[COMP04] Short reviews from a casual fan
Lord Craxton
If memory serves, people have been saying that for the past three or four
years. I'm in no position to venture an opinion on that, having been away
from IF for the past two comps, but overall, I found a lot to be encouraged
about this year. While it's true that there was very little in the way of
innovative, boundary-pushing IF this year, I don't think that this is a big
deal. Indeed, it occurred to me back when people started trying to make
zero-room games that we may have reached the limitation of what can be done
in IF that is new and different. This does not mean that there aren't a lot
of great works still waiting to be written, but it does mean that from now
on games are going to win or lose the comp on more traditional merits-
strong writing, involving gameplay, solid design. And in these catagories,
Comp04 was at least above average. I gave away no tens this year (Trading
Punches and Blue Chairs came close), but I did give away large numbers of
sevens and eights, and comparatively fewer numbers of ones and twos. There
was a noted dropoff in half-assed productions, glorified coding exercises,
and postmodern drivel, and a corresponding increase in well-designed,
well-implemented games. That's not to say all the good games were perfect,
there are always flaws. But the authors seemed to be trying hard this year,
and I had a good time with most of the games I played. I am hopeful that the
trend will continue next year.
In short, I'm sure people will find things to complain about, but I had fun.
And to me, that's most important.
The last time I submitted Comp reviews, I'm afraid I embarrassed myself
somewhat, with overlong, overwritten reviews that trod the same ground
repeatedly, exposed exactly how little I really knew about IF, and made me
look like a pompous ass. This year I decided that brevity is the better part
of wisdom, and thus will be keeping these short. I'll try and compensate by
being more active in the post-Comp discussions, but no guarentees- between
school and a full-time job, my schedule is kind of cramped nowadays.
Nevertheless, I know authors are feedback junkies and will do my best to
satisfy their cravings.
So, without further ado, here are the games and ratings, in the order I
played them:
_2_: Ninja v1.30 (ninja/ninja.exe)
Competant parser, which surprised me in a homebrew game. Unfortunately, the
game itself is little more then a tech demo.
_4_: The Big Scoop (scoop/scoop.z5)
Forgettable. I'd like to be able to say more but... I... uh... forgot how I
felt about this game. ^_^;;;;;
_5_: The Realm (realm/realm.gam)
Nothing much happened in this game. Just kinda wandered around and got peed
on by a hamster.
_9_: Trading Punches (trading/trading.hex)
I started off liking this a lot. But the drinking puzzle was unnecessarily
convoluted (The answer is easy, but the solution is tedious.) Then I get
dropped into a bare landscape, wandered around for a while, and ran out of
time. Disappointing, but the music was good and the writing was really good,
so I'll give this the benefit of the doubt. I expect it to do well; good
writing and puzzles that are a bit too hard for me personally seem to be
what IFComp likes.
_8_: Square Circle (squarecircle/squarecircle.t3)
I had trouble getting into this, but it grew on me after a while. Didn't
manage to finish it. The hints need work- unless they give away the answer,
they're too vague to be of much use.
_4_: Zero One (01/01.acd)
Meh.
_7_: All Things Devours (devours/devours.z5)
A clever little puzzle. The implementation is well done, which must have
been difficult considering all the stuff to keep track of. I managaed to get
the best ending after a few tries.
_1_: PTBAD 3 (ptbad3/ptbad3.gam)
I just do not get this game at all. That, or there's nothing really to get
about it.
_4_: Redeye (redeye/redeye.gam)
No points for making the command line text the same color as the background.
Other then that, a respectable effort, darkly humorous in places, but
extremely railed and not especially remarkable.
_7_: Luminous Horizon (eas3/eas3.blb)
A good game, but this series has never really been my cup of tea. Nice
drawing on the feelies, though. The ending is a little anticlimactic.
_5_: Kurusu City (kurusu/kurusu.gam)
This wasn't a bad game by any means, but my attention kept wandering.
Possibly this was do to the generally empty feeling of the game. The world
is mostly terse descriptions and the goal is vague. More fleshing-out might
help.
