Ice Level Reviews

Competitions IFComp
21

Shadow Operative

My first two hour game!

A lot of the existing reviews have commented on the web interface for this parser game. It is pretty good. You’re given a full list of verbs and nouns as hyperlinks and the entire game can be played with the mouse. I found this especially helpful even if I typed my input most of the time because I didn’t have to guess what all the possible verbs were. Composition works pretty well too. You can click the “put __ in ___” verb then two nouns in the room and it puts together the full phrase properly.

Story-wise, the game is a pretty stereotypical cyberpunk story. I found the puzzles and problem solving pretty decent; I didn’t need to use a walkthrough at all. I had a decent time with it, but I wanted more from either the character or the plot. Neither the descriptions or the choices gave me much insight into who I was or what investment I had in anything, besides being more or less a guy who was up for whatever the story was going to be. I found that was also marred by some of the random, silly choices. I guess I’m the kinda guy who would draw lewd diagrams in a virtual sandpit while precariously undercover in a hostile corporation’s files. And I guess I know a lot about math?

I get the sense the story does not necessarily want to be engaged with that way. It’s a light on punk cyberpunk adventure game. People who like parser adventure games will likely enjoy this game and think the interface is neat. I’m sure others will be interested their own games with it in the future.

2 Likes
22

Turbo Chesthair Massacre

As this game was written by @JoeyAcrimonious, it’s my great misfortune now have to write a review without consultation to their brilliant, incisive commentaries. It was only under their auspices I have been able to come this far and now, like Theophila before the stupid player controlling her realizes the prototype allows you to switch characters, I will simply have to grope around for insight on my own.

This is the first parser game in the competition that has really reeled me in with its intro. Turbo Chesthair Massacre’s opening passage establishes a clear voice, clear character, and clear goal and I feel like I’m ready to go, but just when I think this is going to be a single room puzzle, it turns out there’s a whole house and a lot more going on in the world than I would have expected from a game with this premise. I think I really like the setup of trivial, everyday issues in weird, sci-fi setting, especially when the craziness of the world is not really fully explained but just taken as a matter of course. Yes, on occasion trans-dimensional beings invade our world and attempt to subsume us all, but we still go on dates and damn do we need to make sure we look good in case anything sexy happens.

This is also the parser game I’ve needed the least assistance from a walkthrough to complete. The game signals a lot of the bad solutions so you have plenty to try before stumbling on what you’re supposed to do. The main hints I needed from the walkthrough were just reminding me about the prototype because I didn’t realize what it did and kept hitting the button and that Marigold would notice things Theo would not. The latter is used to great effect as Marigold actually knows where your razors went to she just doesn’t think it’s that important to tell you lol. There were more than a few funny moments with that, and the way Marigold’s inner thoughts work is pretty fun and made exploring the house twice actually interesting.

I also managed to guess the final solution for the “boss” without any hints, though partially because Theo auto-drops the yogurt so when I was considering what object I needed to use, and suddenly worried Theo might have left with it in her inventory, I remembered she dropped it and it seemed too perfect to not try.

Some reviewers have complained that there are too many non-important objects in this game. I’m not sure I agree. Maybe because I don’t play parser much so I’m not manically subsuming everything not nailed down into my inventory. I was only picking up things that seemed like they might be useful, and the breath of objects encourages you to explore everything in the house so that when the final “fight” arrives, you have a pretty good inventory of what’s in the house so it’s not that hard to find the key item.

I suppose one thing the author could do would be to make more of the items a part of “bad” solutions. Unfortunately I didn’t find as many of the disastrous solutions as I would have liked because some of them are kind of complex. Maybe I missed the hints for them but I enjoyed reading them in the walkthrough.

The final solution is actually simpler than the wrong ones. I’m not sure if that’s bad. Maybe it felt a little anti-climatic? But then the game has an actual climax anyway so. Idk.

The game was a good length too, so no complaints there. And, I’m no doctor or scientist or anything, so I hesitate to say this with any authority, but it’s entirely possible this game might just be a tiny bit gay. Again, Heisenberg uncertainty being what it is, it’s impossible to really say for sure, but it just might be. It just might.

