You may find that I'm a non-traditional reviewer. I will try to find something I like in every game. My unofficial rankings will probably be much higher than those of the real judges. Further, these reviews will form a kind of player's journal, since I'll write each one immediately (if possible) after playing the game. This means I might begin to get burnt out, and my reviews will become crankier, or maybe I'll become more ambivalent and one review will contradict the next. I know how hard I worked on my entry, and how hopeful I've been that judges will enjoy it. Although this shouldn't prevent criticism where necessary, I hope it will at least temper it.

     My reviews may contain spoilers. I’ll try not to do it, and I’ll try to explain things without giving away a puzzle or the story, but if I can’t, I can’t. Just keep this in mind when reading my reviews. Also, the reviews are numbered in the order in which the games were played, not in order by rankings.

     ** 9 - A really great game; again, maybe not a perfect game, but one where the problems weren't a distraction. Great story, great plot pace; a setting I found especially appealing; fun to play, fun to read, well-clued puzzles. This may also be a game where the author has made great use of his story, game structure, and characters. I'm hoping to go generous with the 9's, as I intend to have fun playing all the games ahead of me!

     ** 8 - A really good game. One I enjoyed, but thought "it might have been even better if..." This might also be a great game that just didn't hit me right; a genre I don't personally favor, for instance, but I was still able to appreciate the quality of the work. It's still a game I enjoyed playing. An “8” will have good writing, and if it has puzzles, they’ll be good and clued fairly. Generally, I will have no big complaints about an “8”, except maybe that the story, game structure, or characters may not have been used to their full potential.

     ** 7 - A good game, worthy of the competition, but could use some polishing. My hope is that most of what I play won't fall below this mark. This is a game I liked, but with noticeable typos, obvious omissions, suspicious puzzles, sparsely-implemented scenery… just things to be improved upon for an updated release. This could also be a game that still seemed to fall short of its potential, even if the prior things (puzzles, scenery, etc) weren’t very problematic. This would be a game where these problems didn't really detract much from the experience for me, although I would expect the ratings of other reviewers to be less forgiving. This could also be a game that might have been a 6 or even a 5, except that the story seemed unexpectedly good, making up for the more serious problems.

     ** 6 - A good game with a few more problems. Maybe this means more typos than usual, some bugs in the game that might either render it unfinishable or begin to detract from the experience, not enough implementation of the scenery, or quirks that just seem misplaced or unintentional. This could also be a game where frustrating, badly-clued, or overly-complicated puzzles bring down a score that might otherwise have been better due to the game’s other strengths. Some instances of any of these things can still make it into a higher ranking for me (even a 10, if it’s the right game), but this score would imply that the game seemed a little rushed, unpolished, or unbalanced.

     ** 5 - This would be a game with quite a number of problems, or one I found frustrating to play. It could still be a game that I ultimately liked, just one that would put my entire ranking criteria under suspicion if I were to give a higher base. This would be a game that has potential – the author is on the right track – it just needs more work. It has probably failed in more than one area – puzzles, writing, story, etc. Still, by allowing for a +/- 2 skew, I could still give a game in this category a pretty decent 7 if I really had a fondness for it, despite the problems.

     ** 4 - This game would be one in which I felt quite a bit of frustration, either with too many problems in the writing, the programming, the puzzles, the setting, or all of the above. This is a game in which I started to lose interest, began to cringe quite a bit, or just really disliked the obscurity of the puzzles (or the bad writing or uninspired plot). This is probably a game that felt more amateur as opposed to merely rushed and unpolished.

     ** 3 - This would be a more extreme case of what a “4” represents. This is a game where it’s difficult or impossible to finish due to the problems; major bugs, glaring mistakes in the text; maybe even blatant attempts to make the player mad (without any indication that the emotion is helpful to the story). This is where it becomes more difficult to pick out the redeeming qualities in the game, because it isn’t much fun to play.

     ** 2 - At this stage, I’ve found very little in your game to be excited about. It will have some kind of quality that sets it above a “1”, but only by a small margin. Maybe something you wrote was especially clever, or I found the setting to be interesting even if the entire implementation was not. I will consider this just a step above “unplayable.”

     ** 1 - Unplayable. I don’t mean that I can’t run it at all, because it wouldn’t be fair for me to rank a game I can’t even try. However, even though I can run it, I might as well have played with mud for two hours. I can find nothing of interest in the game, no reason or justification to bump it up to a “2” - basically, I strongly dislike the game.

Again, these numbers and definitions refer to the BASE score (the score in the parenthesis, in the title section of each review). When I use a base score with a half-point (for instance, 7.5), it means I couldn’t decide if it was clearly a “7” or an “8”, or it really does seem to fall in the middle of the two.

The “Unofficial Score” will often include a skew amount, added and/or subtracted from the base to present a final “how well did I enjoy it, above or below the base” score. To further clarify, a game indicating an Unofficial Score of 8.0 (7.0 base with +1.0 skew) falls at 7.0 by my scoring definitions. However, I enjoyed it enough to add a point, even though the final score doesn’t mean it fits the definition of an 8.0 on my scale.

Basically, the skews let me stick with a judging guideline (so my scores make sense when viewed as a group), while still allowing for my personal biases and preferences. Without the base definitions, there would be no consistency to my scores, and without the skew, there would be no flexibility.

     I tried. I played for close to four hours. The game does enough right to entertain, but what it does wrong borders on frustration. From the information provided, I gather this is the author’s first game, and that English isn’t his first language. In that regard, it’s a very impressive entry. In the context of the competition, though, I expect to come across more solid entries before I’m done.

     What it does right: The spelling and grammar are fine. I didn’t notice any misspellings or other mistakes in the text, more or less. Throughout, the use of “remark” instead of “regard” was a little jarring, but the usage is technically right (according to dictionary.com). I noted one run-on sentence – a very minor point. It’s an interesting sci-fi setting and an interesting story. The action sequences were effective, making the game feel more alive and real. The seemingly deranged actions taken by some of the NPCs – and in fact, the PC’s own obsessive desire to sabotage the Century Cauldron over the trivial matter of a forgotten pet – are explained effectively at a pivotal point in the story. The three-part dream sequence, while pretty sparse in details, did serve as an interesting break to explain a long period of sleep.

     What it does wrong: Inventory management became a frustration. I don’t think the concept is inherently bad – I’ve done it, although probably no more effectively than Thomas manages – but as the game progressed, I found myself leaving items behind that I later needed. Before I stopped, I had reached a point where I wasn’t even quite able to carry all the loot I knew I would need. Various bugs jumped out, too. Jersey kept asking me to find the medicine I had already retrieved, yet she’d accept none from me. A blokomo would follow me into the kitchen upon return, and with a dead one waiting, I found no way to disambiguate the “blokomo” from the “dead blokomo”. Worse, as it followed me away, I couldn’t attack it. The game told me that attacking it didn’t seem productive. The computer in office 032 shows a snippet of play from an in-game adventure, which I felt was a little tactless given the direction the plot had gone. In fact, I never was quite sure whether the game was meant to be taken seriously. At times, it seemed entirely humorless, and at others, bits of comedy spilled in. It almost seemed that the author wasn’t quite sure himself. The writing was fine, as I mentioned, but not particularly memorable.

     These are by no means the only problems with the game. I was disappointed that some scenery wasn’t implemented, where a short description might have been nice. I was confused by the cages and pipes, never even understanding the point of the small box. The walkthrough says I need to get the scientist’s photo, even though I was able to look at it just fine while he carried it around. Some NPCs wouldn’t accept or even recognize things that I might have expected them to – the apple and orange with the cook, being a prime example. The yellow button in the bridge control room gave a strange message. The result of trying to “open nightstand” at the beginning left me wondering if the resulting message was key to the story, or just a strangely customized parser response (made more mysterious when no similar messages were shown to any other actions later in the game). I kept a transcript during play, though, which I’ll gladly send to Thomas if he’s interested in releasing a post-comp update.

