Doug Egan IFComp 2024 Reviews (latest: Enchanted House)

[Doug_Egan]

TOC
“Birding in Pope Lick Park” (this message)
“Dust”
“The Bat”
“Miss Gosling’s Last Case”
“Breakfast in the Dolomites”
“Quest for the Teacup of Minor Sentimental Value”
“Eikas”
“Hildy”
“Campfire”
“The Killings in Wasacona”
“Why Pout”
“Return to Claymorgue’s Castle”
“Forsaken Denizen”
A Warm Reception
“An Account of The Enchanted House & What You Found There”

“Birding in Pope Lick Park” by Eric Lathrop caught my attention this morning. I was hoping for a well produced atmospheric exploration. Eric Lathrop is a birder in Kentucky, and provides us with a mutimedia birding tour of Pope Lick Park near Louisville, KY. Hey, I was just in Louisville a year ago, but sadly missed this attraction! The web-based game features descriptive prose, photographs of the birds and paths, maybe even sound (but the sounds didn’t launch on my chrome browser). There are also a number of external links, which you could probably use to find a map of the park, if you wanted that. For those of us who need our interactive fiction to be gamified in order to hold our attention, there is even an in-game “birder’s journal”. (I discovered 55 birds of 23 species.) The game reminded me of a much modernized version of “The Firetower”, a very early IF experiment with atmospheric exploration. It also reminded me of “Ryan Veeder’s Authentic Fly Fishing”, an atmospheric game which includes a interactive birding notebook.

A relaxing a pleasant game. Makes me want to go birding.

[Doug_Egan]

“Dust” is a genre Western, written by IkeC, and according to the credits translated from German. The protagonist is trapped in an unfamiliar small town in the American old West, at a time just after the Civil War, who is forced to solve a missing persons case in order to clear his own name before he can leave town to move on with his own business. The tone straddles between serious crime drama and occaisional light humor (there is a joke about the red herrings in the general store which landed well, and a clever talking parrot). The puzzles are mostly a series of fetch quests involving frequent interactions with the townsfolk. The parser works, never challenging the player to guess at verbs. Conversations are handled by menus. The town is small, location descriptions succinct, yet it this environment feels very much alive and authentic to the period. The game package comes with several additional resources: maps, puzzle flow charts and walkthroughs, providing hints both in game and out of game, in multiple different forms.

I really enjoyed playing “Dust”, the first parser game I’ve completed this competition season.

[Doug_Egan]

“The Bat” by Chandler Groover is a parser driven game, but with interactions limited to just a handful of verbs, like some of this author’s previous games. Going in, I imagined this game would be a send up of the “Batman” comic book series. Given some of the characters and situations, it may still be, though the credits lists an even earlier source, a 1926 movie called “The Bat” which shares other similarities with the game (and which, for all I know, may have itself been a source of inspiration for “Batman”). The protagonist is the beleaguered servant of a wealthy philanthropist, Master Bryce Wyatt, who suffers a form of lycanthropy which turns him into a slavering mindless bat at the most inopportune times. Tonight is an inopportune time, a huge charity fundraiser at the Bryce Mansion. Pandemonium ensues.

The writing and world building are fun. The protagonist races from room to room, welcoming guests, serving drinks, trying to clean up after his hapless master and their screwball guests.

Early on I got the impression this was an optimization game, that I needed to plan my actions carefully to maximize the donations. Some donors were generous and others stingy, regardless of the quality of my service. My collections would drop when the donors became upset. The problems themselves are not difficult to solve; the game is well clued and several of the “puzzles” repeat (cleaning up messes, answering the door, serving drinks). However a restrictive inventory limit soon became a source of frustration. Drop the silver serving tray in order to pick up a dust pan to clean up broken glass, then later try to remember where you left the drinks tray. Simple ideas (refill the wine cabinet and pour drinks) become a convoluted sequence of “attend” commands. By mid game I had decided I wasn’t going to attempt to replay it for a higher score, but the zany chaos kept me engaged.

