[Comp98] More praise for the good stuff (2/2)
Michael Straight
I'm not bothering to post reviews of every single game, because I don't
have much to add by way of criticism to what's been posted already, but I
do have some words of appreciation for things I haven't seen mentioned
yet.
This post completely spoils "Muse." Please don't read it unless you've
played the game, it's really worthwhile.
The best thing about "Muse" is that, not only does it have multiple
story-lines with different endings, but (I will argue) it really is most
satisfying if you play through all of the endings. Knowledge gained from
"previous lives" is actually part of the story rather than some kind of
cheating or weakness in the puzzle design.
At first I was annoyed because preventing the father's suicide almost
seems to require prior knowledge of what's happening. But then I realized
that you're not supposed to save the father the first time you play
through. The father's death leads to the only path where Rev. Dawson can
accomplish what initially seems to be the goal of marrying the girl, an
ending which proves to be realistically unsatisfactory.
Then you get the chance to go back and find out what would have happened
if Rev. Dawson saved the girl's father, and what good might he do if he
had realized pursuing this girl wasn't a good idea. The "optimal" ending
is much more satisfying in light of the other ending. This is an
excellent use of the strengths of IF as a medium to tell a story.
Note that the ending where Rev. Dawson just gets on the boat at the very
beginning is worth reading too.
The quotation of the Prayer of St. Francis suggests a fairly mature
theological perspective on Rev. Dawson's part as he reflects on the whole
incident, and I found it very moving in the context it appeared.
I thought the first-person past-tense worked very well. Paul O'Brian's
review of "Muse" argues in favor of it far better than I can, so I'll
refer you to him on that point, except to add that I thought the player's
present tense commands don't clash with the game's past tense responses
because in "Muse" there is the sense that the player is directing the
narrative rather than steering the protagonist in real time. You're not
telling Rev. Dawson where to go next but telling the narrator where the
story should go next.
Finally, I really appreciate when authors put together a nice
"frontispiece" (as Graham called it in "The Tempest"), and the one in
"Muse" is (as far as my experience goes) surpassed only by those of Mr.
Nelson himself[1]. In addition to the usual credits, there are
Invisiclue-style hints (complete with humorous red herrings that kept me
guessing about where the story was going even after I'd peeked at the
hints), an Infocom-style sample transcript, and a nice little bit of
background information about the character.
This kind of thing really helps get me into the mood of the game and, as
done in Muse, is almost as nice as getting traditional Infocom packaging
and goodies. The little .JPG file was also nice (it's too bad it couldn't
be rigged to pop up at the appropriate moment in the game, but then
Infocom package illustrations didn't do that either).
[1] Ok, so Enlightenment's "goodies" were nice too, but having them all
included in the same .z5 file (rather than needing to fire up a web
browser to look at them) gives "Muse" the edge in my book.
Neil Brown
Michael Straight <URL:mailto:stra...@email.unc.edu> wrote:
> At first I was annoyed because preventing the father's suicide almost
> seems to require prior knowledge of what's happening. But then I realized
> that you're not supposed to save the father the first time you play
> through. The father's death leads to the only path where Rev. Dawson can
> accomplish what initially seems to be the goal of marrying the girl, an
> ending which proves to be realistically unsatisfactory.
Actually, I played it through only once and saved the father on my
first go. I seem to recall that the timing was tight, but I just
about did it. I didn't realise that there were multiple plotlines
(apart from the two different endings)... must go back and play it
again...
--
Neil Brown
ne...@highmount.demon.co.uk
http://www.highmount.demon.co.uk