Ice Level Review: No option to flash freeze skin leading to immediate cell death and loss of hair. Truly our protagonist is not really as desperate as she claims to be with that option unavailable.

3 Likes
23

Phantom

I actually saw Phantom of the Opera (2004) last night for the very first time so I figured I’d check this adaptation out this morning. That makes it the second Phantom rendition I’ve ever experienced (barely knew the basic story before yesterday).

The key piece of interactivity in this piece seems to be deciding what sort of Phantom adaptation you’d like to see. The opening gives you a quick overview of the various adaptations to date and how each emphasized a different aspect of the story or characters. You’re then asked what is most interesting to you.

I don’t think this is the kind of choice where you’re going to be playing the game multiple times to see how different it is with each setting. It’s not really that kind of choice. Moreso I think it’s a dynamic adaptation: allowing you to select the sort of story that is the most paletable to you. This actually worked for me because the self-loathing, edge-lord Phantom of the ALW musical did not really appeal to me and no matter how many times the movie tried to impress upon me the beauty of his voice, Jurard Butler just… can not really sing. I chose instead to have a Phantom whose less concerned about finding love and more just truly dedicated to art and opera. This made the scenes with him a lot more interesting to me and I was more invested in the protagonist’s relationship with him as a student rather than as a lover (if you could even call the movie relationship that).

Once you lock in your Phantom, the story is mostly linear. There are a few choices but it sometimes feels as though the game didn’t actually want to have them. I was given the opportunity to play nervous and shy vs. arrogant or confident at the start but by the end of the game you’re basically locked into being vicious, vindictive, and haughty. I actually liked that take on the protagonist, but it seemed weird because I did not play her that way when given the option. I almost wonder if this game would work better with more “choose your adaptation” at the start and then just have it give you a story after that.

Actually… no, that’s not how I feel. Having choices throughout kept me engaged. Maybe the choices could be more focused on building the kind of protag you want, where the intro choices are about building the phantom. It kinda already works like that, with the choices focusing more on your confidence and how you view the Phantom and the love interest dude. I think it just felt weird my choices were ignored.

Otherwise the story was a good length for its content: less than a half hour. It didn’t need to be any longer. The game uses an opera curtain background to frame the text but many of the passages are quite long so you’re frequently scrolling beyond the image. The blurb also tells you that sound is a key part of this experience, which it isn’t really. The opening of each act plays a little bit of music but it doesn’t loop so it’s gone within a minute or so until the next act opening. It’s nice polish, and I enjoyed it, but it’s not really vital to anything. I wouldn’t get rid of it, but it seemed like a strange comment for the blurb.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I’d like to see something like this that maybe has more of a complex or novel take on the story, that maybe has more to say about Phantom of the Opera, but as it is the game gives you something enjoyable to your tastes.

Ice Level Review: Murder is, of course, ice cold.

1 Like
24

Been wanting to play more but I got really slammed recently with various work. Looking forward to playing as much as I can in the final week before results.

Very exciting!

1 Like
25

BYOD by n-n

Definitely micro, but it’s been one of the smoother parser experiences I’ve had so far in the comp (ableit admittedly I haven’t played all the ones everyone’s been raving about as of yet). The whole game is basically two small puzzles, but the solutions to both were reasonable and made interesting use of the parser format. Basically you do everything by using your phone to remote into workstations and edit/delete files.

There isn’t much character or plot here. You’re a student arriving for the first day of your internship at a finance company of some kind. No one seems to care about you, and whoever was supposed to guide you around on your first day hasn’t shown up. The secretary decides to almost immediately offload some work to you and you’re kind of left to your own devices in the single room the game takes place in.

The plot involves saving the secretary from some compromising photos the CEO has of her that he is using to blackmail her with (blackmail for what? I wasn’t sure). You get the good ending by preventing that, and get a sort of neutral “there was more you could have done~~” ending if you just go home.

You don’t really interact much or bond much with the character directly involved though, and you get no development on your own motivation. IRL getting involved at all would put you at significant risk to any future employment at this place you just started, but that’s not really a conflict explored here.

Doing the right thing would put you on thin ice, but the potential slippage is not featured. As far as reviewing a game quantitative purely on the quality of its ice levels, I will have to deduct a number of points given this teasing.

