IFComp reviews by scratchm

I didn’t know that. That’s a shame, because I thought the cool central idea was indeed awesome, and intended to say something like, “Hey, take this stuff and implement some objects and give it an actual plot and it will be cool.”

For a crap game without any implemented objects – that’s basically a description of its genre – I did find this engaging. I played it almost all the way to an ending; if the text hadn’t described it as unfinished I might have thought a bit harder about how to get to the ending, which is in fact gettable. Two of 'em, in fact. Though the endings definitely fit into the CGWAIO template; they’re one step up from “A Winner Is You.”

Anyway, this didn’t annoy me that much, because I adjusted my expectations pretty quickly. If no other game in the comp annoyed me more, it would be a pretty great comp experience, at least from a me-not-getting-annoyed perspective.

[spoiler]There certainly have been some joke games in the past. Sometimes they have a specific joke agenda in mind (see Sisyphus), which is still mildly annoying but at least you can see what they were getting at. The joke of submitting something that is not only bad but bad in a boring way, however… I dunno. I’ve heard that punchline too many times already, I guess.

I skipped both Chronicler and Quiet Evening because they weren’t listing any testers, and because of the confession in Chronicler that it wasn’t finished.[/spoiler]

Oxygen by ShadowK

A short review for a short game…

[spoiler]On the one hand, I enjoyed this enough to play it through four times (and got four different endings). On the other hand, doing so took me less than an hour. I have a hard time giving the same weight to a small, one-room, one-puzzle game like this as I do to longer works.

The tiny nature of the game was pretty much my only complaint, however. It was well written and interesting; the puzzle was challenging but not impossible (although it would take a good deal of luck to get the best ending on your first attempt).[/spoiler]

Heated by Timothy Peers

[spoiler]One step up from the implement-your-house game (see A Quiet Evening at Home) is the go-to-work game. This was a fine example of the type: get dressed, shower, etc. Boring subject matter, but I guess people have to start somewhere.

The keys-in-the-toilet problem had me hoping for a hitchhiker’s guide bablefish style puzzle, when I closed the toilet lid and they still managed to get in there. But several frustrating minutes later I hadn’t found any way to place a heavy object on the toilet lid, so I gave up on that.

The death-by-electrocution bit had a nice easter egg.

The game was artificially sparse; although it tried to explain that away. The objects that did exist, however, were all implemented and I didn’t notice any outright bugs, just a couple of grammatical errors. I congratulate the author on getting so much right on his first outing.

The central “Heat Meter” mechanic was interesting, sort of, but didn’t do much to enhance the game for me. Maybe in a longer game with more opportunities to lower the heat level it would have been worth while. But a longer game would need a more interesting subject matter. I reached the end of the game, getting to work on time with personal hygiene in order, but my heat meter was too high so I didn’t get the promotion. I could have re-started at that point and tried to play a perfect game, but who wants to go to work twice in one day?[/spoiler]

The Bible Retold: The Lost Sheep by Ben Pennington

[spoiler]Almost as bad as A Quiet Evening at Home. The game goes like this:
Follow sheep. Search bush. Follow sheep. Search bush. Search bush. Search bush. Try all sorts of things that don’t work. Read hint. Create completely implausible fire. Torch bush. Follow sheep. Ride buffalo. Follow sheep. Follow sheep. Follow sheep. Follow sheep. Follow sheep. You Win!

It has no story to speak of, just an arbitrary goal. It has two puzzles… the first one completely unreasonable and stupid (at least for anyone who has practice making fire) and the second… well, I don’t know if I would have solved it on my own, because when reading the hint for the first puzzle it spontaneously gave me the solution to the second puzzle as well.[/spoiler]

The 12:54 to Asgard by J. Robinson Wheeler

[spoiler]This game started out well. It progressed from good, to great, proceeded towards astounding, then suddenly crashed into mediocrity and failure. Yet again I find myself praying to pagan goddesses for a fixed-up post-comp release.

The introduction was flavorful. Walking around the studio picking things up had a nice old-school feel to it. Lots of good descriptions. Although it certainly didn’t seem to be required, I enjoyed cleaning up the maintenance closet and putting everything in the proper places. The tag on the suitcase hinted at things to come. So did “an open suitcase (which is open)”, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

Up on the catwalk, I spent far too much time trying to make the tree house safer by attempting to clean it with the mop and the sponge. Repairing the snake was more fruitful (although seemingly pointless in the scheme of things). My thought that I would need the tar paper, the rubber sheet, and the tile to repair the leak was quickly dispelled, and I proceeded to nail the tile on.

