[Reviews] DGlasser speaks
David Glasser
didn't use that word?). It was a year of VirtuaTech-inspired one-room
games. It was a year of nearly unguessed pseudonyms. It was a year of
games which ruled. It was a good year.
I didn't play all the games. I wish I did. But I didn't. I also
didn't review them all, due to time. I do have lengthy reviews of some,
though.
Here is my summary of the games, in the style of raif Luminary
FemaleDeer:
Wow (dessert and whipped cream, in order of enjoyment): Arrival,
Photopia, Muse (I betatested it), Little Blue Men, The Plant.
Great (dessert, but no whipped cream, in no particular order): Acid
Whiplash/Rybread Celsius Can't Find a Dictionary, The Ritual of
Purification, Enlightenment, The City.
Something good (frothy, like whipped cream without the dessert):
Informatory (I betad it), Trapped in a One-Room Dilly, Where Evil
Dwells.
Not my cup of dessert: HRS, Fifteen (I betad it), Cattus Atrox. (There
was *something* good in Cattus and Fifteen, but not quite enough for
whipped cream.)
And now, to the reviews.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Photopia: 9
not by Opal O'Donnell
I must say that the first few paragraphs made me think, "Oh, bud, we're
like in for, like, F@!#ing LIVING game about gettin' it on wit' p00r
riting!"
But, luckily, I wasn't.
(By the way, here are my opinions about the color thingy. I agree with
the author that the full point of the game would have been lost without
the color, and that at the least the color names were required. I
played it on Zip Infinity for the Mac (which, unlike MaxZip, which I use
normally, supports colors). I noticed that restoring and undoing didn't
make the colors what they should be; I'll give non-Opal the benefit of
the doubt and assume that this was my interpreter's fault. The colors
sometimes made reading annoying, but I got used to it. I found the
black background to be great, though the colored foreground wasn't as
effective to me. And my colorblindness didn't affect it. Yay.)
As I was saying, I was expecting a game about gettin' it on. And then I
saw this adventure about a girl on Mars. And then this girl nearly
drowns. And some guy almost dies. And then this Wendy girl can fly.
And then it starts to make sense. (OK, it probably made sense to other
people beforehand, but quickness was never my best attribute.)
By the end of the game, I'm left with two feelings: "Wow" and sadness
that this wonderful girl died. Not to mention hate for those guys at
the beginning that I thought I was going to be identifying with, and a
bit of confusion as to exactly what was going on with the dreams and the
Queen.
Or was it all a dream that happened to a newborn? We'll never know.
(That is, assuming that my interpreter didn't just end this game early.)
Plot: Great. It is detailed, but understandable (though some replay is
required to fully figure out what is going on). It is moving, too. I
felt quite sad about Alley's fate. (The most confusing part was when I
thought that the car crash had Wendy in the back and it somehow made her
grow wings. Thankfully, that was not the case.) There is something
about this plot that makes it very suited for IF.
Puzzles: Simple, but I'm not smart enough for hard ones anyway. The maze
was great.
Writing: Again, great. I especially liked how non-Opal made the various
parts clearly different. One thing I especially liked was the various
("bla bla" means foobar) comments. I thought at first that it was one
of those smart-aleck author things, but eventually figured out what it
was. Good stuff.
Characters: I felt strongly about all the characters, even small ones
like Jon. The limiting of conversation to a list was good, as it made
me understand the characters better (PULL THE FUCK OVER, for example).
Technical: I did find one case where I got a "[BUG]" message. (This is
the bug that non-Opal posted about.) And not all scenery objects
existed to be looked at. However, whenever an object *did* exist, it
handled all reasonable actions well. Lacked VILE 0 ERRORS FROM HELL!
Yay!
All in all, very good.
Award: Best Game for Improving One's Vocabulary
Quotes: "Awesome," Alley says. "Where does the gallium come from?"