     I didn’t check the walkthrough until 45 minutes into the game. Until then, I hoped I wouldn’t need to. Like last year, I started this game with high hopes. Frustration set in later, when I realized how far over the comp’s 2-hour limit I had gone (if I were really judging, I’d have probably ranked it higher after just the first two hours). In the end, I couldn’t even beat the game. I sent an email to the author asking for advice. The walkthrough makes it a simple matter of doing this, then that, making sure you’ve done the other thing, and then deciding on two possibilities. I couldn’t even find out how to get there. I assume the locked “Top Secret” door is an answer, but the walkthrough doesn’t mention this and I found no way in. With a fussy baby and a wife I’d promised just a two-hour time-out to play, I couldn’t keep going. It’s a shame, because I am interested to see how the author wraps up the story.

     I can’t decide if the game fits my base scale at 5 or 6. So, I’ve rated it a 5.5, with a very optimistic +1 skew (because I really liked the setting, the game world seemed real enough, and it’s far too early for me to become a cranky reviewer with almost three dozen more to go). It seems like the game could be much better than it is, with some more work. I hope the author considers updating the game for a post-competition release.

     FOLLOW-UP: I finished the two different endings, with some information provided by the author. I probably could have figured it out, but for some reason, I had been walking past the appropriate area without even noticing. Although neither ending explains the game’s competition blurb, this at least put closure to the story.

     The Santoonies did a decent job last year with Zero. All things considered, that game ended up low on my list, yet I still had fun with it. I liked the concept, and it was a good game. I gave it an unofficial 6.0.

     Compare this to Amissville II. It’s the sequel to a game the Santoonies seem quite proud of. For all the effort claimed in the credits, I would have expected a polished masterpiece. At the very least, I would have expected one or two of them to have some experience using the English language. I’ve only played Zero, but that was enough to give me better expectations for this year’s entry.

     The game starts well enough, putting the player among simulated Santoonies at the Amissville campsite. One guy has separated himself from the group, on a trip into town for some fast food. The others are busy with chores of their own. I didn’t realize until later that the build-up had me expecting something like The Blair Witch Project -- a small group, camping in the woods at night, finds that evil is closing in.

     That’s not Amissville II. At least, that’s not the first two and a half hours of it. Initial exploration goes fine, provided you don’t look too closely and you don’t stray more than a room or two from the starting point. Before I gave up, my high hopes had turned to simple optimism, shrinking to a growing suspicion, then to budding frustration, and finally to a dismal realization that the game is nearly – if not entirely – unplayable. It might be Santoonie tradition to leave players stuck without a walkthrough, but this left me without the ability to write a review based on the entire game. I couldn’t even find the hints that were reportedly available at the Santoonie website.

     If bad grammar, poor spelling and faulty writing in general had been the worst of it, Amissville II might still have been redeemed by its story. I can’t say for certain that the game even has a story. It seems more like a collection of elements and communal experiences meaningful only to the Santoonies themselves. Lacking a plot, it could have been saved by solid gameplay and clever puzzles. However, the game itself is so severely broken that playing to completion seems impossible.

     The bug report alone could take up pages. I’ll skip all but a few examples. After all, my suggestion last year that “fowl” should have been “foul” was overlooked in this year’s offering. The CB seemed totally worthless, until one point when (somehow) I hit upon the right phrasing to make it work… once. Pat kept repeating the same dialogue, as if stuck in a time-loop the game never actually acknowledged. Much of the scenery – even things that seemed important by their in-room descriptions, could not be referenced at all. In at least two places, it was possible to go one direction without a way back. I was stuck twice that way (NE from the Grey Ghost Winery and SW from the “Enbankment”). If this was intentional, the game gave no indication. Once, I even stumbled upon an area by going generally southward from the start, then found the same area after restoring an earlier point by going generally northward. If this was a design gimmick, it seemed more like a bug. I found and rode a horse (using just a stirrup – apparently a whole saddle was unnecessary), which was the start of an interesting twist. Interesting, that is, until it disappeared without explanation when I tried going west into Amissville. I’m no pro, but even I was bothered by the bad grammar and awful spelling found throughout. The game was so thick with these problems that I couldn’t quite enjoy what might have otherwise been very entertaining text. The only puzzle I managed to solve was riding the horse, which is a shame, because with so many items to be found and carried, I think the game has more to offer.

     I do have session transcripts, guys – yours for the asking, if you’re interested in releasing an update and (more importantly) using my frustrated commentary to improve your future games. I only noted a few of the problems in the text, but the more serious bugs are clearly identified.

     It seems that the Santoonie Corporation is full of creativity but shy of talent. That’s not a slam – just an opinion. Even though I found little to enjoy in Amissville II – and even though I can’t recommend it with its present glut of problems – I hope the Santoonies turn it around with a more impressive entry in the 2006 competition. By my scale, I have to give this one a 4.0 (to me, it was frustrating and unwinnable). This is skewed down half a point, because I suspect it was entered into the competition fully aware that it wasn’t quite ready for a public release.

     On a side note, I also suspect that Santoonie isn’t a real corporation...

     Thankfully, it had plenty working for it – not the least of which is that it’s a great game. Even when stuck briefly at a colored-lights puzzle, the game wasn’t frustrating. Perhaps this comes from (a) being only my third game of the competition and (b) following a really frustrating “traditional” IF entry, but I really enjoyed this. It has a few technical problems, sure, but these are minor. I encountered nothing that caused the game to break, or to play out in a way that might indicate broken or incorrect page progressions. Prey for your Enemies is a survival horror game, and even with limited interaction, it was effective.

     I hope the judges this year keep an open mind. To rank Space Horror low just because it’s not traditional parser-driven IF would do an injustice to writing that’s superior to much of what we’re likely to see this year. The three main plot threads cross at times, maintaining consistency and appeal that really does build with each newly explored branch. Jerald’s use of multimedia is enough to bring variety without overuse of any one concept. A couple puzzles are even worked in – to good effect – but I’ll get to all of this in a moment.

     In all, I played for three hours. I enjoyed every minute of it, even though some (perhaps many) of the page runs were simply continuations without any choices. I was skeptical at first, but it really worked. Using my browser’s “back” as needed, I never had to replay from the beginning. I never had to flip page after page just to try a plot variation, because the bad endings didn’t stray far from the decision point, and because I could always back up just to the last major decision. I guess that’s probably how it’s done with the books, but that was many years ago for me. I was really surprised – and impressed – at how well Jerald managed to keep the entire experience from becoming dull and repetitive. By the end, I was pretty confident that I had explored it all. No mapping was required – not even of the plot branches. The story was very clear, even when backing up and changing lines.

     I mentioned puzzles. This is accomplished by what seemed to be a long series of web pages. To the player, that’s invisible unless you’re eyeing the URL (like I was). I didn’t understand the colored light’s puzzle until later. I solved it by trial and error, looking to see which URLs were “new” from the time before, and just going forward and backward. It probably sounds like a frustration, but it really wasn’t. I guess my mind was still gnawing away at the problem, because I realized the solution later. I think the puzzle was made more difficult because the buttons pressed are (I think) zodiac symbols. It would have been more fair (requiring less trial-and-error yet still solvable if you figure out the trick) had the buttons themselves been colored. It would also have still fit the in-game explanation.

     Video is used twice. I encountered the long, recorded speech first. I was glad to see it in printed form, after continuing. The other instance is part of a puzzle, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this might have been more fair to hearing-impaired players if this had also been included (somehow) in text form. A few still images are used, and that’s one area where I thought “more” would be even better. One puzzle requires a real-world email, which was thankfully answered right away by an auto-responder. Tina’s website (especially the forum in her own plot branch – the first branch I found, incidentally) was further proof that this game really was going to work.

     It isn’t flawless. I noted several typos, collected in a text file that I will gladly send to the author upon request. Several compound words (head on, rear ending, once over, more) were missing their joining hyphen. These instances were hardly a distraction for me, because the text was otherwise wonderful. Some of the plot choices rely on honesty from the player, to avoid hopping branches. I found it more fun to play fair, but I also wonder if the game could be improved with some kind of cookie or plot-tracking method. My biggest complaint, though, is that the story was entertaining enough to make me pick apart the plot. The temporary immunity to the aliens’ method of abduction, for instance, just doesn’t seem possible to sustain for the long period (years, maybe) mentioned in certain endings.

