“The Little Four”, a parser game by Captain Arthur Hastings, O.B.E. This is a cozy slice of life about the relationship between Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings (Agatha Christie characters). I am only familiar with Poirot from a number of film adaptations I’ve seen, and even less familiar with Hastings, so I’m quite sure I missed some of the references to the team’s past cases. But this Interactive Fiction is still engaging without that prior knowledge.
In an earlier review I wrote “Interactive Fiction has great potential to convey a sense of place, in some instances entertaining without telling any story at all.” This present work (Little Four) conveys the character and deep friendship between the protagonists, largely through an exploration of their shared Sussex apartment, on a relaxed Sunday in 1939, sometime near the end of Poirot’s career.
Everything about the game design encourages a relaxed experience. The goals of each chapter are clearly communicated and straightforward to complete. Select a tie, drink some coffee, walk the dog. The only mystery introduced is an observation game proposed by Poirot to entertain Hasting’s son while they’re waiting for their communal supper.
The verb set is largely constrained to exploring and examining commands. Important features of each room are bolded, then text highlighting is removed once the item has been properly examined. What this means is that there are no puzzles per se, but great freedom to explore the environs. Every object examined comes loaded with fresh details about that item’s history, or special meaning to the various characters. The parser is simple, but it doesn’t need to do more for this game to be what it is.