Merk's Review: Riverside

[Merk]

I haven’t decided whether or not I want to post every review here this year, before the competition ends. I think I’ll at least post selected reviews. Either way, I’ll put them up at sidneymerk.com/ by the time the competition ends. When I did this last year, I removed the scores from the header and text. I’ll go ahead and remove the score summary from the header for this (and any others I post), but I’ll leave it in the body (usually toward the bottom) if applicable.

I would recommend that voters do not read my reviews until after you have already played and formed your own opinion. Just in case, I’ll provide some spoiler space. But, I’ll clean all of this up and link to my “official” review after the compeition.

Here goes, with my review of Riverside. Comments and discussion are welcome.

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Game #2: Riverside
Authors: Jeremy Crockett and Victor Janmey (Drew, Jeremy, and Vic)
Played On: October 4th (55 minutes)
Platform: Inform 7 (Zcode)

It took three people to write Riverside? Really?

The game starts promisingly enough, with a brief but provocative “wish” sequence, followed by some sort of mystery based around a friend’s murder. The writing is adequate (if a bit lengthy in spots), and it does a good job of building high expectations for the story proper. Although sparsely implemented (descriptions are painted on in many cases, and scenery doesn’t exist as objects in the game world), nothing suggests that Riverside will turn out to be the lead-in for… for what?

It’s a joke entry, most likely. Last year’s competition was surprisingly lacking in these, yet I fear this year (if upcoming titles and blurbs are any indication) may see an abundance of them. In some ways, it almost feels like the beginning of a serious entry that became a joke simply because the authors wanted to submit it but couldn’t come close to finishing in time. Unless they explain, that’s anybody’s guess.

In short, there isn’t much to see or do here. A couple of introductory scenes offer enough interactivity to feel convincingly serious, but then it ends in the most jarring and cavalier of ways just before things should start to ramp up. It’s not just that it’s an abrupt ending; it’s that the ending thumbs its proverbial nose at the player, abandons continuity, lapses into what seems to be mockery, and does little but offer insight into some further absurdity that was there all along (a hidden verb, which can be used twice in the first scene and once in the second, but is oddly missing from the last section).

So what’s Riverside, exactly? The authors’ idea of a joke, I guess. It’s certainly not a game that’s worth playing or recommending. It’s time wasted – time that could have been spent playing and reviewing the next entry.

As for scoring, I’ve given it a “1” for writing (excluding the crazy bit at the very end, which is like that on purpose but to no fathomable reason) and a “1” for puzzles (they amount to little but looking and moving around, but it’s a very small fraction above what I’d consider a zero). It gets, of course, the base point, but all else is zero. That’s a generous “3” from me. I don’t think the authors were after a high ranking anyway.

[George_Shannon]

Pretty much the same reaction.

If it’s a joke, holy moly, it was a lot of effort to say “HA GOTCHA”

[Merk]

I’m glad there was a walkthrough. My first reaction was that this was somehow related to the story - a turn for the surreal, maybe - and that I needed to figure out something else to do to push things forward. The little “smiley” at the end of the walkthrough, though… is it “we’re sorry” or “we fooled you” or what?

[George_Shannon]

I think it’s “we’re sorry” just because if it was a joke, it ruins the game’s joke. The walkthrough should have run long, so if you ever glanced at it, you have no idea the joke hits you in the train station. Divide the walkthrough into Funeral, At Home, Riverside, Area 51, etc., just to mess with people.

Oh well. Who can fathom the minds of authors?

[farvardin]

I rather enjoyed the game, but was disappointed by the end. I thought it was just a joke and instead of entering the “choochoo” we could enter the real train, but it was the same. For an half game, I gave an half note. Instead of 6.5 it will deserve a 3