Actually once I stopped worrying about fundraising, and just treated it as a zany farce, it was a lot more fun. I put aside worrying about optimization to focus on catering to each guest’s weird peccadilloes allowing myself as much time as I needed to find a moose head, curtain rod, or dead rat I’d left elsewhere. Not unlike a game of Clue (aka Cluedo) perhaps. There is, in fact, a mystery to solve here also.

And when I finished, I decided I had been wrong all along about the optimization aspects of this game. At the end of the game I had raised an even hundred million dollars for the Widow’s and Orphan’s fund, despite being the worst butler who ever worked in a manor.

[Doug_Egan]

“Miss Gosling’s Last Case” by Daniel Stelzer regards Miss Gosling, an amateur sleuth. Miss Gosling died tragically last night so her last case will be to discover the cause of her own death, channeling that investigation through her loyal dog Watson. Fortunately Watson is very well trained dog, because the team of detectives stationed around Miss Gosling’s mansion are all fairly bumbling.

Interactions are parser driven, but with the option to perform the same interactions through menus and links. This is not a limited verb game. I mean, this dog is really clever. He can’t unlock doors by himself, or reach objects on higher shelves, but he can obey a LOT of other commands. I love games like this that offer dual options for input and I really hope that this is the future of IF. I’ve seen it before in “The Impossible Bottle” and in many of the “Quest” system games which offer parallel interaction systems as a default. But unlike “Quest”, where some of the critical commands may be hidden and can ONLY be entered by text, in “Miss Gosling’s Last Case” a player really could solve the entire mystery by links alone.

Some of the puzzles are truly novel. How amazing that even after fifty years of parser fiction, authors can still come up with new puzzles.
My favorite: Using different colored filters to help the color-blind dog differentiate the colors of the flowers in the garden.
Another favorite: the smoke alarm puzzle.

The game took me just around two hours to complete. I confess I turned to the hints exactly four times, but in each case only needed a simple nudge, and found that solving the rest of those puzzles on my own was extremely satisfying.
Spoilers on where I used hints: (these contain massive spoilers)

• I needed a nudge to get the carrots out of the cellar
• I needed a nudge to figure out how to move the flashlight around with me before the window was open; the exact command was a little frustrating to me, as I had already attempted to throw the flashlight to the correct location.
• I needed a nudge to figure out how to access the vent channel in the attic, which also frustrated me because I’d previously tried to move the carpet, or roll the carpet, which should have achieved the same effect.
• I needed a nudge to get the pill case open; actually I knew how to do it if I had restarted the game, but I already had a mattress under the balcony and got hung up trying to figure out how to move the mattress.

The trope of using animal surrogates to solve mysteries has been featured previously in such games as “Toby’s Nose” and “Wizard Sniffer”. I think it worked especially well in all three of these games.

Utimately a very satisfying mystery, and one I expect will place near the top in competition.

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

Thank you very much for the review, and I’m so glad you enjoyed the game! The hyperlinks in The Impossible Bottle were a direct inspiration for the interface here.

[Doug_Egan]

“Breakfast in the Dolomites” is a parser fiction by Roberto Ceccarelli. I played very early in the competition, got frustrated with it, and quit. Read a review to suggest there might be other things I might want to get out of it. The blurb describes it as “Screwball comedy” which it certainly isn’t. But the review I saw suggested maybe I should regard this piece as an intricate little dollhouse with lots of tiny things to examine.

I tried again. Played a little longer, but had a similar experience of frustration. In theory, I like the idea of an atmospheric game about a delightful European hotel breakfast. There are a lot of details to examine, especially in the buffet area: lots of choices of what to eat or drink. A real juicer with half a dozen working parts. Outside the buffet, a bathroom with individual men’s and women’s locking stalls and flushing toilets. The blurb art (and walk-through art) is AI generated cartoon pictures of an attractive couple. One of the weird consequences of the AI art is that in every single one of the pictures, it looks like a slightly different couple. The writing feels auto-generated also. Maybe its not, but I’ll explain what I mean. It’s very granular in the level of detail. Cars have doors and locks. Bathrooms have doors and locks. Hiking pants have six pockets. Which is all very “realistic” in a sense, but frustrating for the player who has to navigate these obstacles, and lacking in the sorts of “poetic” detail which might appeal to a player who enjoys atmospheric writing. After eating my meal, the game seemed to hang up and I couldn’t trigger the next event. I couldn’t leave the hotel or return to my room, and the only way out seemed to be to lock myself in the bathroom. Later when I checked the walk-through, it appeared that I was expected to have assembled a sandwich instead of eating each breakfast item piecemeal.