     All in all, I enjoyed the game. I recommend it, particularly if you’re open-minded enough to overlook the lack of a parser. I’m basing it 8.5 on my scale, with a +0.5 skew for exceeding my expectations. I hope the game fares well in the final results. Two of my favorites last year were generally disliked by the real judges. That was a disappointment, as would be a low ranking for Space Horror Part I.

     The writing is good, and often clever. It’s an interesting story – something likely to be unique among all the other entries. The technical flaws are minor. These are generally things like an extra line-break here, a missing line-break there, an unnecessary comma once or twice. It isn’t a buggy game by any means.

     Even so, it has problems, and these problems are harder to define. The first weakness is a general lack of implemented scenery. At first, I thought it might be a way to keep the player focused on the tasks at hand, without becoming sidetracked by extras. Still, a short, simple description of those things could have achieved the same goal, and fleshed out the game world better than it is. Second – and this is where things get difficult – the puzzle clueing is... I don’t know... a little off, somehow. I do think the puzzles are clued, but often in an obscure way, or a one-shot mention that might be overlooked. Easier puzzles would have made the game far too short, but I wonder if a fun but brief experience is still better than a longer, frustrating one?

     Early on, the clueing worked for me. I figured out how to summon the Fairly Oddmother (that’s what “fullscore” called her) from a clue-seed planted a little earlier. It left me thinking, though, that this could just as easily have not worked. I give credit, because it did work, and sometimes we as players think in what-ifs. We criticize clues or puzzles even though they worked for us – the proof being in that we figured it out. Shortly after this, I couldn’t figure out how to use the wand. The clue was in what the Fairly Oddmother told me (I don’t think this is a spoiler – perhaps a kind tip for those of you yet to play), but I finally checked the walkthrough to get unstuck. The author could have hinted better at the proper action when trying to use the wand in incorrect ways. Although I don’t think guess-the-verb puzzles are always bad (some do, I know), it just didn’t fit here. What remained was already difficult enough. I guess my point is, the simple act of using the wand (for any purpose) didn’t really need to be a puzzle.

     What stuck me next was a misunderstanding about the items I had to work with. I can’t say much without giving a spoiler, but the counter device wouldn’t work as intended unless you do something with it first. I had figured out how two of the pieces related, and how this might achieve the task at hand, but I mistakenly thought the counter was bigger than it (evidently) turned out to be. I guess I just had a hard time wrapping my mind around the objects at hand. This, and the puzzles to come next, required (I think) a visualization that just didn’t happen for me. From this point on, I solved very little without referring to the walkthrough.

     I found it odd that, once the counting began, it wasn’t reduced to a single paragraph explaining what happened. I think this would have been just as effective – if not more so. I didn’t really need a play-by-play account of the entire process. With no way to interrupt it, I had to space through pause after pause of uncounted pages. After several, I really thought I had messed up. We’re counting grains, after all. I expected thousands – hundreds of thousands. Thankfully, the two-digit number given as a final result allowed the game to continue. Why Psyche was willing to jump through the hoops necessary to count it all by proxy, I’ll never quite understand.

     Then comes my next sticking point. In order to pass this information along to Aphrodite, a very specific (but IF-standard) phrasing is required. The bad thing is, it’s not intuitive. Showing her the counter could have worked. Telling her in other ways could have worked. This again turned into a guess-the-command puzzle that didn’t really need to be a puzzle. It’s also something I think IF newbies would never figure out, simply because this method of direct communication with NPCs (without using a verb – sorry if I’ve spoiled it) wouldn’t occur to them. It didn’t even occur to me.

     In the next part – fleecing the rams – I couldn’t even figure out what I needed to do. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough. That may be part of it, but the series of actions detailed in the walkthrough – while logical after the fact – didn’t really show how I might have figured this out on my own. Looking back in my transcript, I don’t see any clueing there. If I had applied the goal of the grain task to the fleece-acquiring task, I might have gone further before feeling so stuck. Even so, I never quite figured out what the triangle was for, even though it’s key to solving the puzzle. I give credit for a nice bonus to the puzzle – the “sleepy” bit – even though it all made sense only after getting through it.

     After this, only one more puzzle segment remains. It’s clever, but again, I was stuck. I tried referring to the cloud as “clouds” – which wasn’t recognized – leaving me to think it was just unimportant, unimplemented scenery like much of the game had shown. I stopped trying, never realizing my mistake. Once I peeked again at the walkthrough, I could continue. Thankfully, the symbol works symmetrically (otherwise it would have taken twice as long). I really liked this part, and it was more straightforward than the puzzles before. However, Windows Frotz 2002 – for whatever reason – did not show the diagram to me in a fixed-width font. Without the walkthrough, it would have been pretty difficult. Not impossible, but more difficult, and the effect was unfortunately lost.

     This was a difficult one to rank. My scoring definitions for the higher numbers were focused mainly on story and writing. This game succeeds there, yet the puzzles and sparsely-implemented scenery bring it down. I was forced to revise those definitions a little from last year, to better reflect my standards. I think it falls between 6 and 7, so I’ll base it at 6.5. Nothing triggers any personal bias – good or bad – so the score is not skewed.

     FOLLOW-UP: I looked up the Cupid/Psyche story online. Although what I read was pretty brief, I get a better sense now for the inspiration that went into this story.

     This is old-fashioned puzzle goodness. You are sent to investigate the disappearance of a colony, missing from an alien planet. Eating a suspicious bird egg – for no good reason other than an irresistible urge – puts you into a surreal, alternate reality. I did something similar way back in the ’99 competition. It was met with mixed reactions.

     You must be thinking “Great. Another one. Everything is all random and unreal, but it’s all just part of the fantasy and that’s supposed to make it okay.” That’s one way of looking at it. Yes, this does allow for some wacky encounters in which animals (both real and mythical) talk and ask for help with personal dilemmas. The puzzles are well-clued and not very difficult (aside from a carrot-harvesting bit that’s optional anyway), and most importantly, the entire game is fun. It’s really fun. This is what adventure gaming is all about.

     Xen: The Contest feels like a CYOA taken apart bit by bit and reconstructed in Interactive Fiction form. Each chapter (and there are several) gets shorter and less interactive than the one before. Even when key story points can offer no real choice, it’s better to keep the illusion of choice. Or, if action happens a la cut-scene, it’s better to minimize it for effect. The second half of the game, looking back, seems like one big cut-scene with prompts added for good measure.

     The author put all his creativity and effort into the story. It’s an interesting story, and one that really grabbed me. The problem is, the framework on which the story sits was shortchanged as a result. You can’t wear the backpack. You don’t need to, but what would it hurt? You can’t unlock doors – you have to swipe cards. That took a little while to figure out. You can talk to “Kevin” but the game doesn’t understand “Kev” – not a big deal, except he asked to be called that. Trying to go east from the bus stop just shows a blank line when it’s not appropriate to the story. When the time is right, you board the bus and all is well. Much of the time, the same series of actions (visiting the cafeteria, going to class, going back to the dorm to sleep) are repeated, as the bridge between one cut-scene and the next. You can phone NPCs by name, but not by number. At a few spots, it’s necessary to ask an NPC something that requires either a hint request or exceptional intuition.

     The writing is fine. It never felt forced, and the dialogue was convincing. The puzzles aren’t complicated. Usually, the game is looking for a specific action or two. I guess these aren’t puzzles so much as they are brief interactive bits, allowing the player to take part in the transition between one cut-scene and the next. Again, this becomes more obvious in the later chapters, but it’s like that from the start. The interactive bits usually take some thought, so it doesn’t really qualify as puzzle-less IF either.

     Don’t worry. The built-in hint system helped every time I needed it, which makes this a game anybody can complete. The included walkthrough (I peeked after I finished) seems well-written too. I mapped the campus on paper, and that also helped.

