The game’s blurb describes it as having “numerous controversial mechanics: Randomized combat, arbitrary death, players are encouraged not to savescum or undo actions.”
But the game’s randomization is much deeper than that. The game includes a completely randomized plot. It’s a spy game where the mission objectives and the agents themselves (who to trust/kill) are randomized. I would describe the whole thing as a roguelike (a “procedural death labyrinth”). As a result, a walkthrough is impossible. The game includes a 700-word walkthrough, but it’s more correct to call it a list of suggestions. After having read the walkthrough, you’ll still have no clear idea of what to do to win this game.
So, what makes a good PDL? Here are a few characteristics of a good PDL in my mind:
- Strategic depth. Good PDLs are described as “harsh but fair,” meaning that you can learn more about the game each time you play and that your odds of success will improve with superior strategy. Better strategy should substantially mitigate the risk of randomness, if not eliminate the risk entirely. There should be multiple high-level strategic approaches to the game, and each strategic approach should have a lot of special-case situations.
- Meaningful variety. Randomness alone doesn’t address the problem of variety. Pure randomness is just 10,000 bowls of plain oatmeal, with each oat being in a different position and each bowl essentially unique. emshort.blog/2016/09/21/bowls-o … eneration/ The variety has to matter.
- Freedom. Good PDLs have a zillion things you can do and try. Often, this freedom enables emergent gameplay, and supports strategic depth.
I don’t think I played the game long enough to decide whether the game truly has strategic depth, but the walkthrough seems to take pride in describing the game as “unfair.” The question of whether to TRUST an agent can’t be determined in advance; the walkthrough offers no strategic suggestions for mitigating that.
Being “harsh but fair” is what makes “strategic depth” a puzzle worth solving.
As for meaningful variety, the game kicks off with amnesia, which prevents the player from having any connection to the randomized plot. As a PDL, this game is asking me to devote hours and hours of my life into figuring out how to develop an extremely detailed battle plan, robust against any randomized plot. But why? Why is this game worth that much effort?
And then there’s freedom. Freedom is an area where parser IF games can really shine, but developing the game in ADRIFT really limits what the parser can do. (Not to mention the fact that it renders the game unplayable on non-Windows platforms.)
Seven playtesters are credited, but did they all win this “unfair” game? Did they all have fun?