[strawberryfield (Roberto)]

Thank you very much for playing my game and leaving your review.

@Doug_Egan

Later when I checked the walk-through, it appeared that I was expected to have assembled a sandwich instead of eating each breakfast item piecemeal.

It is not absolutely necessary to make a sandwich, although you can, but it is not nice to take food and then not eat it…
I might add a note in the walkthrough.

[Doug_Egan]

“Quest for the Teacup of Minor Sentimental Value” by Damon Wakes is a web-based interactive fiction. I got this one on my randomizer. What a treat. There are a lot of different styles of interactive fiction, and the Zelda games are some of my favorites, but it is not a style that is often featured in the IF comp. The Zelda style graphics in this game, and anime style avatars down in the dialogue pop-ups are just delightful. The player’s movement is controlled entirely by the game, and I must admit that I was a little disappointed I didn’t have the freedom to employ Zelda-like joystick controls to move my character at will. But the story itself was joyful and amusing enough to carry me along.

The dialogue is entertaining. The player is presented two or three text box choices at a time, enough to give a real sense of agency and even offer some limited replay value. I’ve gotten so used to the “no bad endings/no death” convention of modern IF, that I played this one with a sense of invulnerability, a sense which took me into battle with a pack of wolves, a bandit, actual literal Satan, and even the author himself (who killed me immediately, though I was given multiple opportunities to avoid the fight). The game offers frequent auto-saves, which allows you to take these risks and still return to a recent safe save point. Every ending was fun, and brought all the more satisfaction when I eventually reached the one good ending, recovering my favorite teacup.

[Doug_Egan]

When I filtered out games that required a lot of typing (because I was playing on an iPhone) the randomizer served me “Eikas (a community kitchen)” by Lauren O’Donoghue. To call this a “cooking Sim” would be an incomplete description. Though even by that standard, “Eikas” is really impressive. The player is the newly appointed chef of a “community kitchen” within a fantasy world. The chef must integrate themselves into the community life while planning and preparing village meals every fifth day for the entire month of their probation. The story resonated well with me personally because early in my career I ran the kitchen for a YMCA summer camp, planning and serving nineteen meals a week, then joining the campers with their evening songs around the fire. One meal every five days? If only. I parlayed that experience into a job as University dining hall manager, which I continued for four years before switching careers. “Eikas” reminds me of the things I enjoyed most about that part of my life: Planning recipes, buying food, decorating the hall, collecting cookbooks, preparing the meals; but mostly, belonging to the community I served.

There is also a lot about this game that would appeal to players who don’t have my oddly parallel resume. First, the game design elements are quite strong. There are essentially six rounds of play (one meal every five days, times six, equals one month). During the first five rounds I found myself constantly strategizing: which recipes did I plan to use, and which ingredients would I need to collect? Which side quests could I afford to pursue and still have the right ingredients in the pantry when I needed them for the main event? I started out with a two star recognition (out of four) for my first meal. It wasn’t hard to improve from there. But even after earning my first “four star” for a dinner (which didn’t happen until the fourth meal, I think) the pressure was on to keep repeating that performance. Ack. Now I understand how a Michelin starred chef must feel. There was never a point in the game where I felt I was grinding (RPG term for performing the same tedious sequence many time just to level up). Rather, I was always thinking strategically and aiming to make a meal that was just a little more impressive than the last.

The pressure lessens, just a little, on the last round when the player has the resources and practical experience to create a grand event without as much effort. By that point I was pretty sure I would pass my probationary period. Pretty sure. I was still kind of nervous in the end game when the caucus member approached me to tell me whether I’d be hired. I’d heard a number of negative things about the caucus during the game. But that is the feeling one would have in that situation.