Funny how it always comes back to pants.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Acid Whiplash/Rybread Celsius Can't Find a Dictionary: 7
by Anonymous/Rybread Celsius and Cody Sandifer
Um.
Yeah.
The programming and writing (mechanics, that is) sucked.
I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that that was on purpose.
It was interesting.
There were puzzles.
Play it yourself.
Cody writes Inform?
Oh, Cody! I do not know whether I shall be able to say "any game by
Cody Sandifer" when somebody asks for good IF suggestions anymore.
There was some deeper meaning, though, and I liked it.
Yeah.
Plot: Exists.
Puzzles: Exist (I think).
Writing: Interesting. Horrible mechanics.
Characters: Don't exist, really. Well, except Rybread and Cody.
Technical: Terrible. (Though probably on purpose.) And it included VILE
0 ERRORS FROM HELL!
Muppets: Mousily mentioned.
All in all, very odd.
Award: Best Game for Decreasing One's Vocabulary
Quotes:
>x barrels
Try as you might, you can't find a single barrel. Just powder kegs.
>x kegs
Try as you might, you can't find a single barrel. Just barrels.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Where Evil Dwells: 5
by Paul Johnson & Steve Owens
This could have been an excellent horror game. This could have been an
excellent horror spoof. Too bad the authors couldn't seem to decide
which one they were aiming for.
There were many bugs and technical annoyances (more than Acid, even!).
Writing contained quite a few mechanics errors. And the mood kept being
broken by random pieces of humor in the middle of pure terror.
Plot: The plot left many questions. Was the Bad Guy (who seemed to
disappear, unless he was the Cult Leader) planning this Evil the whole
time, or only once he saw the book? Where is Elizabeth? If she returned
home, that makes no sense. If not, you'd think this detective would do
something for this little girl, like find her a place to stay. What was
the Black Thingy? I mean, it wasn't the gibbering horror, because that
wasn't there until the end. But what in the world was it, then?
Puzzles: Decent. They don't accept enough synonyms, and are a bit
buggy, but they tend to work. The box opening puzzle was especially
nice. The imp puzzle was not very good; I personally *never* drop items
unless somebody is holding a gun up to my head and yelling "DROP THE
BOTTLE!" (in fact, an adventure I wrote in BASIC a while back didn't
even have a DROP command, and it was based on somebody else's game that
did).
Writing: Poor mechanics, mixed between horror and comedy without a
reason.
Characters: The professor is not implemented too well, and it isn't
clear why he's crazy. With the exception of the cultists and the Black
Thingy, there aren't any other characters.
Technical: Many small annoying bugs. Not enough synonyms. Had some
VILE 0 ERRORS FROM HELL!
Muppets: Beerily steined.
All in all, very mixed.
Award: Worst Attempt at Mixing Genres
Quotes: Peering behind the rack, you can make out a large mass of
blackness that seems to writhe about of its own accord. You catch the
glint of a red-rimmed pair of eyes, perhaps the size of dimes, and a
high-pitched voice say in a hushed yell, "It's the Feds! Get under
cover!"
---------------------------------------------------------------
The Plant: 8
by Michael J. Roberts
Yay! MJR has written another game! Perdition's Flames has always been
one of my favorite pieces of IF, and so I greatly looked forward to The
Plant.
Playing it was a mixed experience, but in general a good one.
Plot: There certainly was a plot. It was quite complex, even. However,
I never fully understood it until the end, and Ending Exposition Man was
very annoying and artificial.
The one thing that confused me was this: are we in Blottnya? I mean,
there's a Blottnyan car, a Blottnyan textbook, and a Blottnyan dog.
However, Ending Exposition Man makes it quite clear that we are in the
USA.
Puzzles: Felt like your standard MJR puzzles. Though many of them
required head-scratching, they all made sense once you figured it out
(or went to the walkthrough). Nice and varied: a few mechanical
puzzles, a few "use random object" puzzles, a character puzzle or two.
