35 | A WARM RECEPTION
35 | A WARM RECEPTION
by: Joshua Hetzel
Progress:
- I was able to complete the game with a score of 18 in about 28 minutes without the use of a walkthrough (though the game did kindly give me a hint when I was wandering around in a maze for many turns). I decided to replay to check to see if there was any special text for beating the game with a score of 0 by just happening to roll a 20 (there wasn’t).
Things I Appreciated:
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Up to this point, this response thread documents a lot of struggle with challenging or unintuitive puzzles. I think because of the nature of the community (or at least, what I’ve seen of it in these few weeks of playing this game), there’s sort of an assumption being made about the skill level of players and that puzzles should be challenging, and that the target audience for games should be at an intermediate-to-expert level. So what I appreciate is that this game is designed to be so approachable for a beginner at parser games. I haven’t played a ton of parser games (well until very recently
) and the game made me feel like I am getting better at them because of how quickly I breezed through it. While I wasn’t challenged much, I do feel that there is a place for a well-designed easier game like this one. -
I thought the plot was cute, and if you explore everything, you shouldn’t be too surprised by what you find on the other side of the warm door. There’s enough thought put into the social worldbuilding to make it feel worth uncovering.
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I enjoyed the bits of humor peppered into the text, which contribute to the generally very light-hearted tone of the piece. It delivers on what it promised in the front matter, for sure.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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I may be a demon apologist (though honestly, IF Comp 2024 so far could be giving me a lot more opportunities to engage in demon apologist propaganda—do better, everyone), but I am setting that agenda aside temporarily to take up the role of “dragon apologist.” The most surprising thing about the game to me was that it didn’t in some way subvert the “slay a dragon” ending that it sets up. The game-ending screen had so little description of the dragon or what happened, other than I either killed or was killed. I was looking forward to the moment when I entered this room fully overdressed for the occasion in ridiculous armor, only to ultimately calm the dragon down or let it escape or something. Because it is framed as a beast that has been corralled into the situation by Ralph, rather than having maliciously chosen to invade the castle, I was actually surprised the ending was just that straightforward. Perhaps there is another solution, and this is on me for choosing violence. It’s not like I combed through the game looking for an alternate approach, but I would’ve tried one if I found it. From the dragon’s perspective, this is a pretty downer ending!
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I think this game has too many object types that are repeated: namely, the notes. Many, if not most rooms have a note conveniently written out with key information. While I understand for suspension of disbelief that puzzle games are going to have “unrealistic” stuff like this, at some point I was like, really? Another note? The push I would give is to think about other ways to provide plot details without always spelling it out on a note. Perhaps you could take advantage of the setting to introduce a magic element (you, as a gossipy journalist, have an amulet or something that allows you to hear whispers from the past). (Editor’s note: it looks like Tabitha had this thought already in eir review here—I could probably do a better job to avoid repeating things people have already said now that so many reviews are out of various games, but I also don’t want to be overly influenced by them either
) Or, do more environmental storytelling (like the warm door, scorched hallway, etc.) that shows what happened so the player/protagonist can infer some of the details. -
While I understand that this game is meant to be approachable and not too difficult, there were many times where I felt like the game didn’t give me an opportunity to solve a puzzle. Often in room descriptions, you will see a phrase like, “The only thing of interest seems to be [thing].” This doesn’t give me an opportunity to read through the description of the room and decide for myself which of the items is worth looking into, because the game has decided that for me. This has pre-solved that aspect of exploration, where just by entering the room, I have had the progression item handed to me.
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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I think there’s an elegance to a game like this, whose purpose (besides being a game in its own right) is to teach the player how to play games like this. It has me thinking a lot about difficulty curves in games, and how games train you to play them and develop a kind of gameplay/exploration toolset to approach more challenging puzzles. Were I ever to try designing a parser game, this is one I’d look to get started, especially thinking about the elegant way that items and item descriptions gently direct the player to solutions (for instance: the cage of moths description gives you the information you need so that when the moment arises, you will know what to do with it).
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I take this game as a challenge to someday write something more lighthearted and humorous. I think I take fiction writing too deathly seriously sometimes, and while I don’t want to devalue what I have done and still want to do, sometimes what players/readers need is something breezy and fun. Isn’t there a value in that kind of experience, too?
Quote:
- “A small, gold ring that was used by the royal family to cheat in many contests of strength.” (I appreciate the gentle skewering of royalty here and there throughout the text. Feudalism Monthly indeed.)
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- I think my favorite moment was using a cage of moths to eat the princess’s entire wardrobe. It was a creative and fun use of an item that is still intuitive. Hopefully I’m not held liable for the replacement costs…
DemonApologist_WarmReception.txt (41.9 KB)