slightly buggy stuff with the final puzzle, but it turned out to be because I did the ritual in the wrong order and it worked itself out once I corrected it.
The Ghibli tribute at the end is nice. Overall this is a really enjoyable game, especially if you’re interested in Japanese culture and mythology, and it works out at a good level for beginners.
I thought I’d do a lot worse for my first game but in general it has been well received. And yes, in hindsight I agree the lantern thing is ridiculous, haha!
Thank you on behalf of all the jam participants for playing these games and writing your well considered reviews.
As for me, I’ll give Lulu another round of bug fixes & polishing in the near future thanks to you, Garry and Aly who play tested it.
Thank you for playing my game and for spending time to review all of them. I’ll try to polish it even more for a post-jam review. Also, a big thanks to Garry who was indeed a great help and a constant inspiration.
This Inform 7 game is a really fun take on the fairytale theme where you play as the big bad wolf, being interviewed by the police and coming up with an alibi for all his alleged crimes!
I really liked the design of the tutorial - there’s an in-story introduction and a special tutorial character who is later brought back to provide hints if you need them. The tutorial itself is thorough and provides a good explanation of every common command - there’s also a handy ‘commands’ meta-command that lists every verb you need to get through the puzzles, which is a nice short list due to the game’s limited-parser design.
The puzzles are straightforward, generally well clued and nicely pitched towards beginners. I only needed to use the hints twice - first when trapped in the trunk and then again when trying to move south past the shepherd boy to the town. The in-game hints helped in the first instance, but there seemed to be a slight bug with them in the second instance and so I had to resort to asking on the Discord. In both cases, I was stuck because I hadn’t re-tried a command after a circumstance had changed - I felt this could have been marginally better clued, but perhaps it was just me not being thorough enough.
Here we have another Adventuron game based on Greek mythology, but with a very different setting - a maze! But it’s a fun maze. Trust me.
The gameplay is nice and simple for beginners while still providing a fun challenge due to the maze, which is very satisfying to map. The game is well documented for anyone who gets stuck, with a walkthrough and map available on the Itch page.
There are a few points with confusing wording or clunky responses (e.g. at the beginning if you try to WEAR TUNIC (which you’ve been told is clothing you regularly wear), the response is ‘You can’t wear that.’), but on the whole the implementation is solid.
I really felt the kind nature of the Minotaur and his lovely relationship with the player character; this is very nicely done for a mute character. It’s also great that there are optional subplot puzzles that you can do to get slightly different endings (though I think it would have been good to make the Icarus/Procritus subplot mandatory, as it’s a shame for players to miss out on that).
A game that takes lots of fairytales and nursery rhymes and mashes them up into one very lively village of characters!
A nice solid tutorial means that the player knows how to do things specific to the game that are sometimes considered advanced for beginners, such as SEARCHING and LOOKING UNDER things.
The game is straightforward and relatively linear with nice easy puzzles – exploring everywhere available will get you all the items you need. I was a bit unnerved to be carrying around a gross dead rat in a fairytale game but was relieved when I soon found the puzzle for getting rid of it!
There are a few loose ends and red herrings due to the flavour from the exploration (do you ever end up reporting your discovery of Peter’s wife’s body to the authorities?) and a few odd barriers (you can’t carry water in the mug because ‘it’s made for carrying ale, not water’), but the endgame is fun and satisfying (though I think it would have been more so if Mother Goose hadn’t been quite so explicit about how to keep the ogres away following her rescue – it feels like you’re being told the answer to the last puzzle outright).
Another fun and enjoyable game at the right level for beginners, and another worthy addition to the ever-growing TALP subgenre. A great entry to finish on for this jam.
Hopefully I’ll manage them all.
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