[SmoochieComp] Late Reviews
Lucian P. Smith
bit late to be put up in the initial flurry. They'll be up soon, but I'm
going ahead and posting them here for the additional discussion they can
generate. Enjoy!
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The reviews below are written in the order in which I played the games.
I departed from my usual style of including a lot of spoilers, so in
general, the reviews can be read without spoiler-fear. But really, none
of them are very long--it'd be worth it to at least start each of them
before reading these reviews, as even the mildest spoiler can be more
fun to discover on your own.
In addition, I kept transcripts of my play through each of these games;
they can be found at http://www.bioc.rice.edu/~lpsmith/IF/smoochie/
Sparrow:
Accepting the basic premise of 'Sparrow' is probably the most difficult
part of the game. A sparrow shows up, sings you a song, and you fall in
love with someone you've never met. Given the premise of this comp,
and given my own experience with this thing we call love, this is a bit
much to accept. But hey, it's just fiction.
The setting is nice, and nicely developed. It takes place in a fantasy
world with trappings straight out of D&D, but manages to combine them
together in a believable way: the elements are used for decoration, not
for inspiration. All this added up to an enjoyable opening game of
discovery and exploration.
The second half of the game felt rushed, design-wise, particularly in
comparison to the first half. There are puzzles here, for one, one of
which (the nymph) completely stymied me to where I had to ask for hints
from a fellow judge. There's also an arbitrary inventory item you
obtain ex nihilo that is random. This wouldn't be so odd, except that
one of these items allows you to access an ending to the game that's
impossible to reach otherwise. In general, this whole section felt
rushed, as you career headfirst into one of the endings which leave a
variety of plot threads unsolved. One could argue that the ending here
leaves as much ambiguous as the ending of 'Spider and Web', but I
greatly disliked *that* ending too, the first time I saw it, and only
gradually came to vaguely appreciate it. There's less here to work
with, and it felt abrupt.
The conversation system here is a disguised form of ask/tell, where
instead of typing >ASK NPC ABOUT X you merely type >X? and it either
asks or tells the npc the appropriate question. This is a convention I
first saw (and liked) in 'She's Got A Thing For A Spring', and I liked
it here, too. Another innovation is the addition of a 'topics' verb,
which will randomly display a smattering of possible X? topics for you
to ask about. Another aspect of the conversational system was the fact
that re-asking a question either gave you new information or something
along the lines of 'You already asked that.' The problem inherent with
this system is that you can't ask for a recap of information if you've
forgotten it. Fortunately in this game (for me, at least) this never
ended up being a problem, since the information is pretty basic and easy
to remember (and much of it is strictly unnecessary, but merely 'window
dressing' in the first place). The two cases where it *is* important
(asking the wizard or the cleric about getting to the mountains) is
implemented properly, with the two of them recapping the important
information without giving you their whole initial spiel. These tools
were used to competent effect, and it was easy and fun to interact with
the NPCs (at least the initial four).
I had hoped that the choice in the first half of how to get to the
second would make more of an impact on the ending. As it was, there was
only one difference I could find; that of how the protagonist felt about
the treaty. The endings were identical, and I had wanted some
difference. Part of this was probably my general disaffection with the
endings--I hoped to find one I liked better, but got the same ones. Had
I liked them in the first place, presumably this would have been
different. (Also, my personal 'ideal' ending would have involved the
random item and the changed views about the treaty, but these were
mutually exclusive. Sigh.)
Oh, and I found a game-crashing bug. Eeeagh! It was due to attempting
a very nice effect, though (changing room descriptions based on
knowledge), so I was sympathetic. And this effect worked well in other
bits of the game, too, so hey.
Overall: A fun game with a somewhat dissatisfactory ending.
1981:
Adam Cadre, is that you? If it's not, I'll eat my hat. And
congratulate the real author. This is a darkly funny game in two parts.
Part one is where you figure out the joke. (For me, this was when the
object of your affection was first named.) Part two is where the
creepiness of the situation hits you.
I'm not sure the very last scene of the game needed to be there (I note
this in the transcript). It allowed for one more funny/creepy bit, but
the funny outweighed the creepy so it basically just turned into farce.
And as farce, I could distance myself from the game so it wasn't as
visceral as I could tell it would have been had it ended a scene
earlier. But others probably had different reactions, I'm guessing. At
any rate, a quick game with a funny joke and a creepy message.
Second Honeymoon:
Hmmm.
See, this is why marriage gets a bum rap. Judging from the three games
I've played so far, when I'm in love, I get to do exciting things like
teleport to distant shores and <spoiler> the <spoiler> of the <spoiler>.
Once I'm married, I get to pack for a trip. With a list my wife gave
me, no less.
There's a lot of stuff in here about how much I love my wife and kid,
but in general I'm told this and not shown it. Truly sweet moments are
rare, or somewhat clumsily handled (like getting the bear for my kid).