I knew what the game was setting me up for, but was determined to avoid my fate. First I tried to manufacture a safety harness from the feather boa. Then I tried for many minutes to use the drill and screws rather than the hammer and nails; that should at least have been implemented better but at the time I was still to enamored of the game to care.

Finally, I turned around and took that fateful swing with the hammer. Still trying to save myself, I grabbed at the snake, but it didn’t hold.

Ok, so I’m dead. I knew all along this was coming, but was still surprised at how well it was done. I take stock of myself and my surroundings. The units of currency are obviously a reference to something, but I don’t get the joke. Oh well. At this point I’m regretting my grab for the snake, so a stack of UNDOs later I’ve grabbed the suitcase instead. I’m a little worried that I should have stocked it better with some of the things I left in the maintenance closet, but trust that the game would have let me know if I were in an unwinnable state.

Across the water, I have a hard time figuring out that up is the correct direction to go in. No worries, I got it after a few tries. Then I meet Polly, and things take a turn for the worse.

>talk to polly

Polly doesn't even seem to hear your question, which is probably her way of politely refusing to talk about anything she's not interested in. 

>ask polly about herself

Polly doesn't even seem to hear your question, which is probably her way of politely refusing to talk about anything she's not interested in. 

>ask polly about me
You ask Polly about yourself.

Polly doesn't even seem to hear your question, which is probably her way of politely refusing to talk about anything she's not interested in. 

>ask polly about death

Polly doesn't even seem to hear your question, which is probably her way of politely refusing to talk about anything she's not interested in. 

>ask polly about turnstiles
(the turnstiles)
You ask Polly about the turnstiles.

Polly doesn't even seem to hear your question, which is probably her way of politely refusing to talk about anything she's not interested in. 

>ask polly about boat

Polly doesn't even seem to hear your question, which is probably her way of politely refusing to talk about anything she's not interested in. 

Ugh.

So I take a look at the turnstiles. Clued by Polly, I try turning each of them. One glides, one grinds, one stops and one goes backwards. Being a contrary type of person, I select the quartz turnstile which goes backwards… back to the studio!

So… there is no body in evidence, and all the flavortext seems to be the same as the first time around. Object status and location have NOT reset, but I find the suitcase with most of my belongings in the lost and found area. Notably missing are the hammer and nails, which seem to have disappeared at the time of my unfortunate accident.

I wander around the studio for quite a while. There is nothing left to do. I can’t leave. I can’t even re-create my accident and die again because I don’t have the hammer and nails. I have a save point before giving the coins to death, but I’m low on time (yes, I play slowly) and this situation has taken away my will to continue playing.

Maybe there is a way to continue from this point… I’m kind of bad at puzzles a lot of the time. But if there is a way to continue, it’s not covered by the walkthrough. So I quit.

Up until the point where it started sucking, this game rocked.[/spoiler]

I am thinking of a new scoring policy. If a game seems to have been completed and tested before the competition deadline, I will give it a 10. Otherwise, I will give it a 1. That way if an unfinished or untested game wins the competition, at least I will not be to blame. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Death Off the Cuff by Simon Christiansen

[spoiler]There is a very simple algorithm for solving this game; examine everything, examine the parts of everything, talk about everything you have seen, repeat. There is little else to do but follow this pattern. So while I do consider this a work of interactive fiction, it’s less interactive than many of the other comp entries.

That’s fine with me. CYOA games are also interactive fiction, but less interactive than normal. I considered Whom the Telling Changed to be less interactive than most games too.

The story, and more importantly the structure of the story and how it was told, was very entertaining. There was, however, one fatal flaw.

In order to limit the scope of what you could talk about, the game restricts you to talking only about things you can see. It then changes the set of things you can see, over time, to allow the story to progress.

This causes pain at many points during the game when something that was invisible becomes visible, but is mentioned only as part of another object’s description. The game feels stuck until you re-examine every object, eventually finding the new clue in the form of a previously undescribed body part or item of clothing or whatever.

This pattern culminates in the ridiculous conclusion of the game, where the final confrontation is triggered by talking about Detective Goodfellow’s suddenly-visible uniform. What, as if he was naked before?

I think this pattern of unintuitive obscurity is firmly rooted in the design decision to allow talking only about things that can be seen. I think the problem could have been eliminated, and a much more enjoyable game written, if abstract topics were allowed. I don’t know if Inform makes this difficult, or if the author didn’t know it was possible, or if it was a conscious design decision.

