Just testing something...

 

Can you identify this hinge?

 

Dr Ego and the egg of Man-Toomba

"Dr Ego and the egg of Man-Toomba" by Special Agent. Based on the irregularly capitalized title and pseudonymous author, I wasn't expecting much. Yet even in the opening scene my expectations were improved. The PC is an explorer searching the jungles of Papua New Guinea for the fabled MacGuffin "Egg of Man-Toomba". The player can skip the first scene (a trip up-river) by typing "wait". Yet I found so much detail implemented in the tiny canoe and the player's possessions that the boat ride was over before I had run out of things to do. The game calls to mind the characters and setting of "Indiana Jones". Indeed, the final puzzle (replacing a treasure with another of the same weight) is directly borrowed from the opening scene of the first film.

The world modelling is deep enough that a player can immerse themselves in examining details, even while they may be temporarily stalled on a puzzle. I was able to solve all the puzzles without hints (except for one, where I overlooked an obvious side exit) and finished the game in just under two hours. I reached a "win" state with only six of nine points, suggesting there may be a few optional puzzles I missed.

If there is one point where this above average entry might elevate itself to the top of the competition, it would be with better characterization of the PC. I tried to play as a callous European colonialist but wasn't getting enough feedback to suggest this was the characterization intended. Who, then, is this PC? A sensitive ethnobotanist? An academic wonk? An agent of greedy foreign collectors? But this is a minor critique.

My favorite puzzle involved trading goods for services with a native wood carver.

This game has been entered in the 26th annual interactive fiction competition.  More interactive fiction can be found at the interactive fiction database. 

Lovely Assistant

“Lovely Assistant” by Bitter Karella is parser driven interactive fiction. Karella has written many past IF comp games set in Tim Burton like settings of dark whimsy. This game shares that familiar style. The PC is a magician’s assistant (Trixie) whose magician (Mugwort) has been kidnapped by a devious rival. Trixie explores Mugwort’s mansion, collecting various magical props and using them to open up new locations for exploration. The map is fairly sprawling, about twenty five rooms arranged in a highly branched pattern making it easy to overlook exits.

The writing and puzzle design are as delightful as past works by this author, but the implementation and parser are still rough around the edges. There is wine that can’t be drunk and a clown that isn’t parsed with the word “clown”. There is a good in-game hint mechanism, but the fussy parser renders some puzzles frustrating even when the player knows what to do. Many of the author’s past works have been written in Quest, so I imagine that the switch to Inform has come with a learning curve. This will be an excellent game after additional testing.

This game has been entered in the 26th annual interactive fiction competition.  More interactive fiction can be found at the interactive fiction database. 

You Couldn't Have Done That

"You Couldn't Have Done That" by Ann Hugo is a short (fifteen minute) Twine story which puts the player into the shoes of teenager on the autism spectrum, who has just begun her first day on the job at a shopping mall clothing store where she doesn't know anyone. She is anxious. Who wouldn't be on their first day? But her spectrum diagnosis adds another layer to that anxiety. (limited spoilers below the cut break)

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Happyland

 “Happyland” by Rob Fitzel.  This classic detective yarn takes place on the sprawling grounds of an amusement resort. The map is wide but the written description of individual locations is not very deep, which is probably a good thing in terms of minimizing the number of red herrings. It is already a challenging and engaging parser game. After two hours of play I was able to make an arrest and get a conviction, but I was not able to tie up all the loose ends and will probably need to play for at least another hour before getting the “best ending.” I have not been tempted to use the walk through or hints. I really want to solve this on my own.

The style of play is familiar. Interview the suspects, search for fingerprints, analyze chemicals, show evidence to others and catch them in their lies. These are the same basic mechanics as the old Infocom mysteries, although the scope of this game and the number of NPCs is several times larger than those classics. This game also comes with a full color map and some other simple in-game graphics.  There were a few places I wished the parser had understood more synonyms. I especially would have appreciated a shorthand for typing the names of the multitudinous fingerprint reports. But overall the parser was bug-free and did not detract from my desire to solve the mystery.

This game has been entered in the 26th annual interactive fiction competition.  More interactive fiction can be found at the interactive fiction database.

Captain Graybeard's Plunder

 “Captain Graybeard’s Plunder” is a web based point and click game by Julian Mortimer Smith. Much of the pirate fiction I’ve seen in past IF has been written as light puzzlers; Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder (Ryan Veeder, 2013), Pirateship (Robin Johnson, 2019), even going way back to “Plundered Hearts” (Amy Briggs, 1987).  For that matter, many of the recent pirate films have been written light “The Pirates! Band of Misfits.” or the unending “Pirates of the Carribean” franchise. Of course there have also been some rather more violent and dramatic treatments of modern piracy off the coast of Africa. “Captain Graybeard’s Plunder” takes neither of these approaches.

That I went into “Captain Graybeard’s Plunder” hoping for comedy was a mistake. My first play-through I scrolled through more quickly than the author’s efforts deserved, just wanting to see the ending.  Once I understood what it was about, I went back and played a second time, reading more carefully. “Graybeard’s Plunder” draws on a tradition of sea faring stories much older than “Pirates of the Carribean”. Indeed, the reader is invited to create their own sea story by cobbling together passages from 19^th century literature. The game is an homage to authors who knew the sea and its dangers: H.Melville, RL.Stevenson, J.Verne and others. While doing this, the player comes to know the character of Graybeard, an aging pirate who once experienced defeat at sea and now has only his books. 

