Hi! I’m pretty new to the IF world, and though I feel I’ve picked up a lot of the lingo from my few months of lurking, feel free to correct me if I make any mistakes.
Here’s a quick round of reviews, though I’m leaving off the numerical scores. Also, I’m including major spoilers in each of the reviews, so don’t read if you haven’t played.
The Nessa Springs Slasher
[spoiler]This entertaining bite-sized horror piece took me about a half hour to play, despite only being comprised of a handful of tersely described rooms. I don’t feel that a formal commentary will do my level of engagement justice, so let’s take a look at the play-by-play:
Wow, this is clever and creepy and -
*** Everyone has died. You lose. ***
WHAT!? Ok, restart.
*** Everyone has died. You lose. ***
Hmmm…
*** Everyone has died. You lose. ***
I think the last ‘me’ is a wolf. Maybe I can bite him.
*** Everyone has died. You lose. ***
Nope.
*** Everyone has died. You lose. ***
Ok, maybe everyone needs to chip away at him little by little.
HELLS YEAH! I managed to shove a mirror shard through his foot as the kid. Hopefully this will help.
*** Everyone has died. You lose. ***
Nope.
*** Everyone has died. You lose. ***
There just has to be a way to use everybody.
*** Everyone has died. You lose. ***
WHY IS THIS FAMILY SO USELESS??? FOR CRYING OUT LOUD JOHN JUST PICK UP THE STUPID KNIFE AND STAB HIM ALREADY ARGHHHH!!!
*** Everyone has died. You lose. ***
I WILL NOT GIVE UP! I WILL DIE AT MY KEYBOARD FIRST!!!
*** Everyone has died. You lose. ***
…………
I’m doing every kind of thing I can imagine with this soup and this pot (because they can be interacted with separately), but nothing is worki - WAIT WAIT OKAY I STIRRED THE SOUP AND THEN SPILLED IT AS I WAS ATTACKED. MWA HA HA HA HA SUCCESSSSSSS!
*** You have won. ***
I DIIIIIIIID IT. struts Funny how the answer was to pretend like nothing was wrong as opposed to finding ways to defend yourself. Oh, I was the family dog, and not a wolf, though I think the dog would have recognized its dead owners’ bodies.
So the success of this entry lies primarily in its one basic puzzle, which is to defeat the mysterious axe-wielding figure. The gimmick – switching family members as they were killed off – was rather clever. Everyone had an important role to play to the story, creatively subverting the prevalent horror trope of meaningless disposable victims. Not only was I connected emotionally to John and his family because there was no way to save them, I still needed their help to save the day. They became wonderfully tragic heroes.
I only wish the puzzle solutions fit with the player’s goals. Yes, the family was unaware of what was about to happen, but I think there was room for a more thoughtful execution. For example, I figured out early on that spilling the soup and creating a slipping hazard was probably the way to go. Yet despite my attempts at dropping, spilling, splashing, pouring, and whatever else to dump the soup all over the floor, nothing worked until I stood there and stirred it. John was mentioned by his wife as being clumsy, so perhaps the spill could have resulted when the player tried to pick up the soup and burned his fingers in the process.
There were no glaring technical issues to speak of, with only a few grammar/typo nitpicks. The writing was simple and efficient, and it shifted gears for the better when describing the various gruesome ways to die. I would have liked a little more atmosphere in the setting, but speedcomp, so meh.[/spoiler]
Crater Creek, 2113
[spoiler]After walking back and forth for an incredibly generous amount of time, I’m giving up on this one. I managed to get a bead, and I think the bead is connected to the dreamcatcher, but none of my attempts at guessing the proper syntax worked. I even did the old try-everything-on-everything technique, but that failed me too.
From what I played, there are no bugs or real problems, only lots of nouns that lack descriptions. The writing aims to be atmospheric, and while I like some of the descriptions (the candles are particularly elegant), I just wish there is more of it. The largest transgression is that it lacks a narrative – even a small introduction would have helped. All I know is that it’s Halloween, maybe in the year 2113. There’s a giant crater from a meteor or other Horrible Space Thing that caused the apocalypse. But who am I? What is my goal? Where is the window that this Aidan guy springs from, because I can’t seem to find it? It’s possible all this is revealed later, though it would have been nice if the author established some kind of goal or motivation early on.[/spoiler]
The Hallway Phantom
I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here. There’s a cursed pumpkin pie, a musical swimming pool, a weird robot, an odd obsession with the number googolplex, and an absent fourth wall. No plot, no logical puzzles, no deeper meaning, typographical errors abound, and nothing even that scary.
