TALJ 2026 One-off Review Thread

Competitions
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Inspired by this thread from Ectocomp 2025, I thought I’d start a one-off review thread for this year’s Text Adventure Literacy Jam. If you don’t want to review every game entered but still want to post your thoughts on one you played, feel free to do so here.

Epic Expedition, by dgtziea:

For experienced players, this game is pretty quick and easy, but it seems like a good introduction for people completely new to parser IF. The tutorial is in-depth, and I appreciated that it explained what the word “parser” refers to and common conventions in other text adventures that weren’t required here, such as the explanation of “look behind” and “look under.” I wished there had been more worldbuilding, and I could imagine a new player not comprehending the full height of the pots and therefore not realizing why they couldn’t reach the document, but these are my only critiques.

I was inspired to illustrate a scene from it:

Illustration (contains spoilers!)

A digital painting, in the style of a children’s book illustration, depicting a cute brown-gray mouse approaching a triangular half of a restaurant-style grilled cheese sandwich.
A digital painting, in the style of a children’s book illustration, depicting a cute brown-gray mouse approaching a triangular half of a restaurant-style grilled cheese sandwich.2464×1594 283 KB

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I tested this one and I STILL crave grilled cheese a week later. The drawing is so cute!!

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Thanks for starting this! I don’t want to do a whole thread, but I definitely want to talk about at least one of these, so, a review of…

The Gnomish Treasure (Lamp Post Projects)

As a parser creator, this is a game I would want to make, but I wouldn’t because I’d worry that a museum curator/artifact restoration sim would be more fun to make than play. LPP pulls it off, because they’re more confident and skilled at this than I am, and I’m happy to have my instincts proven wrong. Here you play as Nat Nimblebrush, custodian of the royal treasury, and you have a list of 7 historical artifacts that must be assembled from recovered fragments; there are several pieces not on your list that you can also reassemble. You must match sets of fragments, then repair, label, and display the restored artifacts. There’s some fun fantasy-historical details provided about each that are mechanically relevant when it comes time to display.

This game is an accomplishment. It threads a fine needle, presenting a fairly sim-like puzzle that is engaging and, I think, fairly welcoming. I had a lot of fun thinking about why this game works, and it made me think about parser design and what a good parser tutorial looks like. I’m going to say some critical things below, but it’s criticism in the lit crit, “I liked thinking about how this game all fits together and why there are rough edges” sense, not the “I’m going to try to bring this game down” sense. It’s all subjective, anyway, ymmv, etc.

Tutorial

A good parser creates the illusion of a responsive setting in which you might be able to do anything, even if you know that not everything is possible. The moments of connection between player input and world response are magical; they inherently feel really good. The ideal parser tutorial should (again, just imo) guide the player while allowing then to feel like they’re making a connection and not simply following instructions. A rigid tutorial works against the magic trick.

The tutorial here is extremely rigid insofar as it doesn’t respond to the player (though, to its credit, it doesn’t restrict the player, either). It gives an instruction, and it’ll repeat that instruction every turn (more or less) until you follow its directions. I think it’s possible to complete the game and still get the first tutorial prompt in response to every action:

a screenshot of The Gnomish Treasury showing a repeated tutorial prompt in response to multiple unrelated actions that are progressing gameplay. The prompt reads "TUTORIAL: Examining objects (or people) will yield important or interesting information. All objects and scenery mentioned in the game may be examined. Notable items will be printed in bold text (unless you turn HIGHLIGHTS OFF). A good place to start is by examining yourself; try X ME, which is short for EXAMINE ME." The player is instead examining and taking shards and placing them on the table, resulting in a repeat of the same prompt.
a screenshot of The Gnomish Treasury showing a repeated tutorial prompt in response to multiple unrelated actions that are progressing gameplay. The prompt reads "TUTORIAL: Examining objects (or people) will yield important or interesting information. All objects and scenery mentioned in the game may be examined. Notable items will be printed in bold text (unless you turn HIGHLIGHTS OFF). A good place to start is by examining yourself; try X ME, which is short for EXAMINE ME." The player is instead examining and taking shards and placing them on the table, resulting in a repeat of the same prompt.1640×1634 484 KB

I’m going to keep getting this first prompt even after examining items, because I didn’t examine the specific item that the tutorial has suggested. Some players will follow the instructions exactly, but not all will want to, and more adventurous beginners would be irritated or discouraged by the repeated prompt.

I think the tutorial is good at clearly telling players what they need to do, but it’s not responding to the player at all. I don’t envy anyone the task of making a tutorial, but I had fun thinking about what I’d want to see here instead. Though no one asked, I would’ve had Lady Steward, your boss, stick around to oversee the first repair. She evaluates your efforts at the end, and featuring her early on gives a narratively coherent reason to block non-tutorial actions-- “Lady Steward said to start with by retrieving the horn; better listen to the boss and leave the crate of pottery until later”— or, better, not block but simply disapprove of other “wrong” actions (“I thought we were starting wit the horn, Nat, not the dagger” sort of thing). She could be shuffled offscreen after the first repair or, better yet, kept around to occasionally comment on your progress or provide hints if consulted. (I think this solution makes this a harder game to make, for sure, but since I’m being an armchair dev, I don’t have to worry about that.)