2 Likes
26

Ghostfinder: Shift

I took a lot of notes while playing this one, but not for the sake of review.

Ghostfinder is a murder mystery that involves pouring over case files, journal entrees, police records and occasionally interviewing suspects. There’s a brief prologue that introduces the case and some key characters but, after that, you’ll spend most of your time in menus reading through documents and typing in the names of suspects. I don’t think this is a bad thing, I actually quite enjoyed it, but there are a few interface problems that detracted from the experience.

What this game really needed was a Her Story-like database where you could quickly search the entire corpus of information available to you at any time. What this game is really about is finding patterns and getting your head around a few years worth of chronology as the killer in question has been operating for quite some time. Once you start taking notes, the case starts to come together pretty quickly, but I think you’d be hard pressed to get far given the number of names, places, and dates involved. It’s not an absurd about of information: as a I said, if you start taking a few notes, it all comes together pretty neatly–you’re just going to lose track it otherwise.

The reason I said it really needed a search feature is because a lot of what it comes down to is finding recurring patterns: this person said she saw a man with a particular hat, has that hat been mentioned elsewhere? Did someone mention it in an interview? Was someone wearing it when I interviewed them? All conversation logs and documents are always available for re-reading, so it’s all there for you, it’s just a real pain to click between so many passages and Ctrl+F the same word over and over again. Especially since there’s a few other interface frustrations such as Return buttons taking you back two menus instead of one.

I wasn’t as taken by the actual story in this one, but I did feel like I was really puzzling something out, which was nice. If I get around to some of the other murder mysteries in the comp, it’ll be interesting to see how they compare. I was impressed by this one.

Also I should say that the content warnings should be taken seriously. This is a serial murder/rapist case and while nothing of that nature happens to either of the playable characters in the game, you do read pretty explicit police reports.

1 Like
27

Tavern Crawler

Of the longer, meater Twine games I’ve played so far, this one put the most effort into its interface and systems. It’s basically a complete, one shot D&D adventure featuring companions, side-quests, and a simple but well-used stat system. None of this got in the way of the storytelling and it felt like every key decision made played into the ending somehow.

I wasn’t quite as taken by the story itself. It felt a little bit too much like a D&D session, and while the setup does have some moral and political complexity, they didn’t really feel well explored. The key conflict of the village you spend much of the game in is that they are one of the last “independent” villages from the Queen. It’s not really clear to me what independence amounts to though, or how anyone in the village feels about it. The “antagonist” is clearly invested in it, but he’s also part of the villages current ruling class so obviously he’ll be the one to lose if they’re restructured under a monarchy. But that guy kinda sucks anyway.The level of detail and engagement is fine for something that’s just a part of the scenery, but that’s the sort of thing I’m more interested in, hence my dampened engagement with the story. There’s also a number of choices that push you to express opinions on things, like if a man was really in love or just kidding himself, if beauty is good, etc. I rarely felt like I liked any of the choices given. For any particular topic, you could basically side one way or the other. Either “love is beautiful, it should be treasured” or “sentimentality is stupid. Love is a fantasy” or an eh option. In the end, my character felt like an Frankenstein of random utterances about the world as a result. I think this is partly a product of the “nameless, faceless protagonist” and a story that doesn’t have a well-defined theme. I’m not sure it’s really trying to have one though, so that’s probably a matter of taste.

A lot of the interactions in the opening bar scene were pretty fun though. And I thought early uses of the expanding descriptions as you clicked were great. I enjoyed drinking and brawling with my two pals. I also admire the effort that went into the interactive structure. It had what I like to call an Obsidean ending, where instead of trying to have 30 endings to make your choices feel like they “matter”, instead every choice you made comes in at the end to help or hinder you in the final boss. It was very cleanly executed.

Ice level ranking: Dragon’s flames are very hot, so maybe not being burned alive by them is icy in comparison? I’ll say that’s a three star ice rating.

28

Hey, I’m Brook. Writer of Sense of Harmony. I am also moving my reviews over to the public forum since that seems to be the thing to do! I’ll probably also migrate them all to IFDB over the next few weeks.

Thanks so much to everyone for an awesome competition. Hoping to continue interacting with you all on these forums now that I’m here :smiley:.

5 Likes