The graphic design in the game is well done. A variety of font choices appear for deliberate purpose in the story telling. This game works well as a piece of IF conceptual art.

This game has been entered in the 26th annual interactive fiction competition.  More interactive fiction can be found at the interactive fiction database.

The Pinecone

“The Pinecone” by Joseph Pentangelo. A web based interactive fiction. I picked this one from the top of a randomized list, and because the blurb professes it to be quick play.

An intriguing short story with a twist at the end. I won’t give it away. The story is short enough to finish in less than fifteen minutes, as advertised. Well written but not very interactive. Advance the story with a series of single option clicks. There are a few choice points in the middle leading to four possible endings (all with the similar twist). I found three of the endings, and still kept my play under fifteen minutes. Best feature: I love goats.

This game has been entered in the 26th annual interactive fiction competition.  More interactive fiction can be found at the interactive fiction database.

Magpie Takes the Train

I played “Magpie Takes the Train”, thinking all the way through that it had been written by JJ Guest, who wrote the earlier “Alias: the Magpie”, winner of the 2018 IF competition. Only at the end, when I began to write up my notes, did I learn this was actually an authorized sequel written by Mathbrush, another highly accomplished IF personality. Maybe I should learn to read blurbs more carefully. But alas, the reason I’ve taken to playing IF is that I’m not an attentive reader; the interactive format forces me to engage more actively with what I’m seeing on the page.

“Magpie Takes the Train” shares several features in common with its inspiration: an entertaining detective farce involving frequent costume changes; dialogue with an amusing cast of upstairs-downstairs society figures (but curiously set in the states). Both games have a well implemented full parser interface.

This game differs from “Alias” in its scope. Whereas Alias was a full length game, with multiple rooms and individual scenes, “Train” is an elaborate one-room puzzle box. The goal, as indicated in the blurb, is to steal a coveted gemstone from the owner’s private train car. There is a time limit on completion, but a generous one and it may be possible to win the game in one play through. I gave myself the luxury of several restarts to experience the full space of the game. Each costume endows the player with a different set of powers and dialogue outcomes. Some of the actions are sequence and time dependent. It took me a little more than an hour to finish, checking the hints only once for a puzzle related to the Viscount. Turned out I just needed to examine the Viscount more carefully.

A delightful addition to the Magpie canon.

This game has been entered in the 26th annual interactive fiction competition.  More interactive fiction can be found at the interactive fiction database.

Sheep Crossing

"Sheep Crossing” by Andrew Geng.  Lists some testing credits, and responds uniquely to a number of my favorite IF gaming verbs. But the prose is a bit light, and I fear that this may just be a classic fox, chicken and grain problem which I learned when I was seven.  I’m carrying nothing. But when I try to feed a cabbage to the sheep, the cabbage suddenly appears in my inventory.

Restart. It appears that the cabbage, sheep and bear are all within my reach, even though they aren’t mentioned in the scene description. I wonder what else is in the scene? The best part of the game is discovering all the amusing ways to fail. Finally I check the walk through. Sure enough, there was something else unmentioned in the description which I needed to get the first passenger across the river. The rest of the problem I solved when I was seven, so I do what I need to and finish the game.

This game has been entered in the 26th annual interactive fiction competition.  More interactive fiction can be found at the interactive fiction database.

Stuff of Legend

 “Stuff of Legend” by Lance Campbell. This Glulx game came up at the top of a randomized list.  The blurb was strong enough to convice me to play. Strong opening message. Encouraging  “about” message. This first time author has been well tested by experienced writers and players. As it says in the blurb, the PC is an unemployed village idiot, working to become a knight.

The game is fun. Light comedy is a staple of interactive fiction, and is well suited for the form. The player tries various absurd things, and the game responds appropriately. In a few cases I was able to solve puzzles before even realizing they were puzzles. Several other NPC characters and farm animals with whom the PC can interact help bring the farm setting to life. The foolish PC causes a whirlwind of chaos. To become a knight, he must undo all that. I finished in about an hour, checking hints only once on a puzzle involving nest fabrication.

Looking forward to this author’s future work.

This game has been entered in the 26th annual interactive fiction competition.  More interactive fiction can be found at the interactive fiction database.

Let's Explore Geography! Canadian Commodities Trader Simulation Exercise

"Let's Explore Geography! Canadian Commodities Trader Simulation."  is an entry in the 2018 interactive fiction competition, written by Carter Sande, using an unusual gaming platform: Desmos.

The game description presents this as educational software. The title was so campy that I wasn't sure if I was preparing to play an actual educational game, or a parody. Even when I arrived at the title page, telling me to log in with a Desmos student code, I still wasn't sure.

I only became familiar with Desmos recently myself. It is becoming a popular online graphing platform for secondary school students, and also features a number of really well developed interactive activities which can be assigned by teachers. If you are a teacher, I recommend the platform. It will allow you to print out a report of the participation and competency of each student in class after an assigned activity.