_4_: Die Vollkommene Masse (diemasse/diemasse.gam)
Lot of empty space here, too. It was competantly written, but didn't really
grab me. I couldn't figure out what I was suppossed to be doing. Then I went
to the walkthrough for the solution to the doll puzzle and it didn't work.
After that I gave up. Sorry. This was later withdrawn from the competition,
which was a shame. It wasn't great, but it wasn't the worst game of the comp
by far. Oh, and two sets of stairs are superfluous.
_8_: Gamlet (gamlet/gamlet.z5)
My first reaction to this was a roll of the eyes. A yiddish Hamlet? Lowbrow
humor in the opening was also discouraging. In the end, though, this showed
some potential. Good writing and a detailed world. Nearly everything you try
returns a helpful response. Unfortunately, the puzzles were a bit too tough
for me and I never mangaed to get out of the study. Still, it kept me
occupied for the entire two hours, certainly nothing to be ashamed of.
_5_: Mingsheng (mingsheng/mingsheng.z5)
Not bad, but nothing special.
_N/A_: Getting Back To Sleep (exige/exige.exe)
Couldn't get this to work.
_4_: The Orion Agenda (orion/orion.z5)
This is another one where my attention kept wandering. I didn't get a good
idea of what the alien culture was suppossed to be like, or how advanced it
was. Rebecca didn't have a lot of depth as an npc. IS fiber deficiancy
potentially deadly? The plot just doesn't make any sense.
_4_: Zero (zero/zero.gam)
Not a half-bad idea, but frankly I've had enough hunger time limits to last
me a lifetime. Objects not mentioned in the room descriptions don't help
either.
_4_: Murder at the Aero Club (aeroclub/aeroclub.z5)
Meh. The accusation is made on rather circumstantial evidence, and the
climax is weak.
_3_: Stack Overflow (stack/stack.z5)
This was okay to start, but I started losing patience with it after an
unimplemented exit left me stranded. I'm no expert, being that I suck at
puzzles generally, but the puzzles here seemed badly clued. I resorted to
the walkthrough several times, each time thinking "How was I suppossed to
figure THAT out?" The plot is random and makes no sense.
_4_: Who Created That Monster? (whocreated/whocreated.gam)
Meh. What is this suppossed to be, an interactive political cartoon or
somesuch? Whatever... I finished it, but it was pretty unremarkable.
_6_: A Day In The Life Of A Super Hero (hero/hero.taf)
This was funny. I laughed a few times. The clues need work, though... they
need to be better organized and go farther then they do. But maybe that's
just me, I suck at puzzles. Some bugs and ADRIFT quirks also hold this back.
I didn't get through the end.
_7_: Typo (typo/typo.z5)
Another tech demo, I presume, but at least this one includes a game. The
game isn't half bad either, for what it is. Short and simple.
_9_: Splashdown (splashdown/splashdown.z5)
I liked this a lot. Challenging without being frustrating, and the hints are
comprehensive. The messages in the computer were priceless.
_3_: Bellclap (bellclap/bellclap.z5)
An interesting idea, executed from an interesting perspective.
Unfortunately, the required actions and phrasings are far from obvious, and
sometimes don't even work. I wound up playing this from the walkthrough.
_5_: Magocracy (magocracy/magocracy.gam)
More like an RPG then IF, really. It's obvious that someone put a great deal
of effort into this, but I really can't say I liked it. There's no substance
to it beyond simple hack-n-slash action, and skillful use of UNDO
trivializes even that. I beat everyone, then couldn't find the treasury.
Points for effort, though.
Around this point comp fatigue started to set in, and I found myself growing
impatient and easily frustrated. As a result, the reviews that follow are a
bit harsher then I would have liked, and the games below may have fared
better if I had played them earlier. What can I say? I feel what I feel.
_4_: Identity (identity/identity.z5)
Competent written, with no bugs, but unremarkable. Nothing especially
interesting happens in this game either. How in the heck am I suppossed to
solve the radio puzzle without knowing which jumper is which?