Despite that one problem, this was a solid story that I had a lot of fun playing.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]I did exactly the same thing. I thought at first “Oh, here’s a chance to go pick up the suitcase and all the stuff I forgot” but then I had the same problem as you - no way back to the afterlife. I ended up starting over with the walkthrough. It’s hard to tell how good the puzzles are when you have a walkthrough sometimes, but they seemed like they might be maddeningly arbitrary. I think I agree that the opening of the game was awesome, and the rest was a big letdown.

The intro gave me an impression of a really engaging PC, but unfortunately, as soon as he gets to the afterlife, he loses all his personality. And yes, the implementation gets progressively more sloppy as the game goes on.[/spoiler]

Everything you said about this game is exactly right, but somehow it doesn’t capture how much fun I had with it. I was very liberal with getting hints, though, so I didn’t spend much time being stuck. I just loved the premise of it - the famous detective who actually doesn’t have a clue what’s going on and has to bluff his way through. It’s a perfect send-up of detective stories, and the characters were all very entertaining.

I had a lot of fun with it too, it was just frustrating because I thought it could have been even bettersize=50[/size].

Gris et Jaune by Steve van Gaal

Full disclosure: I was a beta tester on this game, and thus will not be voting on it. But I will comment on it anyway, using it as an excuse to talk about other games some more as well.

[spoiler]I thought this game had an excellent premise and was executed well… at first. Unfortunately, it falls into the same boat as several of the other games this year… it wasn’t quite finished in time for the comp. Here I’m talking about my personal definition of finished, which may be different from Steve’s (or may not be).

I’m not sure if there is any fix for this apparently common problem. Hypothetically you could move back the competition deadlines, but I suspect that authors would just keep on working on the games the same way and be just as unfinished when the extended deadline arrived. The problem, I think, has to do with switching over from primary development mode, to finishing mode.

In primary development mode, you add to the map, implement objects, design puzzles, and so on. In finishing mode, you double-check your room descriptions, re-test your object interactions, make sure puzzles are clued correctly, etc. The basic difference is that when you are in finishing mode, you stop adding things and just refine the things you already have.

I’m not entirely sure when the right time is to switch from primary development to finishing mode. But I know that the wrong time is two weeks before the competition deadline, or halfway through beta testing, or whenever it is that most of these games tried to make that switch. Most of my complaints with most of the games this season could have been solved by letting the games be just a little bit smaller and spending more time on finishing.

In a bizarre twist, I realize that The Bible Retold: The Lost Sheep is an example of a game that spent too much time on finishing and not enough on primary development. So it’s possible to make this mistake both ways.[/spoiler]

Halfway there… just 13 games to go.

Rogue of the Multiverse by C.E.J. Pacian

Non-spoiler review: Very good game. Well worth the tiny amount of time it will take you to download and install the TADS interpreter if you need to.

[spoiler]Wow. I am super impressed by this game. I’m assuming you have played it already (hence the spoiler tags) but if you haven’t, please stop reading and go play it.

[rant=Last chance to avoid spoiling yourself]Where to begin? I guess with the parts I didn’t like. The scenery was a little sparse, especially on the various planets that you visit. But if they had been fully fleshed-out locations, the game would have gone way over two hours. It would be a Spring Thing game, not an IFComp game. So I guess that doesn’t count.

There was one point in the epilogue where I wanted to “sit on chair” and had to type “sit on chairs” instead.

I wished that the NPCs (Sliss and Sola) had more conversation topics. In fact I didn’t find an opportunity to have an ask/tell conversation with Sliss at all, which was disappointing (ASK SLISS ABOUT BANANA… giggle).

I discovered from the walkthrough after I finished the game that you can apparently only carry two of the items Sola needs at a time… in play I didn’t attempt to carry all three at once so I don’t know if that’s one of those annoying arbitrary limitations or if he makes a good joke out of it.

That’s it, that’s all the bad stuff. Now on to the good bits.

The interview at the beginning. Play through twice and experience all the answers. Great stuff.

The navigation within the complex was perfect; I loved how the game tracked what direction you were facing and adjusted things accordingly. It really made me feel like I was there. Not appropriate for all games, maybe, but this technique could be used to good effect more often.

The automatic picking-up and putting-down of your equipment when you enter the antechamber.

The amusing things you encounter while hunting for “salvage”. My favorite was the angry farmer.

The escape on the jet bike.

Sliss and all her banana comments. In fact, just about everything she says.