In addition to the game-design elements, the story-telling is decent as well. There are four other major characters to get to know, who each have their own highly developed story arcs and who each provide some help to the PC. I was glad that those relationships were kept platonic until the very last scene, when it is alluded that one of them might not be platonic. I’ve never been a fan of romance simulators.

The title is kind of hard to remember, and might take more than two hours to complete, but I hope that during the competition this game will receive the love and attention it deserves.

[laurenodonoghue]

Thanks for the lovely review Doug! So glad you enjoyed it.

[Doug_Egan]

Just finished “Hildy” by J Michael. A polished work of Zorkian fan-fiction, which sometimes resembles fan-fiction of the 90s, and in other moments actually succeeds at channeling the original. I especially liked the playful pun names given to the stores in the underground shopping mall (names like "Sharper Mage"and “JC Zorkmid”) which combine tropes from the games of Infocom with popular 80s retail brands. Loved the time-travel puzzle. I also thought the end game was especially well done. The ghouls in “Hildy” bring to mind some of the grue-horror from Infocom, and call backs to the Enchanter series.

The game starts a little slow, with an enjoyable short pre-game at the guildhall, then a long mostly empty walk to the great underground mall. The geography of the mid game opens up fairly quickly (after solving a math-y puzzle that reminded me of an early puzzle in “Not Just and ordinary ballerina”). The geography opens up, but the puzzle structure still felt highly linear (solve puzzle one, then two, then three) rather than (collect eight little MacGuffins and put them on the altar to earn the big MacGuffin). This linearity contributed to the difficulty of the game; it was not always obvious where to focus my attention next. I earned about half the points without any hints, then started turning to hints… and another… and another. At one point I actually had to look something up in the walk through a spell needed to be cast on a figure whose image appears on the ceiling frescoes; aiming the spell at the fresco appeared to work, until I examined the result more carefully, at which point I realized the spell hadn’t done what I expected it to. Hints are like potato chips that way. You can’t have just one.

Suggestions to improve the hint system,

Summary

in a game with this puzzle design, a good practice is to give situational hints instead of room based hints; when the player types “hint” give a nudge about where to explore next based on their place in the game sequence rather than offering invisiclues style room-based menus. Also games that offer a “hint lock-out option” are sometimes appreciated.

But overall, a genuinely funny and entertaining contribution to the Zorkian mythos with a solid parser and a well written end-game. I played for about four hours.

[Doug_Egan]

“Campfire” by LoreKin is another atmospheric Twine entry. The protagonist finishes a boring day at work then buys supplies for an overnight camping trip, then goes camping by herself. I imagined the protagonist as female.

I really do like camping. You can read my 2019 comp entry “Roads not Taken” to learn more about my formative camping experiences. Though as I’ve gotten older my choices of how to camp have changed. When I was younger, I enjoyed rugged camping. I didn’t get the sense the campground in this story was very primitive. Maybe it was just me reading between the lines. I imagined a campground check-in cabin that had a vintage table top “Space Invaders” in the lobby, and then I imagined driving past acres of RV hook-up sites before finally arriving at the tent camping area. None of those details were actually from the text. Perhaps I saw it this way because it was the sort of place where “fireworks” and “foldable chair” were camping supply options. Perhaps because I had to pay a stiff fee to rent a fishing pole. Perhaps because I was offered the option to stay in a yurt. I chose the yurt.

The camping experience goes by quickly, too quickly, I thought. You check-in, prepare your dinner, pick two activities before you go to bed, sleep through the night, cook breakfast, partake in two more activities, then check out and return to the work-a-day world.

There is a more melancholy story beneath it all. A lonely person, dissatisfied with their job. I want to read more about that story. Does camping help the PC re-discover themselves (as it did for me in my 20s) and take a risk toward a happier life? I’m reminded of a quote that really resonated with me when I was a young adult:

(Alan Alda, delivering a commencement address at his daughter’s college) “You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”

Does the PC heed Alda’s advice? I am looking forward to reading more from this author.