_6_: Sting of the Wasp (wasp/wasp.z5)
Hmm... Now I'm playing a rich bitch. Authorial laziness seems to have
screwed up the description of Outside Dining (by the pro shop). It's just a
xerox of Outside Dining (by the kitchen), and not accurate for the new
location. Tsk, tsk, tsk. That, plus a few inscrutable puzzles and very
unclear goals, put me off this. Also, things change without warning, such as
items appearing in your inventory or the pilates class in the spa. A good
idea, and pretty well written, but minor difficulties screw it up. I
dunno... I feel like, somehow, I'm not giving this game a fair shake, but it
really didn't appeal to me. Maybe I just wasn't meant to be a rich bitch...
_9_: Blue Chairs (bluechairs/bluechairs.z5)
Some excellent visual effects in the introduction. First the good: I started
on this about a half-hour before Farscape, and wound up playing it through
the commercials and on to late at night. That says a lot, I think. Very
trippy, with a surreal kind of logic to it, getting weirder as it goes and
yet staying consistant. Now the bad: My patience started wearing very thin
at the darkened passages. I hate wandering through empty areas, moreso when
I have to wander around them *repeatedly*. At one point I got miffed and
quit without saving. When I came back I couldn't get past the dance floor-
apparently that puzzle has a strong random element, meaning even if you know
the answer you may have to restore a few times to make it work, an authorial
faux pas. So, high marks for writing and atmosphere, but points docked for
design slipups. Still one of the best games of the comp.
_3_: Order (order00/order00.z5)
The game's central gimmick mostly degrades into guess-the-noun. The game
also feels hollow- lots of unimplemented objects and superfluous rooms. I
gave up after the hints pointed me to a steeple that, judging from the room
descriptions, doesn't exist.
_3_: A Light's Tale (lighttale/lighttale.gam)
This game rubbed me the wrong way from the get-go. The narrator (and
possibly the author) has an attitude problem, and the plot is essentially a
mostly linear sequence of random, disconnected events. I gave up when I
couldn't stop the bouncer from killing me.
_2_: Blink (blink/blink.z5)
An attempted tearjerker that just doesn't work. I hate to be mean, but I
really can't think of anything that this game does right. The writing is
terse and holds no emotion, the story is essentially completely static, and
the subject matter is overly familiar. Better writing and/or more
involvement on the player's end would have been needed to pull this off.
_2_: Goose, Egg, Badger (geb/geb.z5)
This game also rubbed me the wrong way. The room descriptions repeatedly
leave out important bits of information. Inventory limits are out of style.
After half an hour playing, I have only the vaguest idea what to do, and the
hints are little help. Even the walkthrough doesn't help make sense of
anything, and it doesn't work either. I gave up on this fairly early.
_3_: Ruined Robots (ruinedrobots/ruinedrobots.gam)
This one put me off considerably, with a hunger timer and some rather
slipshod implementation. Doors will be locked, but not block your progress.
Exits will be unmentioned. I tried playing by the walkthrough, but I didn't
understand what was going on. I have a feeling this will be Comp04's
official beta-testing whipping boy.
_6_: Blue Sky (bluesky/bluesky.z5)
Short and simple game with a plot that's really just an excuse to recreate a
piece of the city of Santa Fe in IF form. I wouldn't be surprised if it was
funded by the Santa Fe chamber of commerce. As a recreation, it's only
so-so- not a lot of detail in the descriptions. As a game it works, largely
because it doesn't overstay it's welcome.
_4_: Chronicle Play Torn (torn/torn.z5)
This game, however, did overstay it's welcome. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't
very involving, I got bored with it quick. It also tried to pack a lot of
plot into comparatively little space. It should have been bigger and more
fleshed-out, maybe a full-length game or a trilogy of comp games. Hmm, did I
just criticize this game as being both too long and too short? So I did.
Erm... moving on...