     What starts as a generic college sim becomes a pretty cool sci-fi story, full of interesting NPCs, trust and betrayal, magic and murder, mystery and discovery. I considered upgrading its score with a +1.0 skew from its 7.0 base because of the cool and entertaining storyline, but in the end, the good story is already why the base isn’t lower. Instead, a skew of +0.5 serves to compliment what I felt was some great dialogue between the PC and his various peers. I liked Xen: The Contest, and two transcripts are available if the author is interested in checking my comments for an updated version.

     Each viewpoint changes room and object descriptions, as you might expect. This seemed effective, and I found very few instances where it didn’t feel right. A young girl’s perceptions won’t be the same as a semi-drunk businessman, and one segment is even told from the perspective of Duke, a family’s pet. As far as I can tell, the segments aren’t always played in order – Sam’s segment is played before Kaitlyn’s, although it happens after hers. It’s not about time travel in any way – just the way the story is shown to the last of the series of victims as she struggles with the loosed creature.

     It’s a story and a game structure that sets itself up for high expectations. To make it work, though, the author had to prevent most of the potential overlap between segments. It doesn’t seem that any segment ever happens during another, and most of the time, each character is restricted to a subset of rooms that prevent interaction with the others. This means most segments have only minor effects on the others. I played through to three different endings once (allowing the creature to escape, killing the creature, and capturing the creature), but felt there had to be more. Later, I played through again, trying everything I could to make these segments interact. I managed to create some minor inconsistencies that way, but I never managed to find a deeper plot line. I hoped that the first character could do something that would help the second character do something to benefit the third character, and so on.

     I just couldn’t. The separation of segments was so thorough that I couldn’t bring key items into an area that could be accessed by characters in later segments. The “about” text mentions NPC conversations, and I only found it possible a couple times (once near the beginning, and again near the end). I could be wrong, but it seems that the author had a much better plan for this structure. The decisions made in early segments are supposed to impact later ones, according to the “about” text. That’s true, to the extent that doors opened or closed and items taken or dropped by one character remain that way into the next. This just seems like a persistent world state, though – not the plot device it could have been. I would love to see an alternate walkthrough in which my initial hopes for this game are proven right, but it seems more likely that the logistics of managing so many characters in so many segments, coupled with a looming competition deadline, made this a game that strays from what the author had originally set out to do.

     Each character’s perspective, as I mentioned, is done well. Unfortunately, since it’s a comp-sized game, we are never really given a chance to get to know any of them very well. The game does a good job or providing information about each character from the perspective of the others too, and that alone is rewarding. I just found some of the segments constricted and short. One of the longest and most free-roaming is the first, and ultimately that’s just a segue into the main story. It does allow for some familiarity with the game map without the urgency of later segments, and that’s a plus.

     The writing is great, and I liked the story. Even though it seems to fall short of what I hoped given the structure, it’s still a good game as-is. I have scored it at 8.0 on my scale, but with a -0.5 skew (for an unofficial 7.5) because I still felt some disappointment that I couldn’t manipulate the game in the ways the premise seemed to promise (and because of some weird interpreter errors toward the end).

     I’m very interested in hearing what Gregory Weir has to say about his entry, after the results are announced. I expect it will be one of the more discussed games this year, and since it’s the kind of thing judges tend to go for, it will probably be one of the few games that do better with the judges than it did by my rankings. Even so, I do recommend it!

     The biggest problem with the game – and I’ll get this out of the way first, because I don’t have much to complain about otherwise – is that the not-quite-right English is a little jarring. This was more noticeable in the first chapters, where “an” and “a” were sometimes misused, and phrases like “…the man came here about at eight o'clock…” would have read better with “about” and “at” swapped. My transcript is full of grammatical criticism, but the more involved I became in the story, the less a distraction this was. I know a few random words in a few random languages. To write an entire game in another language is unthinkable to me. These guys did a great job.

     I don’t really want to talk about the story, except to say that it’s purposely manipulative to the player’s emotions. That’s probably redundant. All good fiction is likely to manipulate the reader’s emotions, which is the point of storytelling. It took a while to decide whether or not this was working for Beyond, because it deals with some troubling subject matter and the prompted emotions are outrage, regret, and sadness. It seemed forced at first, as though the authors were writing this particular story in this particular manner just because that’s what the IFComp judges go for. It won points once I realized my first suspicion – the cause of Elena’s death – was totally wrong. It might have been a forced political/moral statement, but thankfully it wasn’t.

     Each chapter – and each interlude between chapters – is unique and varied from the others. That’s not to say the style of the game changes. It remains consistent, but it doesn’t just repeat the same thing again and again and… again. One scene has you questioning witnesses. In another, you chase a shrouded killer. Later, you visit a might-have-been farm-home that never-was in a life you never had. When it came to catching a bright light while my companion demonstrated a dim one, I thought “Wow. These guys never slacked on the creativity.” I can’t say that the story is without flaws, but it isn’t one that I felt inclined to pick apart even so.

     The game isn’t flawless, either. In the dim/bright lights area, you can get hopelessly stuck if you go north or south without going through the door. These things are the proverbial exception, not the rule. For instance, I was very impressed with the conversation system – not because menu trees are new or unique, but because it stays up and remains responsive even while normal actions work. While it might be said that “ask-about” is more realistic, I really liked what I saw here. You could take any actions you like (except leaving the room) while the conversation was going on. Look at the guy, then pick a conversation option. Check inventory and look at a photo, and then continue the conversation. It worked very well. It’s likely I might steal this technique for a future game – sorry, guys.

     I’ve never seen a hint system quite like this, either. A request for help whisks you off to a pseudo-room where important components of the current chapter exist. Interacting with these items provide further clues to the actions you should take. I didn’t slide into the hints area often, and once or twice I still felt stuck afterwards, but it was unique. Ultimately, it worked for me, even if some of it may merit improvement.

     The style of the game hit me just right as well, from the layout and color choice to the excellent monochromatic illustrations. Despite some very disturbing subject matter, I really enjoyed this game. I listened to remixes of some Silent Hill 2 music the entire time, and even though this isn’t creepy to that extent, it worked very well. A high level of detail polishes it off, from the wide range of shapes available to the Mad Joker, to the bonus scenery responses. This is the first game that seems to fit my description of a “10” – and that’s the base, with no skew required. It’s not perfect, but it made me say “wow.”

     It’s easier to point out what’s wrong with it than what’s right, so I’ll start there. The game has a few technical flaws (and as usual, my play transcript is available at the author’s request). Some actions are automatic (using the elevator – which was a little confusing too), while some aren’t (getting in and out of the car and turning on/off the engine). At times, I was able to do things while still inside the car, even though the game described me as standing outside. I noticed a few formatting problems: an extra blank line here, a missing space there, overuse of commas, missing quotes, etc. The lowercase “i” is almost certainly intentional (it’s used throughout, and seems to fit the theme), but it bears mentioning since at first glance it appears to be a mistake among other typos.

     The rest of the game worked pretty well. I knew the history lecture was a clue, and that really helped when I began to investigate the pond in the courtyard. I tried to adapt the lunch tray to the purpose, overlooking something more useful (again to the walkthrough). Scenery is well-implemented, and the “help” section even describes a few amusing things to try during the course of the game. I encountered a few small bugs (trying to print the report after you already have it indicates you should type it first, although you already did and can’t do so again), including one in which the game crashes (both in Windows Frotz, and in Gargoyle – probably others) when you “ask janitor for toolbox.” The strangest was probably the layout of the western ends of the hallways, where NW or SW followed by NE or SE toggled the same two rooms. Perhaps it makes sense, but I couldn’t envision it – especially when the rest of the school’s layout was pretty logical.

     It’s a good premise that might have worked as a longer game. You have been brought back in time by your old science teacher, to determine whether or not it’s possible to change the past. It’s done in a wacky way, though. He’s built a time machine on the roof of the school. Accept it, and move on.

     Multiple endings are possible, and fortunately not too difficult to achieve. The puzzles are logical and not overly difficult, although I found some of them a little arbitrary. This is no real problem for me. I like puzzle games, and I take for granted that sometimes the same scenario in real life might have easier, more obvious solutions. This doesn’t bother me the way it might others. If you wonder why no records are to be found near the stereo in the music room, or why something more brick-like wasn’t found elsewhere in the school, well… you’re forgetting that it’s a game. Simulation has its place, and (thankfully) Interactive Fiction is rarely simulation.

