Game #17: April in Paris
Author: Jim Aikin
Played On: October 20th (1 hour 15 minutes)
Platform: TADS 3
Game’s Blurb:
On the first day of your dream vacation, you encounter an exasperating social difficulty. (Game file contains complete hints and walkthrough. Zip file includes pdf map.)
April in Paris is a game that should be more fun than it is. The writing is pleasantly error-free, or very near to it. It has a few simple puzzles that seem to set the pacing pretty well. It’s technically competent, with just a few quirks (although one is a moderately serious bug) that aren’t bad enough to destroy faith in the game’s implementation. It should be really enjoyable.
Why, then, this lukewarm response? Part may be to do with the truly excellent entry I played just prior to this (don’t click that link if you don’t yet want opinions on IFComp ’08 entries you might not have played). That’s a very tough act to follow. Recognizing my bias, I have given April in Paris the reviewer bonus point – just in case I’m being too critical.
In the two days I’ve put off writing this review, I’ve given some thought to why April in Paris didn’t captivate me the way it could have. My biggest problem was with the game’s geography. It’s essentially three rooms, but the main one has been subdivided into six room-like zones. The included .PDF map makes this layout clearer, but I didn’t check it until afterwards for fear of spoilers. The game uses a TADS 3 extension for handling movement within a single room (I think that’s right; in response to my transcript, Jim offered a little insight into the game’s construction).
I was initially confused by the layout, but even when I understood it, I was constantly unclear on who and what was where. Since this main area is open, the player can see what’s happening all around. The waiter is said to move around, but often between other zones. Things are described as they pertain to these six zones (near the south end of the railing, north end of the interior area, etc). The game is good about implicitly moving the player (for instance, an attempt to sit at your table will return you to the proper zone automatically), but the cumulative result – for me – was constant confusion.
Scrapping the zone concept and sticking to a room-based approach might have worked. I think I understand why the game doesn’t, though, and it’s for realism. It wouldn’t make sense to be oblivious to the goings-on just a few feet north of where you stand, when it’s essentially an open area. A better solution might have been the “one room” concept. Except for the runaway dog (which could be adapted), it might have been possible to condense the game’s main area into a single room, making accommodations for the ways this might affect the puzzles. Referring to the map might have helped too, but it still would have been a little awkward to mentally manage what was happening where.
The young woman, who seemed to be a central piece in the story, felt strangely flat. Two-dimensional characters are common enough in IF – it’s even the norm – and it’s not usually a problem (especially in puzzle games). This game is more story-centric, though, so I would have expected more characterization – especially for this character. Maybe I didn’t talk to her enough. As the game progressed, she just seemed more and more like a puzzle piece, or maybe a prop. Initially, I didn’t even trust her. The lesser characters were fine. Even the waiter, with his obstinate attitude, seemed believable and developed enough to fit the needs of the story. Only the young woman seemed to need a more important role than she was given.
Of the game’s title and blurb, and in an attempt to “guess” at what each of the thirty-five IFComp 2008 entries might be like, I made the following prediction:
“Sounds artsy. Cultured. Over my head, perhaps… My expectations are high.”
I expected that I might have to involve my wife (with her minor in French) in figuring out some of the dialogue. I expected something that would evoke strong images of this foreign city – not necessarily a thinly veiled virtual tour as in 2004’s Blue Sky, but something that would spark the imagination and make me yearn for a vacation. I expected something grand and exciting, maybe.
It’s clear that April in Paris wasn’t meant to be any of that. Even though the fault is mine for expecting that it might be, the game still has untapped potential. Somebody at a nearby table kept shouting “Extraordinary cuisine!” I would have expected to hear other kinds of random chatter, and a larger variety of random happenings in general. Even restricted to a single scene (the café), the game might have taken more opportunities to expound upon what it feels like to be a tourist in Paris. Ultimately, the story didn’t seem interesting enough, the puzzles had me pitying the poor hungry fellow for all that he had to endure just to get a good meal (rather than actively enjoying the effort), and confusion with the café’s geography left me as frustrated as the protagonist himself.
It’s not a bad game by any means. It’s even a welcome change from the poorly-written, untested ones that make up a large number of the entries each year. I understand that Jim may be planning to release an updated version after the competition. That’s not likely to impact the underlying framework or the game’s modest story, but it would probably be a more recommendable version nonetheless. The competition version is still worth a play-through, if no update is released. I have scored it a “7,” which includes full points for writing and the reviewer bonus point.