_4_: Escape from Auriga (escape/escape.z5)
This game was DQed, but I decided to take a crack at it anyway. I can see
why it was DQed- it plaigerizes the Alien movies pretty shamelessly. Several
bugs and typos in this one, I didn't hit anything serious but it was
annoying. Overall, nothing really impressive here.
_5_: I Must Play (imustplay/imustplay.t3)
Maybe it's the comp fatigue talking, but this game wasn't very funny. Put
together well enough, if a bit simplistically, but, meh...
_3_: The Great Xavio (greatxavio/greatxavio.z5)
Again, if you're going to build a game around interactions with an NPC, make
sure that NPC has a reasonable amount of stuff to say. I didn't find the
hints until I asked for the walkthrough. It didn't occur to me to ask about
HELP, and THINK isn't a standard verb either. Plus, neither of the options
seems to return anything remotely usable. I wound up playing from the
walkthrough. How the hell am I suppossed to know to ask the concierge for a
paperclip? Or to search the fog?
-Lord Craxton
Timofei Shatrov
<lord_c...@yahoo.com> tried to confuse everyone with this message:
>
>_3_: Stack Overflow (stack/stack.z5)
>
>This was okay to start, but I started losing patience with it after an
>unimplemented exit left me stranded.
Okay, now I've seen that a lot of times, where exactly do you get that
bug?
--
|a\o/r|,-------------.,---------- Timofei Shatrov aka Grue ------------.
| m"a ||FC AMKAR PERM|| mail: grue at mail.ru http://grue3.tripod.com |
| k || PWNZ J00 || KoL:Grue3 NationStates:Holypunkeye |
`-----'`-------------'`-------------------------------------------[4*72]
Michael Chapman Martin
>>_3_: Stack Overflow (stack/stack.z5)
>>
>>This was okay to start, but I started losing patience with it after an
>>unimplemented exit left me stranded.
> Okay, now I've seen that a lot of times, where exactly do you get that
> bug?
The room with the door that leads to the escape pod does not let you
go back the way you came. The door also has no name.
So, going to the top floor and hitting the end of the hall before opening
the hangar gate traps you. I think he forgot to set the e_to there.
--Michael
Sidney Merk
> _9_: Trading Punches (trading/trading.hex)
>
> I started off liking this a lot. But the drinking puzzle was unnecessarily
> convoluted (The answer is easy, but the solution is tedious.) Then I get
> dropped into a bare landscape, wandered around for a while, and ran out of
> time. Disappointing, but the music was good and the writing was really
good,
> so I'll give this the benefit of the doubt. I expect it to do well; good
> writing and puzzles that are a bit too hard for me personally seem to be
> what IFComp likes.
Yep. I've mentally smacked myself more than once for allowing the pavilion
section to become so tedious. I'm sure I could have done the same thing in
another, more straight-forward way. Iuros (the bare landscape) was big for
two reasons - one, to provide a sense of scope for the colony, and two, to
allow a large enough area for the boy to wander around. If you had made it
further, I think you'd have enjoyed it even more. Some revelations are made,
you find out the importance of Gavenn's ancestors, you find out who the
Incenders are, and the rivalry with Thyras reaches a crescendo.
The music has been getting mixed responses. I wonder if those who found it
horrible were unable to play MP3, and the game defaulted to the MIDI
instead? At any rate, some really liked it, some really hated it. Unlike the
prose (which, like Paul mentioned in his review, seems ripe for skimming), I
can listen to the music over and over. Not the same *song* over and over, so
if I opt to do the same thing in future games, I'll probably go for more
ambience and less melody. :)
Plus, I plan to have a setup option in future games -- I.e., music always,
music only when viewing intermission, no music, etc. That way, Hugo won't
even need to load the song for potential play later.
If anybody is interested in the 3rd easter egg that the XYZZY response says
I'll never reveal, then here it is. If you're in graphics mode, you can skip
forward to any chapter. While viewing the planet/moon title screen, just hit
these three keys:
C11 - chapter 1-1
C12 - chapter 1-2
C21 - chapter 2-1
C22 - chapter 2-2
C31 - chapter 3-1
C32 - chapter 3-2
C41 - epilogue
I didn't intend for it to only work in graphics mode, but I added the cheat
to a "press enter" prompt that doesn't appear when graphics aren't shown.
