QF's IFComp'06 Review: Requiem
quic...@quickfur.ath.cx
breakdown scheme I use.]
Requiem:
When I first started this game, I happened to be curious about what the
author put in the ABOUT command, and ... whoa! So much text telling the
author's life story. This had better be good.
Turns out to be pretty good. Good room descriptions, witty
characterizations, if a bit stereotypical of the genre (detective meets
femme fatale). You quickly find out that this is a choose-your-fate
story. Not exactly my style, but in this case it worked OK. The story
starts out seeming a bit too much like a rehash of the
woman-hires-detective story, but later on turns into something very
surreal. Unfortunately, I never found an ending that satisfactorily
resolves all the questions raised. (From another review, it seems that
I've completely missed the ending that most fully resolves the story.
That's a risk you play when you write a game of this sort.)
The CHEAT command would be much less annoying if it didn't spew the
entire walkthrough at you every single time...
There were some strange problems with quote marks, ellipses, and other
punctuation... Beware the Microsoft-only quotes. Unicode is your
friend.
OVERALL: 6. Story is weird but hooks you. Plot is on-tracks except for a
few major branches. Not bad, but not outstanding either. A bit too
surreal. Relies too much on the overused detective-meets-femme-fatale
cliche. (This was written before I read said review.)
Writing: 7 Not bad, but not breathtaking either.
Setting: 6 The setting could've been developed more. A bit too
surreal.
Story: 6.5 Overuses detective-meets-femme-fatale cliche.
Puzzles: 5 The kitchen puzzle is a bit guess-the-verb. The final
puzzle essentially requires replay to figure out.
Technical: 7 No major glitches, but has formatting problems.
Brownie: 0 The Brownies decline to comment on this one.
QF
--
People tell me I'm stubborn, but I refuse to accept it!