Bureau of Strange Happenings by Phil Riley
BOSH includes:
- A fun help feature for beginners
- Extensive contextual hints
- A Zarfian Forgiveness rating of “merciful”
- Only one use of the word “reification”, which most players won’t even see, we swear.
Comedy investigation • Longer than two hours • Parser-based • Glulx
A game that Mr. Phil Riley has been advertising through his profile picture for a while now, to the point where I associated his digital self with that smart (in both senses of the word) reptile (Riley the Reptile?).
The title naturally invokes curiosity with the contrast between the decisive officialness of “bureau” and the eccentric vagueness of “strange happenings”. It is reminiscent of the book titles of Douglas Adams, such as A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, where the first part sets you up for one thing and the second part changes your viewpoint. It creates a comedically incompetent vibe, further compounded by the abbreviation of the game, “BOSH”, which, for whatever reason, reminds me of Dirk Gently, although I’m not sure if he ever uses the British slang term.
I thank Phil for including such an extensive hint system, as I am someone who struggles with maintaining a good to-do list (even my IRL list is split among three separate locations: my reminders and notes apps, and a physical planner). The “merciful” rating only makes me happier, although due to the length I probably won’t get to this game for a long time, if at all.
“Only one use of the word ‘reification’” is one more use than I’ve seen before. For the curious, “reification” means to make something abstract more concrete. The author swears that most won’t encounter the word, but I’m curious to find out how it will be used. Maybe an abstract painting turns into concrete. That would certainly be a strange happening.
The comedy shines in the notes, tags, and title alone, and the “investigation” clearly has something to do with the suited reptile in the cover, which in itself is also a strange happening.
TLDR: Bureau of Strange and Concrete Happenings (BOSCH)