Writing: Great. No mechanical errors whatsoever. It gave me the
feeling of "oh gosh and golly we're climbing towers on hoses!" I liked
it.
Characters: This was rather poor. The dog was great, certainly.
However, your boss, who is (somewhat annoyingly) with you for the entire
game, is not particularly fleshed out. The only other interactable
characters that I can think of are the cardboard foreman and Ending
Exposition Man, who basically walks up to you and tells you his life
story. Sure.
Technical: You don't really expect the author of the language to make
technical errors, and he didn't. The use of HTML features worked very
well. There were some buggy things (errors of types 1001 and 1002);
however, they only showed up on the alpha Mac HTML-TADS and not on
MaxTADS, so I'll blame it on Iain.
All in all, flawed but fun.
Award: Best Game for Improving One's Conspiracy
Quotes: "We have for many years known that the government is incapable
of putting this technology to proper use, and that we must take control
of it for the good of mankind. Unfortunately, even our resources have
proven insufficient to correct this problem, at least until now. When
we learned that the crash artifacts were to be relocated to a new
facility, we saw our chance to intervene, taking what is rightfully and
morally ours."
---------------------------------------------------------------
The City: 6
by Sam Barlow
I enjoyed this game. It was fun, though confusing.
It was short, yes. But that's not neccessarily bad. It had a confusing
plot (I'm not sure if I understand it now), yes. But the part I
understood was interesting.
Most notably, it went against several traditions in IF. No location
names, and no statusline, but these were a choice of style. No undo,
save, or restore, but I would argue that one of the puzzles would have
been *more* difficult had undo been allowed. (It also said no
brief/verbose, but those commands worked. Odd.)
Plot: The plot wasn't very clear: something with an asylum, maybe, and
definitely some Big Brother. It was interesting, though.
Puzzles: The main puzzle was really good. I think that the decision not
to allow 'undo' was good; I wouldn't have solved that puzzle if I had
kept going back. After that, there aren't really any other puzzles.
Writing: OK. Though it does show some atmosphere, it is riddled with
spelling and grammar errors. The frequent underlining was accidently
extended to punctuation and whitespace.
Characters: There are some characters, but I didn't really get the sense
of who they were. There is barely any interaction. Maybe this is on
purpose. Maybe not.
Technical: Had VILE 0 ERRORS FROM HELL. The syntax for pulling the cord
was weird. However, the video was very well done.
All in all, very druggy.
Award: Best Game for Sleeping
Quotes: "Only one thing left to do: Vote."
---------------------------------------------------------------
Yay competition!
--
David Glasser gla...@NOSPAMuscom.com http://onramp.uscom.com/~glasser
DGlasser @ ifMUD : fovea.retina.net 4000 (webpage fovea.retina.net:4001)
Sadie Hawkins, official band of David Glasser: http://sadie.retina.net
"We take our icons very seriously in this class."
ne...@norwich.edu
gla...@DELETEuscom.com (David Glasser) wrote:
> It was a year of "Light". It was a year of Wow (how many reviewers
> didn't use that word?). It was a year of VirtuaTech-inspired one-room
> games. It was a year of nearly unguessed pseudonyms. It was a year of
> games which ruled. It was a good year.
By the way David, I enjoyed your comments very much, especially the
quotes.
> Lacked VILE 0 ERRORS FROM HELL!
> Yay!
If I patch a version of Frotz or Jzip for DOS to pick up these errors,
I'm gonna use "VILE 0 ERROR FROM HELL" as the error message.
Hee hee.
--
Neil Cerutti
ne...@norwich.edu
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Liza Daly
> In article <1dind6f.1l6...@usol-209-186-16-207.uscom.com>,
> gla...@DELETEuscom.com (David Glasser) wrote:
>> Lacked VILE 0 ERRORS FROM HELL!
>> Yay!
> If I patch a version of Frotz or Jzip for DOS to pick up these errors...
Please don't. Or make it an option the user needs to turn on.
Am I the only one who thinks that an interpreter should, by default,
show as few run-time errors as possible?