     As another neither-bad-nor-great entry in this year’s competition, History Repeating fits snugly into 7.0 on my scale. For a few clever, interesting bits (especially things described in the “amusing” section), I have added a +0.5 skew to the score. It’s a fun, short game.

     I’ll probably go back to the list now. I enjoyed this game, but I found it incredibly difficult. Maybe it’s just me and my sub-par puzzle-solving abilities, but I was only able to complete the game down the path set by the walkthrough. I was already over two hours into the game my own way, using the built-in hint system more and more, and I had exhausted all of those options. I may have been in an unwinnable state. I’m not sure.

     It’s a very unique story, hinting at parallel realities and mythical races where a person’s gender can be changed from time to time. While playing, I kept wondering if the goblins were really humans and vice-versa, but this was never confirmed. A New Life has a lot going on, and much of it surfaces as memories (a “remember” command does this), or as considerations when examining scenery or talking to the game’s characters. The back-story is an epic tapestry of magic and mystery. Much of the fun comes from learning more and more about the unique world in which the game is set, and about the people who inhabit it.

     The biggest problem is, it’s sometimes (okay, often times) unclear what to do without getting pointers from the hints. Even then, it can be a little confusing. This is the kind of game that would be great outside the competition, where it might be played over the course of three or four nights without that two-hour mark looming ahead. I think it would be more rewarding taken at leisure. I spent three hours on it, and the last of that was just typing from the walkthrough. My original path might have been interesting, if I had been able to figure it out. The thing with the three bags and the two staffs was pretty clever, but even putting them to use, I never quite felt as though I had solved everything. On my own plot branch, I couldn’t figure out what was important about the stars and panels, even though I could make them light up as described in the hints.

     This is either a really great game I just didn’t fully understand, or a pretty average game that does a great job of seeming to be a really great game I didn’t fully understand. If taken without recommendation, I might have based it at 6.5 or 7.0 – lower because of the complicated puzzles, and the lack of clear objectives. This is the trap we fall into when judging a game we know is or isn’t liked by others. If I’m to trust in someone else’s opinion, I have to believe the game is better than it seems. And now it’s my turn, to pass my opinion along to others by way of this review.

     The writing in A New Life is excellent. This is one of the few games where the text just flowed right. It wasn’t forced, it wasn’t overdone, and it wasn’t choppy. Good writing makes a game seem more real, and when the unique world seems to be the focus, that’s important. This is the basis for my +0.5 skew, from a base of 7.5. A New Life may fare well in the competition. It’s a good enough game: worth the time, but not my favorite. I recommend playing it without expecting an easy, two-hour experience. Don’t rush, ease into it with exploration and experimentation (looking, remembering, asking), and you’re likely to have a great time.

     Not much is here.

     You can win, or you can not win. You can read about how great FutureGame is.

     Thankfully, I didn’t get to this one yesterday, when I was making deals with my wife to play just one more competition game. I’d have filed a complaint with my local Better Business Bureau against the FutureGame Corporation, if I had wasted it on five minutes of nothing. Every competition seems to have a joke game or two. This one lacks humor.

     I might have finished in three minutes, but I thought maybe I was missing a trick, or a deeper experience. The game file is only 11k. I think I got it all. At least what’s here works, more or less. Trying to “x” things assumes (for some reason) an intended restart. Since it’s a step above “unplayable” I have based it at 2.0 on my scale. A negative half-point skew is awarded because it could have been funnier, lasted a little longer, or delayed the punch-line after a few more options.

     Maybe it’s the sense of accomplishment that comes from solving a game without the walkthrough. Maybe it’s the unbroken pace that allows the game to play out without too much trial-and-error frustration. Maybe it’s the various “ah-ha!” moments that don’t come quite as often when I peek at the hints in a more difficult game. I’m just a sucker for these kinds of games.

     The game begins in a broken-down car, then leads to an abandoned, run-down motel. The writing is excellent – except for the frequent misuse of “its” (possessive) and “it’s” (contraction of “it is”). In general, the author has confused the two (but later in the game, it seems to improve with some correct usage). It’s a surprise, since the rest of the writing (with a few minor bumps here and there) is great. I got over it pretty quickly, though, and enjoyed the game much more without dwelling on that.

     It’s a simple story, meant to describe a day where everything just goes wrong (according to the game’s competition blurb). To me, it seemed like a typical adventure scenario. Sure, you can die from a wasp attack or by standing on a decrepit diving board, and you’re thwarted by obstacles along the way (dead cell phone, miles from anywhere). I never really had a sense that the game was setting me up for anything. I expected to encounter one defeat after the next, leading me along a trail of failures. That didn’t really happen. I made it through well enough, and found the game to be just difficult enough for my meager puzzle-solving talents.

     Son of a... employs an interesting use of the game’s score. It’s not something I picked up on right away, but I was awarded points seemingly at random. Instead of increasing my score for each achievement, five or ten points were awarded just for entering certain rooms, or picking up certain items. My first inclination was to complain about this. It seemed silly and arbitrary; but then it made sense. Actually, I probably saw the author’s explanation in the hints (which, by the way, are general tips that don’t spoil the puzzles). By adding points for important items and important places, it becomes easier to pick out what’s necessary from what isn’t. Although I couldn’t remember what had given me points and what hadn’t (too bad a “fullscore” command wasn’t there – is that just a TADS thing?), I could refer to my ongoing transcript. When I felt stuck, I only had to consider which “scored” items and places hadn’t yet proven useful. That’s not to say this technique can take the place of good in-game cueing, but for Son of a... it worked well.

     Woodrow has replaced every brand name with something contrived – an opportunity to sprinkle the game with humor. Your cell phone is from “Phonyrola”. Your car is a “Furdler Weasel”. Granted, it’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but these kinds of details – the motel’s letterboard sign, for instance – add depth to compliment what’s essentially a puzzle-fest. I almost laughed, though, right at the end when I tried giving the sack (contents included) to the tow-truck driver. You have to try it.

     Aside from the it’s/its misuse and what few flaws can be found in the text, I have very few complaints. For some reason, looking at the sign in the office left my entire game in a fixed-width font, corrected only by exiting and coming back to re-load the saved game. Most of the game’s map was pretty logical, but there was a bit near the old tavern that had me going in multiple directions from multiple places, with path connections I didn’t quite understand. I tried to “climb” something at one point, but the game only understood “up” there. At the utility shack, I found a strange quirk dealing with moving from one side of the fence to the other – nothing game-killing, just a little odd. At the end was another of those “yay!” moments, where I knew just what I needed to do, but couldn’t, until I figured out what to say to the driver first. I count these all as minor for an otherwise wonderful hour and a half.

     I have based the game half-way between 8 and 9 on my scale, but it’s an even 9.0 after a +0.5 skew (given almost entirely due to my reaction to the previously-mentioned “give sack” response). The skew also comes from some entertaining text in general. Well done!

     I don’t think I’d ever have solved the game (especially for the “best” ending) without the walkthrough. It’s hard to feel smug about getting as far as I did, when it was partially accidental. I had to check the transcript later, to realize that the bed is held up by chains. This is important, but nothing about it drew my attention. In fact, when other commands started referencing the chains by mistake, I thought the author had flubbed up and completely forgotten to include a vital piece in the description. My fault, but why wasn’t it clued better? Say a little more about the chains. Draw my attention to them. Make me curious about them in some way. I solved this only because the game kept thinking I was talking about the chains, even though I had previously overlooked them.