Sorry. :( But anybody who didn't finish during the comp is welcome to
download the update ( http://www.sidneymerk.com/punches.shtml ) and skip to
where you left off (since Hugo saves aren't backwards compatibile).
---- Mike.
Mark J. Tilford
> _3_: Stack Overflow (stack/stack.z5)
>
> This was okay to start, but I started losing patience with it after an
> unimplemented exit left me stranded. I'm no expert, being that I suck at
The unimplemented exit is annoying, but you can get out by using the cube
again.
--
------------------------
Mark Jeffrey Tilford
til...@ugcs.caltech.edu
Timofei Shatrov
<mcma...@Stanford.EDU> tried to confuse everyone with this message:
>The room with the door that leads to the escape pod does not let you
>go back the way you came. The door also has no name.
>
>So, going to the top floor and hitting the end of the hall before opening
>the hangar gate traps you. I think he forgot to set the e_to there.
>
Wow... I can't believe I missed that one...
Dan Shiovitz
Lord Craxton <lord_c...@yahoo.com> wrote:
[..]
>about this year. While it's true that there was very little in the way of
>innovative, boundary-pushing IF this year, I don't think that this is a big
>deal. Indeed, it occurred to me back when people started trying to make
>zero-room games that we may have reached the limitation of what can be done
>in IF that is new and different. This does not mean that there aren't a lot
>of great works still waiting to be written, but it does mean that from now
>on games are going to win or lose the comp on more traditional merits-
>strong writing, involving gameplay, solid design. And in these catagories,
Games have always won or lost the comp on solid design, but if really
you think that The End Of Conceptual Innovation In IF has arrived, I
would wait six months and check again. Or if you don't want to wait,
take a look at The Act of Misdirection, Bellclap, Blue Chairs, Gamlet,
and Sting of the Wasp, just to name a few from this year that broke
new ground.
> -Lord Craxton
--
Dan Shiovitz :: d...@cs.wisc.edu :: http://www.drizzle.com/~dans
"He settled down to dictate a letter to the Consolidated Nailfile and
Eyebrow Tweezer Corporation of Scranton, Pa., which would make them
realize that life is stern and earnest and Nailfile and Eyebrow Tweezer
Corporations are not put in this world for pleasure alone." -PGW
Lord Craxton
"Dan Shiovitz" <d...@cs.wisc.edu> wrote in message
news:cng3p1$45i$1...@drizzle.com...
> In article <10plhma...@news.supernews.com>,
> Lord Craxton <lord_c...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> [..]
> >about this year. While it's true that there was very little in the way of
> >innovative, boundary-pushing IF this year, I don't think that this is a
big
> >deal. Indeed, it occurred to me back when people started trying to make
> >zero-room games that we may have reached the limitation of what can be
done
> >in IF that is new and different. This does not mean that there aren't a
lot
> >of great works still waiting to be written, but it does mean that from
now
> >on games are going to win or lose the comp on more traditional merits-
> >strong writing, involving gameplay, solid design. And in these
catagories,
>
> Games have always won or lost the comp on solid design, but if really
> you think that The End Of Conceptual Innovation In IF has arrived, I
> would wait six months and check again. Or if you don't want to wait,
> take a look at The Act of Misdirection, Bellclap, Blue Chairs, Gamlet,
> and Sting of the Wasp, just to name a few from this year that broke
> new ground.
>
Bellclap was told from an unusual perspective, but I don't think it's
groundbreaking. Someone less casual then me could probably point out a game
that does similiar things. Also, it wasn't very good as a game, looking past
the perspective. Blue Chairs was excellent, but trippy surrealism is hardly
new, and the game can't even claim to have originated the idea of
enlightenment through drug use- "The Trip" did that a few years ago. (Though
admittedly Blue Chairs does it far better.) Gamlet I didn't get very far in,
but imitating Shakespeare was done in Graham Nelson's adaptation (if you
want to call it that) of The Tempest. Sting of the Wasp didn't do anything
new structurally, it merely gave us a story with an unusual protagonist.
