“Willy’s Manor”, by Joshua Hetzel is a parser game set in a familiar location: a large house full of magical puzzles left there by the playfully eccentric owner. (Remember Hollywood Hijinx, Savoir Faire, Finding Martin?). “Willy’s Manor” isn’t nearly as ambitious as those titles; the central puzzle mechanism is a box which dispenses printed riddles, and won’t dispense the next one until the player has inserted something in the box which matches the answer to the riddle. Some of these riddles are tricky, involving clever word play, while others are more concrete: “bring me a sticky treat that bears enjoy.”
There are sometimes obstacles to fetching the required objects. There is also an interesting collection of rooms which change seasons each time the player enters; this section reminded me of “Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons” which I played recently. But really most of the required puzzle items were hidden in plain sight. This is a good puzzle design for a developer who may be relatively new to Inform; the puzzles are forgiving to inadequacies in world model implementation and parsing. Among the world model issues I observed
Notes to author
“Examine Me” gives the default response.
“Shoot termites at tree” in the seasons area skips the reporting step-gives no output at all.
The lizards are not recognized as animate, so commands like “kiss lizards” or “feed roast to lizards” return unsatisfying responses.
I hope the author will continue honing their craft, and I look forward to future games.