World & Gameplay

Overall, I was impressed by the level of description/implementation. The setting felt very well-crafted, calibrated to impress but not overwhelm new players. There were some nice custom responses for blocked actions and a smart use of environmental details as subtle in-game hints. If I recall correctly, this is LPP’s first parser, and the house style (really solid writing that pays loving attention to setting) has clearly survived the jump to a new format

There are a few outliers early on that worried me, unfortunately emphasized by the tutorial. If you follow the first real prompt shown above, which tells you that “All objects and scenery mentioned in the game may be examined,” you’ll learn that you’re wearing garments and spectacles. These don’t actually exist, so if you take the tutorial at its word try to X them, you get the dreaded “you can’t see any such thing.”

This central puzzle’s overall success is such a flex. A “match the pieces together” game entirely without images is SUCH a big ask, but this game pulls it off. I had fun matching pottery shards I couldn’t even see! The writing (clear, vivid, easy to remember or quickly reference in notes) is key here. Because the process is the same for each item, I think ten items felt like a few too many; it wasn’t boring, but I started to feel the repetition, and seven or eight is probably the sweet spot. (Or maybe there are ten, but a few of the items need some attention other than repair?)

There’s some need for QoL in the repair process, imo. You can only repair something if 1) all the matching pieces are on the table, and 2) if NOTHING ELSE is on that table, including the object you most recently repaired (by default it’s placed on the table). That required “take [newly repaired item]” is easily forgotten and even outright discouraged by the description (the newly repaired pottery is held together with curing pitch and string, and I was nervous to take it!), and it’s disproportionately tedious to “repair X / [table too cluttered message] / X table / take [recently repaired item / repair X.” I’d bake something into the carry out repairing that moved the item repaired to a nearby drying rack. It’d streamline repair and give a nice diagetic excuse for not balancing 9 fragile items in your arms while you repair a 10th.

I’ve given a lot of criticism, but I only really do that to works that I like or that make me think. This was fun to play, fun to think about as a game for beginners, and fun to think about as someone who’s made a couple parsers. There were good instincts and clear skill on display here, and this is a game to be proud of.

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I haven’t played this game yet, but I was interested in your comments on the tutorial. These highlight the fact that it is very, very hard to write a good tutorial that is integrated seamlessly into the game.

Most authors have never tried writing a tutorial, so they don’t realise how hard it is. Those that have and do realise how hard it is tend to avoid writing a tutorial. This is the only competition that requires a tutorial and that makes it really challenging for authors.

One of these days, we may hit that sweet spot where someone comes up with the perfect tutorial, but I don’t think it’s happened yet. Close, but not quite. Maybe one of this year’s games achieves it?

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I’d be interested in seeing a review thread that specifically just reviews each game’s tutorial. (But I can’t really do it myself, because I’m an entrant; I made my game’s tutorial exactly the way I want, so of course I’ll think it’s the best!)

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Thanks so much for playing and reviewing, and for your very kind words about The Gnomish Treasury! This is indeed my first parser game (apart from some unfinished/unpolished experiments). Familiarizing myself with Inform 7 has been a pretty fascinating (oftentimes frustrating :joy:) technical challenge.

About the tutorial, particularly for anyone who hasn’t yet played the game:

Completing tutorial mode (which can be toggled off at any time) requires the player to use certain commands, but there’s no restriction on which artifact(s) you repair and label first or in what order. For example, the horn is mentioned first but you can just dive into pottery shards instead, if you prefer.

Also, the tutorial is programmed so that the player should never be prompted to take an action they’ve already completed out-of-order, or independently of tutorial guidance. In other words: if a new player figures something out on their own before being prompted (say, taking inventory), the game will responsively take note of this and won’t show guidance on that command.

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I meant it when I said that, after testing/playing these games, I’ve had fun thinking about a tutorial, but thinking is the operative word here. I really don’t envy anyone the task at all. Even video games, which have arguably more flexibility for how they guide the player, reuse the same tropes and structures so often that there are memes about clunky player instruction. A text tutorial is definitely an exercise that’s more fun from the armchair. Kudos to all the brave TALJ participants who took on the challenge!

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tutorials are very hard! the initial beta of Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight featured an elaborate contextual system that that wound up being more complex than the game itself. I unfortunately had to cut it because I wouldn’t have met the Spring Thing deadline otherwise.

I rage-deleted the extension and now I regret it :sob:, but this thread has me revisiting the idea :orange_heart:

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In my submission, tutorial mode takes you to a 3 location area starting in a tent where the NPC asks you to do certain things in order. When you do them you move on to the next portion. For the most part you must do them in order or the NPC says something. I wanted to do more in it. I read somewhere that tutorials should give a boon so I incorporated that thought into the submission.

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I definitely had more fun thinking about how to do a tutorial than actually doing it. When one of my testers found a bug in the tutorial I inwardly grumbled and said “but I want to be doing the REAL stuff.”

I find I’m constantly worried a tutorial is either too long or too short. Those who get it right, or close to right, deserve credit.

That said, writing a tutorial forces me to ask why I’m doing something and if the first puzzle really is a good introduction to my work. I spend a lot of time saying “This should be easy to understand” and seriously think that writing the tutorial for TALP last year provided me a framework for (at least ) getting started and getting the player acquainted a bit easier for non-TALP games.

Certainly my goal is to present it as more than just a laundry list but on the other hand I don’t want the player to go into too many mental contortions at first because then they think “If this is the tutorial, how tough is the rest of the game?!”

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