Here’s the next group!
The Lost Labyrinth of Lazaitch
Larry Horsfield has been making big adventures in the same world for 35 years, starting with the Axe of Kolt and going up to 2024 with the Book of Jax. For years, Die Feuerfaust was the main game on my ‘IFDB Recommends’ page (although I still need to play it!) This world is one reminiscent of 1990’s fantasy worlds like Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms. There is a main hero, Alaric Blackmoon, with a counselor wizard as well as his wife and many others. There are recurring magical spells and artifacts.
Larry’s games differ from the IFComp/Spring Thing norm (although he’s contributed enough he is a ‘norm’ in himself). Rather than making small games that give a lot of guidance on commands and focus on overarching mechanics for puzzles, Larry writes giant games in ADRIFT (and formerly PAW) with dozens of rooms and gameplay focused on take/use/drop, as well as spells. There are some classics that appear in many of his games (using your sword to chop stuff, tying and untying your house, fireplaces with mantels that need to be examined, beer, etc.).
I have a pattern with Larry Horsfield games where I try to tinker around on my own for an hour so, which usually gets me partway through the first 10-15% of the game, then I read the walkthrough to the end.
This particular game features some really clever settings and segments. It does have some commands which I think are really hard to guess, so I recommend typing HELP and VOCAB (I think) to see what commands the game expects you to consider. Larry is also famous for requiring LOOK UNDER and LOOK BETWEEN. This games also requires LOOK DOWN and LOOK CLOSELY.
The Mystery of Winchester High
I introduced Garry Francis in the earlier post about Captain Cutter’s Treasure. One thing I didn’t mention there is that Garry is heavily involved in the Text Adventure Literacy Project/Jams that are designed to be fairly easily completable games targeted towards beginners.
This game took first in its TAL Jam and is Garry’s 2nd most popular game out of 21.
It’s a fairly compact game with a lot of polish, finishable in less than an hour. You are a kid at a school that is both closing due to lack of funds and also is rumoured to have a hidden treasure in it.
Gameplay revolves around codes, an NPC and a variety of items where you know what you need to progress and you just need to find it (like something to unlock something with, for instance).
Tapestry
Before Photopia, Tapestry was often cited as puzzleless interactive fiction (or at least heavily story-focused). It was popular and often referenced, and its author went on to co-write Slouching Towards Bedlam.
This is a moral choice/agency game. You’ve ruined your life, basically, and you have the chance to go back and revisit three different events. However, you have to choose which viewpoint to see these through, with the options being Clothos, Atropos and Lachesis, the Greek Fates.
While I think parser fans will enjoy this, this is also a parser game that I think choice-based fans might like, especially if played with the walkthrough, which has a lot of effort put into it and can be enjoyable in itself.
Metamorphoses
This was Emily Short’s second break-out game. After the success of Galatea earlier in the year, famous for its puzzle-light conversation with an animate statue, she released Metamorphoses, which took 2nd place (to the multimedia game Kaged) and is a complex puzzle game.
As some background, Emily Short and several other parser authors were interested in the capability of text adventures to simulate reality. Without the need for costly graphics, programmers could really dig into things like physics, personality, and social dynamics. Each of her early games explored different facets of this (she once mentioned that Galatea and Metamorphoses were made by taking chunks out of an ideal, proposed giant game that would need their mechanics at their core).
Metamorphoses is a heavily physics-based game. You use different machines that change properties of texture, weight, flammability, etc. to solve Myst-like puzzles. There are multiple endings. This game also has Emily Short’s signature of a troubled romantic relationship that has more nuance than many other game romances.
Heretic’s Hope
Grim Baccaris is a master of Twine UI, as seen in the Twine Grimoire volumes 1 and 2 on Twitter. This was an initial standout game by this author.
It’s heavy on the worldbuilding. There is an island nation ran by sentient and religious insects, and you are a human representative. You must deal with the whims and machinations of the powerful insects while dealing with personal grief. The game is rich and heavy both in appearance and in subject matter.
This game has portraits for most characters, as well. It feels hefty but only takes an hour or so.
Nightfall
Eric Eve is one of the most talented IF authors to never win IFComp, though he came in the top 3 on several occasions. This game, Nightfall, came in second, overshadowed by the still-wildly popular game Violet. Eric has also contributed greatly to both TADS and Inform in the form of extensions, and was one of the authors on Alabaster. His main type of game is a large but polished adventure tightly focused on some specific theme and incorporating one or more sexy women.
This game is a kind of thriller, exploring a city in the dark which has been abandoned under the threat of a vague menacing enemy. You are looking for her, a woman who has captivated you and also made a request of you.
The feeling is moody and eerie. You are in constant fear of being seen while simultaneously being very alone.
The game has been noted by many, including Emily Short, to be very polished. If you get stuck, it has several layers of in-game hints, from the game itself nudging you to a THINK command to THINK HARDER to a walkthrough.
Word of the Day
Richard Otter has written over twenty games over the years, many of them quite large. I played quite a few recently when trying to go through old Spring Thing games. They have a lot in common with Larry Horsfield’s games, although with a greater variety of settings.
This game, though, is a little different. It’s a sci-fi game that took 13th place in its IFComp in 2017. For many years it has been in my mind as one of the largest pieces of Inform 7 ever written, with over 200K words of code. However, although it is big, much of that is backstory. This game is a murder mystery of sorts, as someone has sabotaged your ship and you have to inspect the bodies and find out who did it. The backstory includes lengthy descriptions of the differences of the mating habits between plant-based and animal-based sentient life.
Overall, if you want a large map rich in details with numerous characters and big worldbuilding, this is a game for you. It is also well-polished. It is not particularly hard; I used a walkthrough the first time but after several people said they got through without one I tried again, and it is good at hinting and accepting commands.
The Golden Heist
This game took 7th in IFComp a few years back, and a lot of people have enjoyed it. It’s a choice-based game with light puzzles.
It takes place in the time of the emperor Nero, whom you are determined to rob from. You have to assemble your team, which in this case is one person, who can be smart, strong, etc.
There is one puzzle that can be tricky, but other than that the goal is just to see how much loot you can make off with and the different escapades your companions can get in!