Personality Rights
[spoiler]What an interesting title. Let’s open up this game and AHHHHH IT’S A REN’PY GAME!!! I LOVE THESE!!!
Ren’py aside, I liked this brief exploration on coming to terms with your own death. The writing was quirky yet thought-provoking, with a couple of touching moments tucked in nicely. The pictures, though not necessarily related to the script, conveyed the appropriate emotion. The music track fit the tone, but the lyrics tended to break my concentration when trying to read, so I ended up turning it off.
There may be an arbitrary bonus for using the word susurration, which will always remind me of China Mieville, which is always a good thing.[/spoiler]
You are a Blob!
Glub glubba blob. Glub blah blah other glubs. Glub lika lika Ba-Boom Ba-Boom bestbest cuz wub wub wub wub wubwubwubwubwubwub ha ha ha ha ha <3
Dead Pavane for a Princess
[spoiler]Now don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely delighted that a zombie game where you play as Impressionist composer Maurice Ravel exists in the world (which, by the way, should really be played while listening to its homage piece Pavane for a Dead Princess (piano, not orchestration), because it really does provide additional emotional weight). It’s just sad that it had to end so quickly.
I’m not very familiar with Inform (yet!), so I can’t say whether the length was justifiable within the given three hour time limit. However, the game is VERY polished, and my guess is this level of polish takes time. For example, every single command I typed into the parser accomplished something (searching for verbs is my biggest pet peeve of the genre)! The question is, does that warrant a high score?[/spoiler]
Trick Or Treat
[spoiler]Okay, this is the story by the eight year old. The goal of the game is to find a costume and then go trick or treating with your friends. I played through every option, though I’m pretty sure I made the best choices in my first play-through. I chose the pumpkin costume, then went to a dark house and earned myself a giant bag of candy and a sugar rush. Clearly Addie and I are on the same wavelength when it comes to the proper way to celebrate Halloween. High marks.
What I love most about this game is how genuine it is. The terrible endings aren’t getting eaten by a monster or enduring some other violent end. No, they instead involve having a miserable Halloween by not getting any candy, or being embarrassed by your costume, or damaging your friendships in some way, or getting poison ivy, or missing Halloween entirely. This is real scary kid stuff! I was instantly brought back to the year all my friends were being different color crayons for Halloween, and I just HAD to be a crayon too, and I ESPECIALLY HAD to have a COOL color, like blood red, but my mom made me plain old regular red, and I probably gave her the silent treatment and dirty looks for two whole hours out of spite before I completely forgot and had a great Halloween.
Trick or Treat would OBVIOUSLY be a 10, but I have to deduct points and give it a (redacted) for dad’s (ab)use of Comic Sans. It would be a SHAME for Addie to grow up not knowing the HORROR that is Comic Sans, so I encourage you to enjoy a brief educational video: http://youtu.be/ep-K_Xvq2zY[/spoiler]
Faithful Companion
[spoiler]In this short but high quality puzzler, your sole task is to put a ghost to rest inside a crypt. The ghost appears quickly and, after some playing around and probably restarting a few times, you’ll discover that the ghost is echoing every action you do, exactly two moves behind. Getting past the first door isn’t too difficult, and the second door gave me that glorious aha! moment once I figured out what I needed to do. The third room required that I undo what I did in the second room and work WITH the ghost instead of AGAINST it. Fantastic.
The writing was exquisite and all the descriptions and commands were polished. The length was very appropriate. I was even a bit frightened by the ghost in the beginning until I understood what was going on.
I think that there’s opportunity for emotion by adding a touch more backstory, and possibly giving the ghost a little more personality in its descriptions. In fact, having to use the word ‘its’ is pretty telling about how much I know about the ghost. It was more mindless robot than human, an obstacle to winning as opposed to a soul needing to be put to rest. The simple addition of gender would have made a huge difference in humanizing the ghost.[/spoiler]
Hill of Souls
[spoiler]This is a second entry by Angela who also did Crater Creek, and I encountered some of the same problems. All I managed to accomplish was putting the scrap and the candle on the altar and creating the blue light. So again, I’m stepping away from this one incomplete.
I did like this better than her other entry, probably because the writing was more successful in being atmospheric. But like Crater Creek, I still want a goal, and I found myself once again trying things on things, unsure what I’m supposed to do. I appreciate the extra touches with the failure messages and the nice descriptions of each object I searched, but there should be more to nudge me in the right direction.[/spoiler]