Regarding this particular Desmos gamelet, "Canadian Commodities Trader Simulation" this thing is the real deal. You drive across Canada in your giant truck, buying various tradegoods or raw materials, and hoping them to sell them at a profit somewhere further down the road. The scale of this simulation is impressive. You can drive across Canada, visiting literally dozens of cities, learning about the cultural attractions in each place and buying geographically appropriate commodites. I have family in Canada (for real) and have visited almost half the provinces, so this part of the simulation was sort of fun for me.

However, as an educational tool, I'm not sure it will have much potential. I was shocked when the game allowed me to become stranded in Manitoba, my truck and cargo stolen from me in the middle of the night. Does that really happen in Canada? I was even more startled to realize that the game can be ended on the first move, simply by "going home". That will  be a game ender for many players.

The radio button interface in Desmos is a little clunky for this purpose. I doubt it will become the if comp platform of the future. On the other hand, this was the first game of the competition that drew my attention enough to write a review, and I'm glad I tried it.

not quite long enough for reviews

Following is a partial list of games I opened from the 2017 interactive fiction competition, but did not play long enough to justify a full review.

"a partial list of things for which i am grateful" is a Twine game by Devon Guinn. A sort of interactive art. Player clicks on individual letters in a word to bring up something else (starting with the same letter) for which the author is grateful. Contains hundreds of different words. A pleasant reading, but could only hold my interest for so long. Guinn also wrote "Bookmoss" another competition entry I reviewed earlier.

"The Fifth Sunday" by Tom Broccoli is one of several competition entries submitted by Chinese authors this year. The story (a murder mystery) seems to have some potential. But to advance the story requires multiple successive clicks through short lines of static text. Infuriating. The translation is imperfect, resulting in some curious choices of grammar and vocabulary.

"What Once Was" by Luke Jones is a traditional parser game set on a sprawling but weakly described university campus. Put on your pun-protective eye wear before attempting this. I love a good time-travel yarn (and the puns are amusing) but didn't have the patience for a parser game with such shallow implementation. I might come back to it though.

"Alice Aforethought" (review)

"Alice Aforethought" is a hyper-text type game written by Hanon Ondricek for the 2017 Interactive Fiction Competition.

"Absence of Law" (review)

"Absence of Law" is a parser game written by Brian Rushton for the 2017 Interactive Fiction competition. I enjoyed Rushton's previous competition entries "Color the Truth" and "Ether".
I waited until late in the competition to play "Absence" because I suspected it would be a good one and I wanted to end the 2017 season with a good experience. I was not disappointed.

Mild spoilers may follow

"Wizard Sniffer" (review)

"Wizard Sniffer" is a parser game written in Inform by Buster Hudson for the 2017 Interactive Fiction Competition. This game was not on my initial "must play" list. The cover art and title didn't seem that interesting..another genre fantasy in a field of entries which already seems overfull with castle and cave adventures. But by mid-competion I'd read enough positive buzz about the "Wizard Sniffer" to suppose it was worth my time. And wow, I'm glad I played.

"Q in P" (review)

"Queer in Public" is an essay written in Twine by Naomi Norbez for the 2017 interactive fiction competition. I feel kind of bad reviewing an entry where the author's motive is so misaligned with this judge's criteria. The author has submitted a heartfelt but conventionally written essay trying to reconcile the queer experience with the Christian experience. I'm a secular humanist who came here to read interactive fiction. I'll lead with my criticisms and follow with my supportive comments on the author's goals.

"The skinny one" (review)

"The skinny one" is a Twine game written by Annie Zinnen for the 2017 interactive fiction competition. According to the author's notes this game was written for a University funded summer research project. Together with "Bookmoss" that makes at least two competition authors who received university grants to write interactive fiction. Interesting development.

"The skinny one" caught my attention early in the competition. Prior to a mid-life career change I worked in university food service as a management dietitian. I did not provide direct treatment to students with eating disorders but I worked closely with others who did. It can be an emotionally wrenching subject and this was not the first game I wanted to play.

The "about" section describes the author's goals.

"8 Shoes on the Shelves" and "Bolbert" (reviews)

"8 Shoes on the Shelves" by Marc Duane and "Bolbert" by Chad Rocketman are both parser games written for the 2017 Interactive Fiction Competition.

First, "8 Shoes":

"Bookmoss" (review)

"Bookmoss" is a hypertext style interactive fiction written by Devon Guinn for the 2017 interactive fiction competition.

The first thing which caught my attention were the "instructions" linked to the title page. I have never seen instructions with a hypertext game before. These provided an interactive introduction to beginning players. These gave me some sense that the author cared about me, the player. That sense of confidence in author carried me through the first two chapters, but waned as I began to fear this was just a mundane account of a father-daughter trip to the Harvard library. Fortunately by the third chapter some elements of magical realism are introduced. By the fifth or sixth chapter there is even a compelling goal. But it was a little slow to start.

I noticed three distinct writing styles: detailed descriptions of place, scripted dialogue, and excerpts from classic books. I'll describe these one at a time.