     I really wasn’t too put off at first, because this seemed like a one-room game. Limited objects might lead to more and more, until the game was bigger than it first seemed in my quest to escape. Thinking of it as a possible one-room game, though, I tried a few random actions just to observe the results. That’s how I got the Power of the Sekoniun. I don’t know how to explain this without giving a blatant spoiler. I’ll just say that the action required to obtain the power (which I did just in the course of experimentation) is hinted in a journal, but you can only get the journal by doing something that would seem sufficient to trigger the action anyway. I’ll use a generic example. Suppose a path stretches before you. You go north. You return to the south. It’s only when you “walk on path” that magic happens. Wasn’t it implied that I was walking on the path already? Maybe that’s not a good example, but it’s the best I can do without spoiling it. The power, according to the walkthrough, is optional – for a lesser ending. Even finding the journal was problematic, because I couldn’t search or “move” something to get it, but… well, again with the possible spoiler.

     Here’s a better example, straight from the game, and it doesn’t spoil anything. If you try to get the scabbard, a transparent aura blocks you. If you touch the aura, you die. Didn’t I just do that, in the process of trying to reach for the scabbard?

     It isn’t a one-room game, and knowing this, I couldn’t help but lose faith in its internal consistency. I’ve said this more than once as I’ve reviewed the other games this year, but I do understand puzzles. I get the point. I enjoy puzzles, and I know that allowing anything and everything kind of defeats the point. This is where beta-testing is vital. The puzzles don’t have to be easier, but they can be clued better. The wrong actions – especially obvious ones – should at least tell players why they’re wrong. If this makes the puzzle too easy, then give more thought to improving the puzzle. As I see these kinds of problems this year, I’m learning what not to do in my own future games. As another example, I looked at the potions on the shelf several times. I saw two or three different ones – and sometimes none at all – after repeating that ten or so times. Later, via the walkthrough, I found that one potion can be taken. It’s not required – it solves a puzzle that I solved in another way – but it just made me wonder again about consistency. You can take the potion only when you stumble upon it, which requires pure and repeated randomness.

     At the end, I managed to stick the game in a state where I had done everything required, but the forge wouldn’t respond. I think it’s when I tried to save time by using “all” with the required action. That’s just a guess. Anyway, I had to “undo” a few times, so I could try again. Then, it worked. I had all points. I guess that was the “best” ending, but I’m not too sure what’s to become of either the Sekoniun or the Altari races. Worse, I don’t think it really matters.

     The writing is okay. I didn’t spot any real problems, but I found myself wanting to re-write the text. For instance, “the epigraph on the stone is inscribed deeply into the stone” might flow better as “the epigraph on the stone is deeply inscribed” or perhaps “an epigraph has been deeply carved into the stone.” This may be a matter of taste. When I play console games, I like good graphics. When I play text adventures, I like good text.

     To its credit, The Sword of Malice is appropriately comp-sized. Had I been able to go further without the walkthrough, it might even have hit a full two hours. The game seems to fit right in at 4.0 on my scale. This is due more to my frustration with the puzzles and consistency than to the text and story, but all of it could use some work. Beta-testing is almost as important as writing a good game to begin with, and no good game is great without it.

     For Neon Nirvana, though, the walkthrough was entirely a blessing. Even though this has been the case several times this year, it’s very obvious here. I usually feel guilty in a game, after the first time peeking, because I know I might have solved the puzzle if I hadn’t been so quick to go back to the hints. Not here. No way would I ever have finished this game. Some of the puzzles – or parts of some of the puzzles – were solvable. Some were not. Some require such leaps of imagination that I’d wager only the author himself could complete the game unassisted. None of the puzzles seem hard in the sense that it takes good deductive reasoning, and they’re even logical after the fact. The problem is, certain aspects of objects weren’t described well enough to even provide all the information a person would need to solve the puzzle.

     Consider the next two long paragraphs as containing probable spoilers.

     Take, for instance, the propane cylinder. I had an image of a small tank, probably with a threaded neck and a valve on top. The walkthrough describes it as a torch. Its description said it could be used for welding, but a tank by itself is useless. You’d need to hook it up to some welding equipment, right? It turns out that (apparently) you don’t. Nothing in the description of the tank made me think of it as a torch by itself. To make matters worse, the phrasing to light it up was specific enough that trying to light it “on” the right thing didn’t work, but “with” did. Then, something is to be found under the porch of one of the houses. Again, nothing in the description gave me any indication that the porch even had an “under”. This is where logic fails. Porches can be any shape, any size, small, large, raised, flush with the ground… anything. My mental image of the porch obviously didn’t match the author’s, because it wasn’t clear to me that the porch was raised and open enough to look under. The loose bolt in the rusty shelf seemed to clue me to its removal, but that’s the opposite of the actual solution.

     The author tried hard to implement a lot of extras – including a few things shown in the “amusing” list at the end. This is one of the few games I’ve played this year that implements “XYZZY” (sadly, no “PLUGH”). However, for every cool extra, it cues the player to actions that don’t work at all. For instance, the graffiti says “type HELP for more information.” Well, “help” doesn’t work in the game. I’m in a dance club, but “dance” wasn’t implemented as a verb (of course, the PC wouldn’t dance, but some response was probably in order). The PC can’t attempt to kick down a wooden door. Again, it doesn’t have to work – but it should probably be recognized, given the PC’s profession in law enforcement. Gunfire in the club isn’t noticed at all by the patrons – which is unusual, since the music has been turned off and all eyes are presumably to the stage. The bouncer is described as being at the door, because the author hard-coded that into the room description. At times, the bouncer is actually in the alley instead. I was able to rack up three points over and over, just by pushing the blue button again and again. One puzzle can be solved by shooting a window, but shooting a glass door near the end doesn’t work. I can take Perron’s gun, leave the room, drop it, come back, and somehow he still grabs it off the table where it no longer rests. The button on the radio isn’t implemented. The button on the elevator is implemented, but not mentioned when looking at either the room or the elevator itself. The “key hole” in the elevator can’t be referred to as “hole” or “key hole”, because the author implemented a variation, “keyhole” (one word, not matching the text) instead. Earlier, I couldn’t see around in a dark basement. Later, I found a lamp that the PC is unwilling to take. I don’t need to see around in the basement, as it turns outs, but it seemed like a puzzle to me. Even the endgame is problematic, because it requires a completely unclued action.

     The writing was okay, in general. I found a few typos and a few strange phrasings, but it was good enough to be entertaining. The problem for me was the inconsistency in the tone of the game. It’s a pretty serious matter, arresting a drug lord, especially when people are getting killed. However, the author chose a comedic presentation for some of the narration. Here are three great examples:

>unlock door
This action does not unlock the door. You are sorely disappointed. You can stop playing NEON NIRVANA to go cry now, if you wish.

>enter car
(the sports car)
Carjacking is not the answer here. How horrible it is that you tried such a horrible thing...I'm going to go in a corner and cry now. You just stay here. And - um - do stuff. Yeah.

>get paper
Well, you don't think anyone is going to notice your little purloinment (is that a word?) and so you remove the slip of paper from the pocket. w00t!

     The story jumps from now to later to much later, then twice to past events, back to much later, and finally to much much later. Confusing? It really isn’t. Nothing is clear at first, which I find intriguing in a story. I don’t mean that the PC starts without any clear goals – which is true enough – but that the story takes twists and turns and makes revelations about the setting and the characters along the way. It feels like more than a game.

     The author describes his design philosophy in the “Help & About” text. As I play games with menu-choice trees in place of ask/tell conversations, I like the former more and more. Quintin clears the screen after each choice. I’m not sure why, except that maybe it draws focus away from the prior list of options. I thought maybe this was a trick to keep “undo” from rewinding the entire conversation, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. He also mentions that a game shouldn’t require bits of replay if the player messes up. In a game this size, that’s probably true – but if it’s only sections (not the whole game), it’s fine with me. The alternative is that you’re allowed to skip optional bits, sometimes never even realizing it. Only some peeking at the hints made some of this clearer, and it was a shame I made it to the end without seeing those parts. Sure, the game made sense anyway, but I like to get the full experience. I don’t want to go back through it at this point, though. I kind of wish all the optional bits were channeled through the main story line, but that’s probably a minor complaint.