[Frotzing]

@Doug_Egan

But overall, a genuinely funny and entertaining contribution to the Zorkian mythos with a solid parser and a well written end-game. I played for about four hours.

Thank you for playing Hildy! And thank you so much for your thoughtful review. I know it takes time and effort to put these kinds of reviews together. I’m very gratified that you had a good experience playing the game and I appreciate the constructive feedback as well.

Thanks again!

J. Michael aka Frotzing

[Doug_Egan]

Earlier in the month, when it was announced that there was a “bigger mystery” involving a connection between three games, one thing I noticed were three games (“The killings in Wasacona”, “Dust”, and “Sidekick”) which were all mysteries set in frontier towns, with similar color palettes in their cover art. I’m now pretty certain that these connections were purely coincidental, but I had already become interested in playing all three.

I’ve just finished two play throughs of “The killings in Wasacona” by Steve Kollmansberger.

Wasacona is set in modern times. It was not altogether clear that the setting was Western US, but it is kind of a frontier town, a small municipality that needs help from a neophyte FBI agent to solve a string of crimes. This is a choice based game run in a gamebook style. The player has strengths and weaknesses which they choose at the start of the game, which then determine their success in various skill checks throughout the games. The skill checks are simulated 20-sided die rolls, which creates the sense one is playing a tabletop RPG, and consequently detracts from the immersion that one is a real FBI agent investigating a real crime. I’m not saying that choice is necessarily a bad thing, but it does contribute to a very stylized game-play experience.

The writing is similarly stylized with an edge of detective-genre “just the facts, mam” investigatory dialogue. The plotting is well done, as I had hoped it would be from the blurb.

Some spoilery material follows.

Summary

At first I was not convinced that the three cases (later four) were actually related. The victims and MOs appeared too different from one another. But as I gathered more information, there did appear to be some common connections, and I ended up getting 3 of my 4 accusations correct, though I had not collected enough evidence to actually convict the bastard.

One of the very best features of the game-book style format, in my opinion, is the stats-page which appears at the end of play. These stats serve as “achievements”, of sorts, encouraging replay by alerting the player to alternative paths and events they may not have even been aware of. I will note that not all of the archetypes are created equally, and I got a much better outcome playing as Analyst than playing as Athlete.

[Doug_Egan]

@Doug_Egan

I’ve just finished two play throughs of “The killings in Wasacona” by Steve Kollmansberger.
…
One of the very best features of the game-book style format, in my opinion, is the stats-page which appears at the end of play. These stats serve as “achievements”, of sorts, encouraging replay by alerting the player to alternative paths and events they may not have even been aware of.

Just finished playing a third and fourth time, earning the “Case Closed” and “Superhero” achievements respectively (and giving me a total play time in excess of two hours). I reiterate what I said in my earlier review, that I like the stats page at the end as an invitation to play again. It would be very difficult for anyone to earn the “Superhero” achievement on the first go, and in my case I needed to see the “Long Arm of the Law” outcome before I could get the “Case Closed” achievement. This game definitely rewards replay, and though the initial set up for the case is the same every time, the paths to solving it can feel very distinct.

Reporting more on my own statistics, I earned “Long Arm of the Law” and “Case Closed” achievements playing as an “Analyst”. I earned the less satisfying “Unfinished Business” achievement playing an “Athlete”. I finished “Superhero” playing a custom archetype similar to the “Analyst”.

If I were to play again, I would probably aim for one of the Bad outcomes where I trigger a city-wide protest of the sheriff’s office, receive an official reprimand, or fail to complete the case. I have no idea about Miss Moffet’s dog, though. Any clues?

[Doug_Egan]

Andrew Schultz is the prolific author of word-puzzle themed interactive fiction, and his latest game “Why Pout?” continues this tradition. The challenge this time is to find homonyms for word pairs, usually after shifting a middle phoneme. “play now” becomes “plane, ow”.