As an author, I want a strict interpreter to let me know when
I've screwed up.
As a player, I don't care what's going on behind the scenes as long
as it doesn't affect the game. And VILE 0 ERRORS FROM HELL don't
generally affect gameplay, as far as I've seen.
> I'm gonna use "VILE 0 ERROR FROM HELL" as the error message.
This was funny.
--Liza
--
Follow the dancing monkey head to ifMUD:
http://fovea.retina.net:4001/
ne...@norwich.edu
Liza Daly <Li...@galileo.cris.com> wrote:
> ne...@norwich.edu wrote:
> > In article <1dind6f.1l6...@usol-209-186-16-207.uscom.com>,
> > gla...@DELETEuscom.com (David Glasser) wrote:
>
> >> Yay!
>
>
> Please don't. Or make it an option the user needs to turn on.
I only meant to make one for my own personal beta-testing enjoyment, not
for general release, since I'm not involved with any of the interpreters
except as a user.
My understanding is that there isn't an interpreter availlable for DOS or
Windows which will detect these errors, which is a problem if folks are
going to deduct points for experiencing them. The only option seems to be
to apply a Zarfpatch to some source code, and compile it yourself.
Perhaps I am wrong about this.
> Am I the only one who thinks that an interpreter should, by default,
> show as few run-time errors as possible?
I agree. I'm not sure if this error is as harmless as it seems though.
Andrew Plotkin
> In article <72usuv$3...@journal.concentric.net>,
> Liza Daly <Li...@galileo.cris.com> wrote:
> > ne...@norwich.edu wrote:
> > > In article <1dind6f.1l6...@usol-209-186-16-207.uscom.com>,
> > > gla...@DELETEuscom.com (David Glasser) wrote:
> >
> > >> Yay!
> >
> >
> > Please don't. Or make it an option the user needs to turn on.
This is an icky and weird point. Right now, some authors develop with an
interpreter that doesn't check for these errors. It is absolutely certain
(already demonstrated) that if somebody doesn't check, the errors will
multiply. If it's not the author, it has to be the players.
I thought *hard* about this, and decided to make the *default* option in
MaxZip "show errors messages once per play session." That's usually in the
first move. So I've got a balance between notifying the player (so she
can notify the author) and not annoying her. Or maybe I've got a balance
between not notifying the player enough, and annoying her anyway. I do my
best.
> I only meant to make one for my own personal beta-testing enjoyment, not
> for general release, since I'm not involved with any of the interpreters
> except as a user.
If beta-testers and authors aren't checking for this stuff, I shall catch
fire and explode.
> > Am I the only one who thinks that an interpreter should, by default,
> > show as few run-time errors as possible?
> I agree. I'm not sure if this error is as harmless as it seems though.
Remember, this started because a competition entry *crashed* on some
interpreters. We can live with that possibility or try to eliminate it.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Staceeeeeee eee ee e
<snip of Photopia review>
> Puzzles: Simple, but I'm not smart enough for hard ones anyway. The maze
> was great.
As a huge fan of story-driven IF, I was estatic to see how much could be
done without a single "stuck" moment. The maze puzzle is the one that
made the strongest impression on me, because it actually did take me a
while (I went on for an embarassing number of moves after the hint) and
then, when you solve it, you realize the answer was there the whole time,
and that you always had "wings." In light of how literary this game is,
that strikes me as more of a philosophical comment than simply a puzzle
solution. And I *love* that.
-stacy
Avrom Faderman
Did anyone else have the exquisite, chilling moment of misunderstanding when
you first discover Wendy's wings, but before you know the "puzzle" scenes
are part of a story Alley is telling Wendy?
Suddenly everything seemed to come together...the strange, dreamlike nature
of Wendy's experiences, the drunken kids running a red light, the hospital
scene ("Is she...?"--just a pronoun, no name), the foreshadowing in Wendy's
near-death as a little girl...
