(I quit Hand of God after a few pages because I found the writing somewhat bland. It’s possible that there is a good game there. If so, shame on me for not being patient enough.)
Next up: So I Was Short Of Cash And Took On A Quest.
Next up: Wearing the Claw. Yes, the 1996 IFcomp 8th place game. I’m yearning for some oldschool parseriness. I’ll return to all this new style modernist clickity-clack after I got my fix of GET LAMP.
(Ah… That was fun. Nothing like vanquishing an evil curse to rejuvenate oneself. Wearing the Claw hit the spot.)
Eleanor
I didn’t get far in this game. What I did get was a very unnerving experience. You descend into a kind of dreamy/nightmarish underworld to recover your dead lover, or at least see her once more.
The sparse, almost featureless locations, the eerie background noises and the pop-up pictures work well together to create a surreal atmosphere. The obstacles however are so obscure that I only got “down” two levels.
The help-feature nudges you in the right direction with an associative image, but I would have liked an actual explicit hint after running into the timed awakening/end of game half a dozen times.
Great atmosphere, needs more work on playability. I’ll hold off on an IFDB review.
THANK YOU for dedicating your precious time to Eleanor.
“What I did get was a very unnerving experience.”
I’m so sorry!
When I came up with the Eleanor storyline, I quickly realized it wasn’t going to be an “easy game”.
In fact, the risk in “simulations” like this is to create a frustrating and boring game.
I tried to avoid this by inserting sounds, images, automatic saving of progress and help routines.
Unfortunately even in your case (the same thing happened to Mike Russo) this was not enough and, in the end, you left the game without finishing it despite (I thought) the suggestions were quite explicit.
At this point it would be important for me, if you can, to know:
What prevented you from getting on
How can I make it clear that the “wake up” timer can be easily reset by moving down or up.
which helping images failed to suggest the right action to take.
Your valuable suggestions would help me to improve the game in its future versions.
All the best!
Rob.
Honest, open, vulnerable, trusting, funny, enthusiastic.
The author has put an important part of herself in her game for you to read and experience. Moving.
No hint, really. It just made it a pleasure to follow your review thread.
I’m particularly spoiler-averse myself, but here I could read everything without being afraid. I would get a summary impression of your general feeling toward the games, while the review itself being on IFDB provides useful context. And the teaser on the end provided a very good flow to the thread as a whole.
I don’t think a review that has its own thread would benefit as much from this approach, actually, especially since easy access to quoting makes the threshold for discussion lower.
Thank you so much for the fantastic review! I was hoping that creating Budacanta would be educational as well as entertaining, and I’m glad it has turned out to be all that and more
