A Warm Reception by Joshua Hetzel
The princess’s wedding has been spoiled by an escaped dragon. Our task is to assemble enough pieces of armour and weaponry so that we can take on said dragon, and find enough conveniently dropped notes so that we can write a saucy gossip story about the princess being a closet lesbian and her husband-to-be being the guy who let loose the castle’s pet dragon (?) so that the wedding would be halted (?) and the bride could elope with her girlfriend (?). I’m not sure this makes much sense, but then, the story is only there to justify having a puzzle game.
It’s a very minimalistic and very easy puzzle game, but I don’t mind that. It’s relaxing to just walk through a castle, use the pre-made map the author provides, and tick off the puzzles without ever being stumped. I can’t say I ended up with much of a sense of accomplishment; the only aha moment was the one where I understood the logic of the maze. But as a quick parser snack, A Warm Reception is fine.
It would have been nice to have a slightly more robust implementation. Very few nouns are implemented, which streamlines the puzzle experience, but also leaves the world feeling very bare. You can’t drink the wine or eat the pizza, or even wear the armour you find; trying to press keys on the num pad isn’t even a recognised action; and no explanation is given when you attempt to lock pick a lock that is not supposed to be pickable. These are all minor frustrations, but the full possibilities of parser games are hardly on display here.
Joshua Hetzel seems to be a first time author, and A Warm Reception is a fine beginning. I do hope that their next game will be a little more ambitious in terms of puzzles and/or story and/or setting and/or style.