Oh, poor Wendy!
But that's wrong, of course. And you get another chill when you figure
*that* out. At least, I did.
Avrom
Ross Presser
<Avrom_F...@email.msn.com> wrote:
>Spoilers for Photopia....
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>Did anyone else have the exquisite, chilling moment of misunderstanding when
>you first discover Wendy's wings, but before you know the "puzzle" scenes
>are part of a story Alley is telling Wendy?
>
>Suddenly everything seemed to come together...the strange, dreamlike nature
>of Wendy's experiences, the drunken kids running a red light, the hospital
>scene ("Is she...?"--just a pronoun, no name), the foreshadowing in Wendy's
>near-death as a little girl...
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>Oh, poor Wendy!
Yes, I did. Particularly when the next scene starts with "An angel.
She's an angel."[0]
>
>But that's wrong, of course. And you get another chill when you figure
>*that* out. At least, I did.
Me too.
>
>Avrom
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[0] While typing this line, I mistyped it to read "She's an angle."
And immediately thought of poor King Mitre.
remove NOSPAM to reply by email
Iain Merrick
> Spoilers for Photopia....
> Did anyone else have the exquisite, chilling moment of misunderstanding when
> you first discover Wendy's wings, but before you know the "puzzle" scenes
> are part of a story Alley is telling Wendy?
Yup. I don't think it was 'chilling' really, but I was a bit confused
and even slightly angry that there was such an illogical puzzle in the
game - until the story behind the story clicked together. A real 'aha!'
moment.
Later on, I replayed the game to see whether you could use your wings
before the maze. You can, and it's handled very smoothly indeed. Also,
try EXAMINE ALLEY or TALK TO ALLEY while you're playing one of the dream
sequences.
> Suddenly everything seemed to come together...the strange, dreamlike nature
> of Wendy's experiences, the drunken kids running a red light, the hospital
> scene ("Is she...?"--just a pronoun, no name), the foreshadowing in Wendy's
> near-death as a little girl...
Hang on, wasn't it Alley who nearly died as a little girl?
> Oh, poor Wendy!
Amen to _that_ - I can't help but wonder how Alley's tragic, pointless
death will affect Wendy.
Avrom Faderman
Iain Merrick wrote in message <3655A4...@cs.york.ac.uk>...
>Avrom Faderman wrote:
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>> Suddenly everything seemed to come together...the strange, dreamlike
nature
>> of Wendy's experiences, the drunken kids running a red light, the
hospital
>> scene ("Is she...?"--just a pronoun, no name), the foreshadowing in
Wendy's
>> near-death as a little girl...
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>Hang on, wasn't it Alley who nearly died as a little girl?
Oh. Er, yeah. Oops. Wonder how I got *that* confused.
Anyway, I think it still would have worked on me in the same way. Alley
nearly dies as a little girl, but lives; Wendy (I would have falsely
assumed at that point) gets killed as a little girl by the drunk
driver...and I would have assumed that the rest of the game was contrasting
their fates, to a poignant effect.
Anyway, now I'll never know, since I can't go back and play the game,
noticing that it's Alley who is almost killed, without knowing that it's her
that eventually *is* killed. Oh well.
Avrom
David Glasser
> Spoilers for Photopia....
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> Did anyone else have the exquisite, chilling moment of misunderstanding when
> you first discover Wendy's wings, but before you know the "puzzle" scenes
> are part of a story Alley is telling Wendy?
Yes. Wait, no, if you mean "is wendy dead and an angel?". Yes if you
mean "is wendy some bizarrely mutated creature created as part of a car
crash?"
> Suddenly everything seemed to come together...the strange, dreamlike nature
> of Wendy's experiences, the drunken kids running a red light, the hospital
> scene ("Is she...?"--just a pronoun, no name), the foreshadowing in Wendy's
> near-death as a little girl...
>
> Oh, poor Wendy!
>
> But that's wrong, of course. And you get another chill when you figure
> *that* out. At least, I did.