One of the features of Schultz’s recent games, which I enjoy, is the retinue of followers whom the player acquires as you visit new locations and solve the puzzles. With the full team assembled, the player can finally enter the end game sequence. By their nature, many of the games in this series are surrealistic fantasy landscapes, a setting which provides some odd connection between phrases that would otherwise have nothing in common but their sound. The presence of companions who join you on your quest make that weird surrealistic environment feel warmer and more inviting. Indeed, compared to more old-school traditional adventure fantasies, where the goal was to steal treasures from a big empty cave and return them to your trophy case, the opportunity to collect and interact with a team can be downright motivating.

The puzzles here were challenging, though no more so than past games by Andrew Schultz. In some ways this was a bit easier, because there is generally only one homonym to be discovered for each puzzle and there are clues provided if you get half of it right. I kept the walk-through open on a screen nearby, but didn’t use it so much to feel like I’d cheated myself. Ninety minute play time seems about right.

[Doug_Egan]

So this time instead of the randomizer, I went looking for games that have fewer than average number reviews. Considered first “The Master’s Lair” but it is not playable without a download, which removes it from my list for now. This may also be why other reviewers have overlooked this game.

Next tackled “Return to Claymorgue’s Castle” by Claudio Daffra. Right away I was impressed with the amount of effort that went into programming this thing. It appears to be a full blown parser type game written with a Twine engine, a system I’ve always imagined would be possible, but haven’t quite seen until now. Return to Claymorgue castle is a standard Dungeons and Dragons type scenario, with a mixed party of four characters , each with their own skills, exploring the ruins of a medieval castle. This is set in more modern times than a classic D&D romp; one of the characters is a tech whiz who carries her cell phone. Commands are given by picking a subject (from any of the four party members) a verb (from a list as extensive as the standard verbs of Inform), a direct object from the current location, and sometimes an indirect object as well. Included with the author’s notes is a letter from classic text game writer Scott Adams, endorsing this game (which shares its setting with one of Adams’ vintage games). Pretty impressive.

A difficult and impressive coding challenge. But was it done well?

Unfortunately there are a number of features of this game which make it difficult to play, in spite of the apparent passion and time that went into writing it. The mechanism to pull words into a sentence to make commands is lumbering. The words must be pulled in the correct order to make productive sentences, and once a command is executed (whether successful or not), all of the word slots are emptied. It took me a bit of practice to even launch a single productive command. At first I assumed that “myself” was the default player, but it turned out that even the noun “I/me” has to be pulled into EVERY command before it can be processed.

I found no obvious bugs in the command processing. However, there is also a shortage of customized responses to un-productive commands. “I read leaflet” or “I examine leaflet” (the verbs you’d normally perform on a leaflet) give a stock response:

“in the courtyard. I examine the leaflet; inspect : a leaflet”

There were some other issues as well. Initially the motivation for exploring this castle is ambiguous.

You are fascinated by the history and the stories of this place, but also wary of the dangers that might lurk in the shadows.

There is some nice pixelated art work (shout out to Scott Adams) but with the block text layered right over it, the text is sometimes difficult to read.

Without the payoff of more detailed and customized responses, I began to lose interest. I turned to the walk through.

This was an incredibly ambitious project, but I think the puzzles would have been awfully difficult without a walk through. Even “verb-object” puzzles can be difficult, but when you also have to assign the right subject to the command, and perhaps a second object, exponentially more difficult.

Back to the goal of embedding a parser in a point and click game; I think it is a very respectable goal. “Mrs Gosling’s Last Case” is aiming for the same thing from the other direction (a point and click full parser game written with inform) but more successfully because the key words of the command are closer together on the screen (and there are usually fewer words). Or if you’re aiming for a more pared down parser system, Robin Johnson’s “Detectiveland” (which I think was also influenced by Scott Adams) won first place in IFcomp 2016. But these systems are hard to write and design, and I know from reading reviews after my own attempt to do something like this in the 2023 comp, that players get frustrated when there is too much effort or delay required to execute a simple action.