The way the normal text adventuring, the salvage hunting, and the jet bike racing all exist in one game – and how seamlessly they fit together.

Everything was implemented and had at least a basic description. I didn’t notice any spelling or grammar errors. I encountered no bugs, and just one vocabulary oversight. This was a quality game, it was a fun game, and it was unique in several ways.[/rant]
I haven’t done a proper search just yet, but it bothers me that I don’t recall seeing many other reviews of this game. Are people avoiding it because it can’t be played in a browser? That would be… unfortunate.[/spoiler]

There are at least nine other reviews already (which is actually more than for some Inform games!): see ifwiki.org/index.php/Rogue_o … se#Reviews

Oh thanks! I hardly ever remember that the wiki exists. Should visit it more often. :slight_smile:

It’s true. Sadly, the hamster not only survived getting cooked but also survived when the soup was eaten. I did crash the game a few times while messing with it, though, and I ended the game with the hamster in the garbage. So that’s something.

East Grove Hills by XYZ

[spoiler]All I can say for this one was that the story was ok. Not good, maybe, but at least ok.

It would have been better if written in a completely non-interactive format; I can’t imagine why someone would bother using interactive fiction to tell a non-interactive story rather than just writing the story out on a web page or something, but that’s exactly what has been done here. It wasn’t just that you were on rails, you were on rails with blinders on.

I thought the writing style was irritating. It had many short sentences. Like this. Most of them were complete thoughts. But some.

The characters were flat. The setting was flat. The plot twist was terrible (more on that next) and the ending was somewhat arbitrary and not connected to the rest of the story.

(Emphasis added for my own amusement)

So let me get this right… the reason the game sucks is because it was written by a character in the game, who sucks at writing games? Ok yeah, I can get my head around that but I think it’s the worst excuse for a bad game I have ever seen. Ever.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Nobody seems to have much good to say about this game but I really liked it, and that line in particular. It served to explain and excuse the game’s obvious flaws in a way that stayed true to the narrative.

The author explores the psyche of a school shooting survivor from the perspective of that survivor, who stands in as the author and creator.

The writing quality is OK but not great; it would not be unfair to call it sophomoric which strikes me as the point. It is very much within the grasp of a talented but ordinary high school student. Likewise the execution of the game is competent without displaying any real degree of craft, which again is in keeping with the player character’s background and stated experience.

I found this all persuasive enough that I actually did a Google search on East Grove to see if there had in fact been a school shooting in the news. Of course that turned up nothing but that act alone speaks volumes to the verisimilitude of the construct.

If this story was written by someone in high school, I am impressed. Otherwise I am very nearly in awe. It’s not a good game, it’s not a good story, yet it may be good literature. Consider this. What if the author produced exactly what he set out to achieve? It may not be The Sound and the Fury but I have rarely seen its equal as a slice of life.

I understand how someone who approaches it with the idea that the author is unknown and likely unskilled might come away thinking the game a failure. But suppose you knew the author had a formidable grasp of Inform and strong writing abilities. If you accept that the game is the way it is as a result of deliberate creative choice rather than a lack of talent, doesn’t that make it much more compelling?[/spoiler]

Regarding East Grove Hills:

It isn’t a game, it’s just a story. It doesn’t work well as IF. If the author had a formidable grasp of Inform and strong writing abilities, they would have chosen to tell this story as plain text rather than interactive fiction. That’s my opinion, anyway.

[spoiler]The scene that made it work for me was the one where you have the option to hide or confront the shooters. You are powerless to effect a real change to the plot, but even so the story reads very differently depending on whether you cower behind the counter or charge out to disarm one of the killers.

It is a choice that defines the character you are playing. Either he is almost a coward or almost a hero, and either way he has to live with the consequences of his shortcomings. It’s the most significant event in his life, which is after all what the most compelling stories are about.

It’s also the most interactive part by a mile. You can’t save your sister’s life and you can’t put a sentence together, but you get to make the hardest decision you will ever face.

I agree that it isn’t much of a game or much of a story. But at its heart it has this one beautiful moment of interactivity, which all the rest of the experience works to support. I can forgive a lot for that; I’m just not sure there’s anything to forgive.[/spoiler]

East Grove Hills:

Slightly more compelling just as a curiosity, but not better. The fact remains that as a game this was a failure, and as literature it was… not great. I didn’t like Gigantomania, but I can appreciate the art. I didn’t like Sons of the Cherry, but the format was appropriate. This is something that had the flaws of both and more, but without the redeeming qualities.