Besides, you're missing my point. My point was not that there wasn't
anything new this year, it's that there's so little frontier remaining that
we can't expect games that seem as fresh and new as, for example, Photopia
or Sunset Over Savannah did in their time. Games this year won not by doing
new things, but by doing old things well.
-Lord Craxton
Lord Craxton
"Avrom Faderman" <av...@avromandina.net> wrote in message
news:7f5941ca.04111...@posting.google.com...news:<10po662...@news.supernews.com>...
> > Besides, you're missing my point. My point was not that there wasn't
> > anything new this year, it's that there's so little frontier remaining
that
> > we can't expect games that seem as fresh and new as, for example,
Photopia
> > or Sunset Over Savannah did in their time. Games this year won not by
doing
> > new things, but by doing old things well.
>
>
<snipped>
Pardon me, I misspoke. What I meant was that games were not TRYING to win
the comp with experimental games, and that the reason is that there are no
significant boundaries left to be pushed. I don't see this as a bad thing
necessarily, but it indicates that it may be a while before the present
measures up to the past.
>
> Some years, the prize goes to something like Photopia, which pushes
> the medium in a whole new direction. Other years, the prize goes to
> something like Meteor, which, rather than doing something new, does
> something we've seen before, but does it *really, really well*. This
> was one of the latter years, but I'm unconvinced there's a *trend*
> visible here.
Actually, there is a trend to this effect, or perhaps a tendancy is the
better term. It's been my observation over the past few years that the top
honors in IFComp typically go to the "safest" games rather then the critical
successes. Photopia seems to be the exception rather then the rule here. Due
to the way the comp is judged, it's more successful to create the least
hated game than the most liked. I didn't think Luminous Horizon was all that
great, but I wouldn't call it a bad game. Whereas more experimental fare
like, say, Rameses a few years ago, will possibly win critical acclaim but
will alienate people who miss the point or just don't get it. Taking chances
means taking risks, and the rewards are uncertain. Hence, we see a trend
towards less experimental fare. Though, now that I think of it, this could
be another possible reason for the decline in experimental comp games.
-Lord Craxton
Joao Mendes
"Lord Craxton" <lord_c...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:10plhma...@news.supernews.com...
>
> _4_: The Orion Agenda (orion/orion.z5)
>
> This is another one where my attention kept wandering. I didn't get a good
> idea of what the alien culture was suppossed to be like, or how advanced
it
> was. Rebecca didn't have a lot of depth as an npc. IS fiber deficiancy
> potentially deadly? The plot just doesn't make any sense.
I'm sure fiber deficiency is potentially deadly for the right smounts of
Space Opera one wants to throw at a story. :)
Personally, I really liked Rebecca, it really felt like an 80's TV show type
of character, and I really go for those types of things.
Cheers,
J.
Avrom Faderman
> Besides, you're missing my point. My point was not that there wasn't
> anything new this year, it's that there's so little frontier remaining that
> we can't expect games that seem as fresh and new as, for example, Photopia
> or Sunset Over Savannah did in their time. Games this year won not by doing
> new things, but by doing old things well.
I'm not sure that's new. Look at some results from past competitions:
2002:
1st place: AEAS
2001:
1st place: All Roads (Yes, this would have counted as "doing something
new", rather than "doing something old well", in 1995, but probably
not in 2001)
1999:
1st place: Winter Wonderland
1997:
1st place: The Edifice
And most of all...
1996:
1st place: The Meteor, The Stone, and a Long Glass of Sherbet, an
impeccably executed Infocom pastiche
15th place: In the End, which ushered in an entirely new genre of I-F
(I'm not, by the way, quibbling with these scores. "Meteor" was a much
better game than "In the End". I'm just pointing out that perfection
over innovation has happened before.)