[Doug_Egan]

Next I played “Forsaken Denizen” by C.E.J. Pacian. Or rather I’ve been playing it in spurts on and off since last weekend. I think I’d categorize this game as cyber-punk, but I’m not especially familiar with that genre (beyond having read Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson, a very long time ago) and even less familiar with the dystopic cyber-punk shooter games which might have influenced this. I’m also not particularly familiar with C.E.J Pacian’s other games. “Superluminal Vagrant Twin” is one of two games ranked in the IFDB top twenty that I’ve never played. I played “Gun Mute” when it was released (2008) which again was a long time ago, but I remember thinking it was cool. So I’m going into this review cold, likely missing some of the references and symbols.

“Forsaken Denizen” is a parser game in the style of a shooter game. The player collects weapons, ammunition, power-ups, and key-like objects from a dystopic-post-cyber-capitalist-urban landscape in a state of self destruction. Mechanical monsters control the city, eager to kill our hero and her sometimes lover Princess Cathabel. Cathabel speaks to us through a series of holographic posts. These posts also serve as the game’s only save points, and a convenient place to store surplus equipment. There is a tight inventory limit.

The location descriptions are terse, grim, evocative. The first several times I played I didn’t bother to save, because it always felt I could reach whatever point I had reached before but more quickly with my accumulated knowledge. However, as I got deeper into the game and realized how deadly these mechanical monsters really are, the more often I saved. By mid game, I was darting from post point to post point like a scared rabbit, saving every time. But our hero, she’s not a scared rabbit. She’s a fearless badass, determined to save herself and her friends. The game is successful at maintaining that sense of tension you would feel in a graphical shooter, never sure what enemy will appear around the next corner, and whether your current weaponry will be sufficient to neutralize them.

The game is relatively short (once you know the locations of the keys and the order to use them). But here is the catch. This game is made for replay. There is a scoring system, which isn’t explained until the first time you complete the game, and a set of passwords you can enter for better equipment the next time. This is a game I will continue playing.

[ClaudioDaffra]

Thank you for taking the time to review my adventure. Your critiques and suggestions have been invaluable in helping me improve the interface and the parser between characters. I did my best, but some approaches typical of the 80s are no longer current. It was an adventure I played as a child, and I enjoyed bringing it back to life. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving the adventure a chance to be played

[Doug_Egan]

Next up, from the randomizer “A Warm Reception” a parser game by Joshua Hetzel. The blurb sets up the plot in a direct and straightforward way

You’re a reporter assigned to cover the wedding of the princess of the land. When you get there, you find an empty castle and are pulled into the mystery of what happened.

The puzzles in this game are mercifully easy, further aided by an explicit verb list. “Hint” and “help” verbs are implemented, referring the player to a collection of external maps and hint files. I didn’t look at them. I solved it all on my own. One particular puzzle struck me as novel and creative: first the process for discovering a cage of moths, and then figuring out what to do with them. The “bad luck” puzzle was also fun and novel. Other puzzles included traditional lock and key puzzles, and a labyrinth. Though I was given some indication that the maze was laid out in a pattern, I could not discern that pattern. I did find it quite easy to navigate with frequent use of the “undo” command.

The simplicity and fairness of the puzzles are what saved this game, because the parser and implementation are not especially robust. “examine me” (the first command I type in every parser game) delivers a stock response. The game has a lock pick which kept giving me the following frustrating, yet amusing, disambiguation error:

–unlock door
What do you want to unlock the iron door with?

–pick
(up the iron door)
That’s hardly portable.

An interesting, but probably unintended, design choice allows the player to win the game without playing it. The final dragon battle depends on the roll of a d20 (second game in this competition i’ve seen using this RPG trope). The die roll is modified by the player’s score, up to +18. But I realized I could win with a roll of natural 20 even without playing the game. So kept repeating the scene, undoing each time, until a rolled a 20. I regretted it afterwards, because it spoiled the twist that I later worked out on my own by playing up to the full score, and also because the winning message just doesn’t make sense without the player having visited other parts of the castle.

Curiously, even after finishing the game with a full score, it is still possible to lose the dragon battle by rolling a “1”. But I had good luck. I wonder if there are any modifiers going into the dragon battle with “bad luck” from the bad luck artifact? I didn’t try that.

A fun game, but I suspect that with some more experience, the author will be able to write even better games.