One of the best things this game did is the fratboy part. After an
initial distaste, I managed to feel like what they are doing is
perfectly justifiable, and that being this moon lady in the Red Area is
weird.
I mostly forgot that part by the time I was somewhat into the game.
Then, going down the street--WHAM! I was identifying with *who*?
I'm slightly of the opinion that getting rid of that "will you tell me a
story" would help that effect. But I could never have written Photopia,
so who am I to tell Adam what to do?
Iain Merrick
[...]
> I'm slightly of the opinion that getting rid of that "will you tell me a
> story" would help that effect.
The first time I played Photopia, I didn't actually _see_ this message,
because the status window was hidden behind the main window. The status
window is supposed to automatically raise and lower itself, but this
doesn't work very well.
I really, really wish MaxZip just had one window. In every other respect
it's the slickest, friendliest mac version of Zip.
--
Iain Merrick
David Glasser
> David Glasser wrote:
>
> [...]
> > I'm slightly of the opinion that getting rid of that "will you tell me a
> > story" would help that effect.
>
> The first time I played Photopia, I didn't actually _see_ this message,
> because the status window was hidden behind the main window. The status
> window is supposed to automatically raise and lower itself, but this
> doesn't work very well.
Why were you playing Photopia in MaxZip anyway? Games of color is what
that token copy of Zip Infinity is for.
> I really, really wish MaxZip just had one window. In every other respect
> it's the slickest, friendliest mac version of Zip.
I like it, usually, just not in menus.
Iain Merrick
[...]
> Why were you playing Photopia in MaxZip anyway? Games of color is what
> that token copy of Zip Infinity is for.
I didn't have Zip Infinity. In fact, I _still_ don't have Zip Infinity,
which means I still haven't played Photopia in colour... hmmm.
This is because I can't be bothered messing around with multiple
interpreters, and my game-playing machine isn't networked so I can't
download a new interpreter on the spur of the moment.
> Iain Merrick <i...@cs.york.ac.uk> wrote:
[...]
> > I really, really wish MaxZip just had one window. In every other respect
> > it's the slickest, friendliest mac version of Zip.
>
> I like it, usually, just not in menus.
Yes, it works well enough except when you have menus or (sometimes)
boxed quotes; but those are about the only times I actually _look_ at
the status bar!
J. Robinson Wheeler
> Why were you playing Photopia in MaxZip anyway? Games of color is what
> that token copy of Zip Infinity is for.
I for one had never heard of Zip Infinity until you mentioned it a few
days ago, and again in this post.
> > I really, really wish MaxZip just had one window. In every other respect
> > it's the slickest, friendliest mac version of Zip.
>
> I like it, usually, just not in menus.
But that's constantly! -- especially in the comp98 situation of using
hints at every turn. One game I needn't mention would always default
to pushing the status window back instead of bringing it forward when
a certain section of the hint menus was activated. My other problem
is that I have no control over the width of the status window. In
order to accomodate a small monitor, I've made the game window narrow,
but I can't do the same for the other.
Whoops, didn't mean to start griping. Oh, wait, the subject is MaxZip
status bar annoyance, so I guess it's on topic.
--
J. Robinson Wheeler
whe...@jump.net http://www.jump.net/~wheeler/jrw/home.html
Andrew Plotkin
> My other problem
> is that I have no control over the width of the status window. In
> order to accomodate a small monitor, I've made the game window narrow,
> but I can't do the same for the other.
Preferences, "status window", set the width. Doesn't take effect until you
start a new game.
(The reason there's no drag-size corner in the status window is that many
games, including Infocom games, check the status window size only at
startup time. Changing the size in mid-game would confuse them.)
Matthew T. Russotto
David Glasser <gla...@DELETEuscom.com> wrote:
}
}Why were you playing Photopia in MaxZip anyway? Games of color is what
}that token copy of Zip Infinity is for.
Does that mean I can't eat at the lunch counter?
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."