The puzzles pretty much consist of going into a room and seeing the item
I need on the floor or inside something. It was nice that there were a
couple puzzles that developed over the course of the game, instead of
all tasks being present on the list at the beginning.
I'm guessing that this is one of those 'My First Game' games. The
author is probably the protagonist, the house is probably his real
house, and the family is probably his real family. As such, it's
competently done, and if it wasn't beta-tested (as seems likely, given
a couple very obvious bugs), it was at least competently programmed--
none of the complicated bits are buggy, merely the simpler "Oops, missed
that" ones. I would encourage the author to move forward with their
next work, looking a bit deeper into, well, everything from the
relationships portrayed to the puzzle design. An OK start.
Dead of Winter:
Hmm.
I gotta say, I don't get the twist ending. Did it have any bearing at
all on the rest of the story? On the two possible choices you had
before? On... anything? The easter egg ending in 'Varicella' was at
least somewhat consistent with the rest of the game, and informed one's
perspective a bit. This just seemed random. With a different ending,
I'd look for metaphor and meaning in the main story. But with this
one... I dunno. It was decent, simple, and nice to read. But it seemed
to have a potential that was discarded at the end, instead of followed
up on.
August:
I was *this close* to the ending here when I had to resort to asking
Emily for a walkthrough. Dagnabbit.
The 'about' text (which was *horrendously* self-depricating; don't ever
write about your game like this, *ever*) reveals that this game was
written in a flurry of activity in one week. Amazingly, though there
are bugs and wacky puzzle design (see aforementioned need for
walkthrough), everything that can be good about writing a game this
quickly--the raw emotion, the stirring evocativeness--came through as
well. Sure, it needed a month's beta-testing. But hey, this is a mini-
comp.
The story plays out like a mystery, though it doesn't feel like it at
the time. Slowly, you piece together two narratives--the one from the
past, and the one from the present. This is done primarily through
conversation, through the ask/tell method. In the first bit, this works
just fine, since the information you're collecting is not necessary to
further the plot. As such, each new bit of information is a joy to
collect. In the second bit, you must successfully navigate a
conversation in order to further the plot. And that's frustrating as
all get-out. I actually managed to make it most of the way, but got
bogged down at the end; I had to ask about something twice, and only
asked about it once (sigh). In addition, if you change the subject the
game comments on it, so I figured I *couldn't* change the subject and
successfully navigate the conversation (a la Galatea (at least, that's
my impression of that game)). This resulted in a lot of >ASK ABOUT X.
>UNDO. Not very evocative.
But overall, this was a neat game. My only recommendation would be to
either wait for the bug-fixed version to come out, or just not type
'about' until you're finished with the game.
Bantam:
Hee! An amusing five minutes. Nothing to it, but hey, not everything
has to be deep.
Pytho's Mask:
Ah, intrigue.
The setting of this game was very evocative. It seemed to be set on a
world with some futuristic aspects, but with magic and a monarchial
overlay. The plot is advanced principally through conversation, and the
system is unique, and fairly effective.
As you enter into conversation with someone, you get a list of possible
things to say, and can select one of them. So far, so standard-graphic-
adventure. What makes the difference is the addition of the 'topic'
command (abbreviated 't'), through which you can bring up a general
topic (sort of like 'ask about X') but you get a new menu of possible
things to say. The 'about' text indicates that you can use this to
change the topic of conversation from one you're not interested in to
one you're more interested in. What is far more likely, however, is
that you'll have no options at all, and will have to use the 'topic'
command to try to find something your character wants to talk about.
This, unfortunately, is where the system breaks down--the majority of
the game (for me) was merely shifted from 'ask NPC about X, about Y, and
about Z' to 'topic X' 'topic Y' and 'topic Z'. The advantage was that
it provided a conversational thread during those times where I *did*
find a productive topic. I also had trouble going back to pick up
conversational threads I hadn't selected, but which sounded interesting.
Perhaps this was the use for the command I only just now remembered,
'UNTOPIC', but I tried it early on and it didn't do anything, and
'UNTOPIC' doesn't mean anything to me. Perhaps the addition of a 'TOPIC
BASIC' command would obviate the need for the extensive concept-
searching that took up the majority of the game for me.
The writing was excellent, as per now-standard Short. The dialogue was
perky, though I admit there were times when conversational options
didn't mesh with my concept of the character, most frequently when she
was being defensively aloof. Interestingly, these times were when the
character most strongly reminded me of Emily's '7th Sea' character,
Giovanna. My guess is that, like Zarf, Emily's own personality comes
through in her characters.
The plot was interesting to piece together, though not, in the end,
filled with stunning reversals or changes of fortune. The one main sub-
mystery (the identity of the masked man) was somewhat confusingly
presaged by the fortune-teller, though everything made a certain amount
of sense in the end. In general, a great deal of fun to play, and a
wonderfully imaginative setting to explore.