"Fired”, by Olaf Nowacki, is a short workplace comedy with parser interface; a type of game which was a staple of the IF comp twenty years ago, but now seems exceedingly uncommon. The PC is a disgruntled ex-employee who has gone into the office on a Saturday to clean up, collect dirt on his former boss, and generally wreck havoc. The scoring system awards single point bursts of endorphin with such frequency that this surge could not be maintained if the game went on much longer. But pleasant while it lasts. The puzzles are straightforward (with one exception) and parser works well enough, as long as you don’t demand too much of it. (searching a box on the opening scene reveals “your belongings” but you won’t find out what’s actually in the box without “x belongings”). The one puzzle which I didn’t understand involved
spreading some goo on a velvet surface. I just didn’t understand the motivation.
My favorite puzzle involved
the hole puncher.
The former boss is described in such visceral terms, I can’t help wondering if this game was a sort of therapy for an author in recovery from a bad employment situation. Regardless, this game will provide fans of old-school parser comedies with a solid half hour of entertainment.