The Count and the Communist
It’s gorgeous! I love the entire presentation, the ASCII interface, the little pictures when you talk to someone. Add the crisp writing and deft characterisation, the useful in-game maps (one reviewer complained that not all exits were indicated, but I never ran into that), and the many carefully researched historical details; and you have a game where the texture itself gives sparks of joy. At one point I was wondering what the early 20th century Dutch Hegelian Gerard Bolland had to do with ‘flight’, but it turned out to be a reference to the early 20th century French aviator Adrienne Bolland. Of course, our protagonist would never cite Gerard Bolland, who had become quite a reactionary, whereas Adrienne Bolland became a left-wing activist!
From what I’ve seen, having played about two hours and having completed Act 1 and a small part of Act 2, The Count and the Communist is a relatively tight puzzle game. The map is small, but opens up depending on which puzzles you have to solve. There’s always a fairly clear goal to pursue. The number of items is small, and the game has been designed to nudge you in the right direction: the very same place where you find the switch is also the place where you find the item needed to make the switch work. Solving puzzles makes the story advance in concrete ways, which is good design.
One also has to mention all the peeking and hiding that is going on. This is well-implemented and atmospheric, although if you truly engage in it – and sometimes you have to – the NPCs are quickly revealed to be comically limited. The count spends hours walking back and forth between two rooms, washing his hands dozens of times. At one point I was hiding under the bed of the cook, and every few minutes he came in to consult his cookbook. Rather unlikely! Plus, in the latter case I seemed to be stuck; I spent many cycles trying to leave the bedroom, but every time there would be someone blocking my way out and then the cook would come back again. Perhaps I needed to be even more patient, but I had already spent a large number of turns trying to escape.
All in all, the game feels well-implemented and interesting. I managed to solve Act 1 on my own, and am fairly confident that later parts of the game will be as solidly made.
It’s unfortunate that The Count and the Communist combines all this goodness with a singularly clunky user interface. Instead of accepting normal parser commands, you have to navigate menus. You cannot just save, you first have to go to a Story Menu and then choose Save, which brings you back to the Story Menu that you then have to close again. That’s three actions instead of one. Actually, it was four actions instead of one for me, because I typed ‘save’ literally every single time, got an error message, then did the three action sequence that the game wants me to do.
Returning from the Story menu will have wiped out the contents of your screen, you so will have to look again. Looking is also two actions instead of one, because it has been implemented as first going to the Examine Menu and then choosing the surroundings. So the trivial action of saving the game – something you need to do often – comes down to: (1) erroneously try ‘save’, (2) go to the Story Menu, (3) save, (4) close the Story menu, (5) go to the Examine menu, (6) choose your surroundings. Many times I was tempted to just not save in order to avoid this hassle. That’s a clear sign of something being wrong with the design!
What I don’t understand is the point of it. I see how the menu interface can be helpful to new players. I’m fine with having it. But why disable the standard commands? Why is ‘save’ not simply accepted? Why can’t I just ‘drop basket’? It is trivial to check whether or not the player has given a 1 character command, and to then run either menu-based or normal parsing. You can have your cake and eat it.
It’s really sad to be talking so much about the interface, but it did have a major impact on my enjoyment of the game. Every little snag felt deflating. Oh no, I thought to myself, I’m in my bedroom and I have to go back all the way to the cellar to put back the copper coils. It’s not as such a huge task, but the interface made it feel like a chore. If I could just have typed in my commands, I would almost certainly have made more progress in the same time, and felt more motivation to continue.
I still might continue after the competition, but for now my verdict must be that this is a very nice game marred by clunky interaction.