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IF COMP 2004 - PTBAD 3

Game #36: PTBAD 3: A Mystery, by Xorax
Played On: 10/24/04 (6:50 PM to 7:15 PM and 7:15 PM to 7:45 PM)
Unofficial Score: 2.0 (no skew)

     I spent twenty-five minutes charting the maze to the end. I spent an additional thirty minutes (before giving up) trying to figure out how to PTBAD (assuming that this is in some way a clue -- weren't there "games" in the past that dealt with performing just the right action on a phone booth?). The most likely "B" is "biscuit", but this still yielded no positive (or negative) results. Am I on the wrong track? Is this a different author? Did I waste the additional half an hour on a wild goose (or duck) chase?

     I don't know if this game is an honest attempt to compete in the competition, or if the author is simply toying with us. I suspect the latter. Although I'm probably being silly for providing a bug report, here is what I found.

     An "l" is missing in "lateraly" (and no, not at the beginning). It ended up in "Cheerfull" by mistake (yes, at the end). The word "about" is repeated in one sentence. In "...nothing hear" it should be "here". The room title "corridor" should start with a capital "C". In "doorroom" you must "enter door" since the directions don't work. The "t" is missing in "desroying". The word "loniliness" should have its first "i" changed to an "e". In inventory, you can have "a a biscuit" and "a eye". You can't "x graffiti". Should "stoneline" be "stonelike" instead? Did you really mean "aether" -- which is pretty obscure -- or "ether" instead? Drop the "u" in "Anouther wall..." Add another "b" when you "...find a rabit". Change "Other the the..." to "Other than the..." Change "your" to "you're" in the line "...your a normal person..."

     So, what else can be said about this game? It's a step above a 1.0 because I was curious enough to search for some obscure, elusive command, which never really presented itself to me (and, because I now know the difference between a duck -- thank you, Google). At this point in the competition, I thought "Ninja v1.30" was going to bottom out my rankings. Surprisingly, it does not.

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