     Some parts of the story are told from a different perspective. One in particular is jarring enough to slice through the bond of familiarity I was forming with Nigel, the main PC. I had (and still have) mixed feelings about the bit with Zed. It makes the story feel dirtier, grittier, less safe; but at the same time, I’m thankful to have been playing this one at home, and not at work on my lunch break or something. While this bit may be realistic, I think it’s probably trying hard for that shock factor. I don’t like the story any more because of it, but I’ve decided I don’t like it any less, either.

     Even though the story is strong enough to make it feel like more than a game, each obstacle serves as a reminder. The “help” text encourages players to examine everything for clues that might otherwise be missed. That’s good advice in most games. What I found, though, was that scenery was inconsistently implemented. Especially in spots where the story was more important than the puzzles, a response of “you can’t see any such thing” wasn’t uncommon. Even doing my best to take it all in, I missed clues. Well, it’s not so much that I missed clues, but that nothing about the clue was striking enough to make me give it a further thought.

     Peeking back at my transcript, I see where a red glow during the conversation with Janice was clued, but somehow I didn’t catch on. That’s probably my fault, but further prodding after the fact might have been helpful. The bit with the fishing pole was particularly difficult, especially since the game didn’t give enough feedback to help me understand what I was doing wrong. I figured out half the puzzle, but I never realized I was in the wrong spot to make use of it. I’m also not sure I would have figured out that merely distracting the dogs wasn’t enough to get past them. It’s hard to say whether this is my poor puzzle-solving, or whether the game could have guided my actions a little better. I tend to think the clueing was kind of off with the game – in this instance and several others – but I’m not sure. Thankfully, the hint system always helped.

     Beta testing seems to have weeded out most bugs, but a few quirks remain. I was able to unlock doors without a key. Once, this allowed me to enter a place that was clearly meant to be entered a different way. Another time, I unlocked and opened a door into a shop, but was subsequently told that the door leads nowhere. At the beginning, a strange response when referencing something of Simon’s leads me to believe the game thought I was talking about the same thing of my own, until after I realized I was still in bed. The text is largely error-free, although “cheeck” was probably supposed to be “cheek”. In several places, the room exits weren’t obvious from the text – or at least, they didn’t seem obvious, leaving me to randomly try paths in various directions.

     The writing is very good, describing the grungy, enclosed barracks with the same detail given the beautiful, secluded Shepherd’s Rock. Dialogue is well-written too, and each character feels unique and real. However, it’s all about the story. The game itself seems to come midway between 8 and 9 on my scale – not a clear 9.0, primarily because the more gritty, vulgar sections weren’t fun to read. I don’t mind it – I’ll play a game that’s nothing but vulgar and gritty – I just prefer not to. The story, though… and the way it’s presented… well, I was a big fan. I’m skewing a full point higher (for an unofficial 9.5) because of it. Unless judges have the same problems with the puzzle clueing, or unless the two hour limit happens before some of the more important discoveries are made, I think Unforgotten has a great shot at a spot in the top 5. Then again, it could even win. I’m a poor judge of guessing what the voters are going to do.

     It isn’t. Cheiron is interactive non-fiction. More accurately, it’s a detailed diagnostics simulation probably of interest only to medical students. As a student doctor, you’ve been assigned the task of examining and diagnosing four different patients at St. Jude’s Hospital. The trappings of IF are here – an inventory, some familiar verbs, and directional movement between floors and rooms – but there, the similarities falter. I didn’t encounter any implemented scenery, although the brief room descriptions do include some superfluous details to make it a more believable, realistic setting.

     It’s interesting that in my last review, I was just mentioning the shortcomings of my ranking scheme. I definitely need to factor in “fun” as more than just a reason for skewing if I review next year’s competition. In a different context, Cheiron might be incredibly useful. It might even be fun, in the same way a cooking simulator might appeal to a would-be chef, or a real (and accurately complex) flight simulator would appeal to a real pilot. It seems out of place in a competition for interactive fiction, though.

     I don’t know how likely it is that Cheiron is solvable to anyone without formal medical training. I wasn’t even sure what every basic diagnostic method meant, although it made sense after reading some info in the “help” section. The simulation is good about reminding the participant what to do (wash your hands, introduce yourself, ask for consent, begin the diagnostic process), but I don’t know how much further this goes. I managed to keep at it for just over half an hour, and the last part of that was just me trying to trick the parser into giving inappropriate responses to some general commands for my own amusement. My guess is, had I been able to plunder my way through a general diagnosis based on various noun ambiguities (with so many dozens of individual body parts, “arm” and “leg” just won’t cut it), I’d have still been scratching my head at what it all meant. It’s possible that the authors might have guided me toward the right answer, if I could narrow in on the right tests for the right body parts, and if I could ask the patient the right questions.

     I just couldn’t figure it all out. At first, I wanted to, but that feeling gave way to frustration and boredom. This isn’t meant as a criticism of the authors’ work. I’m sure they’ve both become great doctors, and coding such an elaborate system was probably a great achievement. The heartbeat sound effect and the photo illustrations were nice touches. I added a half-point skew to the 1.5 base because of this, and as a nod to a program that would probably be great in a different context.

     Aside from strange errors that refer to patients as “puppets” when trying to “look at” them, the simulation seemed to work well enough. This is an interactive fiction competition, though, and I didn’t enjoy Cheiron as that. Base score plus skew: 2.0.

     As far as I can tell, the walkthrough explains the only winning route through the game. However, if you’re willing to put abbreviations temporarily aside, you can find three more rooms (and when it says “west is a poem” it means that literally). This exploration seems to make the game unwinnable, but it does offer a bit more content.

     PTBAD6andsomesubtitles features... er... not much. It has an other. Excuse me. It has “a other”. And a multitudes. It has a mouse named Blooble, who responds to nothing, and a pair of goggles, which can be worn to no effect. Unrecognized commands advise you to “reexplainicate your self.” I would have based it as at 1.0 on my scale, but I did laugh (in a head-shaking, pitiful kind of way) at the depths to which Xorax will sink to amuse himself. So, I stepped it up to a 1.5, but a negative full-point skew makes this the least compelling game of the competition with a 0.5 score. Keep it up, Slan. Next year, you might owe me points.

     Waldo is an ex-clown, taking his two sons (Timmy and Jimmy) to see the circus on Wheewhistle Island. A mysterious purple mist surrounds the island, and rumor has it all the clowns have vanished. The boys vanish (or leave) too, so you (as Waldo) embark on an adventure to solve the mystery and rescue the boys. I would like to say that comedy ensues, but that’s not the case. I think some parts are meant to be funny – the names used for various people, places, and things – but there is enough exploration and puzzle-solving here that the humor kind of gets lost.

     I made it a good ways without becoming stuck enough to look at the walkthrough. I missed a couple of things I should have noticed – I had been doing a pretty good job of looking at anything I thought might prove important, but I missed a couple. This would have gotten me further. In general, the puzzles aren’t difficult. I especially liked how you get past Tumbo – that one practically solves itself, but it’s still fun. The level of implementation is pretty good, where additional information can be seen by examining most anything you might choose to look at. I don’t know how complete this is, but “x” was pretty responsive. No obvious examples of anything lacking jumps to mind.

     A couple things keep it from being an 8.0 or a 9.0 on my scale. It really loses a base point for some logic problems, and another point for a story that doesn’t quite add up. I’ll get to both of these things separately, in a moment. I can’t complain about the writing in Waldo’s Pie, though. If I found any problems there, each was minor enough that I’ve already forgotten. It reads very well – descriptive enough, and without the kinds of problems that draw my attention away from playing the game.

     The logic problems may not all be accidental. At a minimum, I think the “look in / open” ones are. Twice (and in the same room), something can be found if you open the, uh… “container” where it’s stored. The problem is, “look in” does an implicit open, and then the game reports that nothing is inside. I probably only solved this because I found a couple items via “opening” something, which I couldn’t find with “look in” on a later play. Bad thing is, I only did “look in” on the other container, which automatically opened it, and reported nothing inside. I couldn’t figure out if the game was unwinnable or not, but closing and then opening again triggered the script that makes those items appear inside – items that should have been there all along.

     The game can be made unwinnable, though. I guess whether this works or not depends on the game, and how it’s presented. An item can be shown to an NPC, which the NPC remembers. Later, the state of that item changes in an important way, and the NPC is supposed to be fooled by this. On one hand, the author thought of this, and the NPC won’t fall for it. On the other hand, it now requires a replay (as far as I can tell) from a save made prior to showing the unchanged object to that NPC to begin with. Fortunately, this doesn’t take long.

     The game is pretty good otherwise about ending any time you’ve performed an action that will make it unwinnable, although these sudden endings simply announce that what you did makes the game unwinnable. It borders on annoying, but it works because “undo” (which, oddly enough, sometimes takes you back multiple turns when used at an ending) fixes the mistake. I can think of a couple different ways this might have been handled (not allowing the player to make the mistake to begin with, or perhaps ending the game with a more legitimate reason than just “you needed to do something else, but now you’ve made it impossible”), but it’s not important enough to dwell on. Well, it is, but not for the purposes of this review. Ideally, the player should be able to mess up but still have a way to recover – for instance, trading the wrong item back for the right one – unless it’s important to the story or the specific tone of the game, which isn’t the case here.

     The text made me cringe a little – not because it’s badly written (it isn’t), but because I wasn’t at home while playing and the dialogue gets kind of raunchy in spots. Although it’s not very interactive, the dialogue and characters were surprisingly convincing. I found the story very interesting – engaging and engrossing – and the writing was excellent.

     Dreary Lands blends three different concepts into one game. First is the surreal, where the protagonist wakes up in a tiny, multi-colored chamber where strange things happen. Next, escaping this bit, things become a bit more fantasy-inspired. A sword, a shield, and flaming arrows are to be found in a land with a murky swamp, a sentient tree, and a looming castle. This leads into a confrontation of religious nature, where the bad guy describes his very biblical backstory. What this equals is a very schizophrenic story lacking enough originality to bring it more attention.

     The writing could be good. It isn’t, due almost entirely to its poor spelling rather than any grammatical faults or lack of imagination, but it could be. During some of it, I could see good writing shine through. It just needs some revision. In the “about” text, the author is clear that an update to Dreary Lands isn’t on his agenda. That’s too bad. I have a transcript, and I intend to point out a few problems during this review.

     At the beginning, a couple lines of non-default color were a nice touch. Near the end, this becomes a bulk of dark red on the standard Frotz blue, which wasn’t. Other than that, the presentation is pretty good. The game is also fairly well clued. If not for a couple of pretty important problems (and I’m coming to that), I could have finished without help.

     Inventory management is the first problem. If you find the rucksack early on, this is all handled smoothly. I didn’t, though, until playing through a second time via the walkthrough. This meant I could only hold three items at a time, putting a fourth thing inside the only box I actually kept. It turns out, I probably picked the wrong box to carry around. Not only was it too small, but near the end, it seems important to have one of the other boxes due to its special nature. At that point, though, the game doesn’t let you backtrack. I found this out with a frustrated peek at the walkthrough, which is why I had to start over in the first place. But, yeah – find the rucksack, and that’s not a problem.

     The second thing was a weird glitch in the mud-brick hut. It’s important to take a thing or two from this room, but part of the listing shows a long series of parenthetical “which is currently burning” modifiers to a bunch of (I assume) nameless objects. If it had been possible to see what this was, things would have been easier. The puzzles weren’t difficult, and the clueing was pretty good – but you can’t solve a puzzle if an important part of it is broken.

     The “good” ending is interesting, but again, it’s one of those things you’ve probably seen a hundred times before. It was worth the second play-through to get there, but it’s a shame the game was broken enough to require that. I don’t have much else to say about Dreary Lands, except that it’s probably not as disappointing as the author thinks (see the “about” text). Yeah, it’s not great, but it’s not the worst of the competition by any means.

     I have given the game a base score of 4.0, with a +0.5 skew for simple puzzles that were not badly clued. It needs some work the author probably won’t do, but it’s still playable.

     It’s still difficult to review. The game isn’t much changed from the beta I played, but I can see where the author has improved some of the clueing that had me confused back when I played the beta. I made it through without hints this time, but that may be due as much to remembering how it all works than to the improved clues. I seem to remember, though, that nothing obvious happened after dealing with the first frame. Now, it makes more sense that something has changed after the task is performed. The port is now inaccessible until later in the game – this was confusing before, since it seemed to hint at a host of possibilities that only drew attention away from what was really important. The blank piece of paper is clued a little better now, too.

     A few problems with the puzzles remain, ranging from a minor disambiguation oddity with the sheets of paper, to a new bit in the underwater cage that seemed (if I recall) to have a slightly different solution before. The hole that opens in one of the rooms (not the one filled with blood) can’t be “entered”, yet it’s important to go in that direction (effectively entering it anyway). The deal with the three statues might be a little better now, but it still seems pretty obscure. I brought this up, as did at least one other tester, but ultimately the author decided (I guess) that it was okay. Drop me an email if you solved the room with the statues without hints. I still don’t think it’s possible.

     The text is still overly sentimental. It’s meant to be a surreal but touching story, but it’s written in a way that makes the PC sound pitiful and hopeless. To fully enjoy it, I think a player would have to be in that frame of mind… rejected, full of despair, pining away for a girl that might not even be worth the attention. Yeah, years ago, that was definitely me. Now, though, it’s harder to identify with, and the too-forced prose (written in first person, I should add) just left me disconnected from the protagonist. I hope this wasn’t inspired by a real situation in the author’s life. If so, I might be insulting the author’s honesty and open emotional display, which isn’t my intent. It feels like the kind of trippy, emotional outpouring that might come from a break-up, but only the author knows for sure.

     Tim Lane entered the competition last year. That’s not his real name, so I won’t point to last year’s entry in case he intends to remain anonymous. I will say that On Optimism is an improvement over his previous entry. I liked the option at the end to go back to the fork in the road, and this game seems more thought out overall. I think, though, that On Optimism is meant to be so deeply personal that it’s hard to share in the protagonist’s emotional invasion of his ex girlfriend’s private thoughts and memories.

     It’s a good game, even though I didn’t find it effective in an emotional way. The built-in hints should be enough to get anyone unstuck at the harder parts. Even so, the strained writing and some iffy puzzles keep it from going higher than 5.0 on my scale.

     I wasn’t sure what score I’d assign to Chancellor. It isn’t easy to be objective about an updated version of a game I’ve already played. It stood up very well to the repeat play-through, which shows me how well-written and entertaining this game really is. I even noticed bits of consistency that escaped me the first time – I remember seeing it, but I don’t think it hit me at the time. For instance, pay attention to the bit at the beginning where the PC slides down into the cave (something happens with the torch), and then look at the mirror later, in the bathroom.

     The detail put into this game is amazing. A variety of sensory descriptions are used. Almost everything obvious is implemented, and this includes more than just being able to look at what’s around. Unnecessary actions such as jumping at the balcony or moving the body at the shore are anticipated and responsive. Even though figuring out what to do can sometimes be a challenge, the game is very good about understanding variations in commands – nouns and verbs that seem to require no guessing whatsoever.

     I would hate to give away what’s going on in the game (although I’m sure other reviewers won’t hold back), but suffice it to say it’s a very interesting plot. There are two… parts, I guess. The overlap can sometimes be subtle and even hidden enough to miss (examine your suit in the first bit, and then go inside room 510 in the next – be sure to look at the door first). It’s sometimes more obvious as the lines begin to blur (what father writes on the note; what’s contained in the package; the condition of Stacey’s clothes, found later in the game; the common fear of the monster and the janitor). I’ve probably said too much already. It’s interesting how (especially in the later bits) one part just fades away into the next, as if by sleight of hand.

     It’s one of those games, though, where even a second play-through leaves questions unanswered. How much detail did I miss? What’s to be believed, if anything? I hope this gets some discussion after the competition (with appropriate spoiler notices, of course). I’m interested in finding out what it all meant to other people, and so far the author hasn’t explained it. Maybe it’s open for interpretation, but I gather that something is going on, and it can be figured out. The ending alludes to the ultimate completion of a task – one that seems important to her father – and that’s exactly what the PC set out to do at the beginning.