A Collection of Reviews of
ADRIFT Games Which People Have Written But They Might Not Necessarily be all
Adrift Games that People are Writing Reviews Of
ISSUE 8
EDITED BY
PUBLISHED ON 9 APRIL 2006
EDITED BY
PUBLISHED ON 9 APRIL 2006
Jonathan
Grim: Space Tourist – reviewed by Robert Street and David Whyld
Too
Much Exercise – reviewed by David Whyld
Glum
Fiddle – reviewed by Robert Street and David Whyld
Man
Overboard!!! – reviewed by Robert Street, David Whyld and TDS
The
Makeshift Magician – reviewed by David Whyld
Akari’s
Story – reviewed by Sara Brookside
First
Day – reviewed by David Whyld
First to
Arise: Alone with a Pug – reviewed by David Whyld
The Fox
– reviewed by David Whyld
Jason
Evans 1 – reviewed by David Whyld
The
Quest For More Hair – reviewed by David Whyld
The
Ghost Train – reviewed by David Whyld
To
Cage A Magpie – reviewed by David Whyld
List
of games reviewed in this issue and previous issues
Welcome to the eighth edition of the Reviews
Exchange. This issue covers the months of January to March, which traditionally
is a very slow time for new games to appear. Why is it so slow? There are
normally no competitions in this period, as it lies between the heavy
competition schedules of the IF/End of Year competition at the end of 2005 and
the Spring Thing in April.
Unfortunately, non-competition games are always
rare. Hopefully the continuing presence of the Reviews Exchange will encourage
authors to release more games by providing feedback. In the last few months a
solitary non-competition game was released in the ADRIFT community. This game
looked like it would be the only new game for the period, until David Whyld
announced a minicomp. The minicomp boosted the new games tally to five
non-adult games over three months. This still isn’t a large amount of games,
but hopefully many more will be released over the year. With three new games
having been released since the start of April, just before this edition was
released, there has been a good start.
Of course, the Reviews Exchange is not just about
new games. It is about reviewing any IF game from any time. Reviewing new games
is important to provide feedback to authors soon after a game’s release, and to
show everyone what is available. However, it can also be good to go back and
play some of the old games that are around, as some are very good, although not
all of them. David Whyld has done a good job of going through the ADRIFT games
archive to see what obscure games can be found in there.
I’d like to say a big thank you to David Whyld, as
I was initially worried that I wouldn’t receive many reviews for this issue
with the lack of new games. Thank you to Sara Brookside and TDS, as well.
The
concept behind the Writing Challenges competition was to include in a short
game, one of the locations from the Writing Challenges that take place
regularly on the ADRIFT forum. One or more of the following locations had to be
included; a valley, ship’s helm, sweet shop, elevator and escape tunnel.
Voting
for the Writing Challenges Competition in 2006 took place during March, with
the final positions and average scores being:
1)
Jonathan Grim: Space Tourist by Ren -
6.2
2)
Too Much Exercise by
3)
Glum Fiddle by C. Henshaw -
5.2
4)
Man Oveboard!!! By TonyB - 5.0
Below
are reviews of all the entries to the competition.
AUTHOR: REN
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 4.00
REVIEWER:
Jonathan
Grim: Space Tourist is a difficult game that has included every one of
the five scenarios listed for the competition. The ideas did not naturally mesh
together well with a sweet shop, escape tunnel, ship's helm, valley and
elevator, so it is surprising that this was not really noticeable within the
game.
This game's main strength is the depth of
implementation. Lots of stuff that I didn't expect to generate responses
actually did receive a comment. The difficulty of the puzzles meant that I
could have given up, but I was encouraged to persevere by the way that my ideas
even if they failed were at least being acknowledged. In difficult games it is
also rewarding to finally solve puzzles. A hint menu could have helped the game
and removed some of the frustration, but it can be too tempting and remove some
of the satisfaction of success. The game continued for longer than I had
expected. Just when you think the game is ending, it continues with more
action. I almost finished the game without any help, but got stuck and had to
ask the author about the final puzzle.
The writing is also well done, although
there is not really much of a story. The descriptions of everything are
entertaining though. There are lots of various items around, and a surprising
amount is actually useful for something in the end. There were a few bugs, with
the door/smoke detector task not repeating, being notable. The fact that you
can get off the alien spaceship and go back to the planet also doesn't seem
quite right.
Some advice for writers. Using the
<wait> command tends to annoy people unless it is used carefully. Sitting
through and waiting for the intro to complete is not fun for a fast reader like
myself. If you want to use this command, it would be best to provide a command
at the start to turn it off for people like me. It especially is worse when you
have to wait before you can enter any command. When I had to take a break and
come back to the game later, I didn't enjoy having to sit through the
introduction again.
A good game, although don't expect to
complete it too quickly.
SCORE - 7/10
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
Jonathan Grim: Space Tourist suffered from a severe
bout of newbieness which was so bad in places that it became almost painful.
The introduction is long and there are timed pauses between each paragraph,
meaning that every time you play the game, or restart it, you're forced to sit
there and wait for the text to scroll its way through. Even more annoying, some
of the pauses are followed by “press a key to continue” commands which means
you can’t even leave the keyboard for a minute and return to find them all
gone.
The major issues with
the game, though, came from the truly bizarre commands the player is expected
to type in. Some of the responses to commands I tried were just baffling. After
struggling with the door in my cabin for a while – OPEN DOOR and UNLOCK DOOR
didn’t work even though I had the room key in my hand – I tried USE KEY ON DOOR
which produced “You miss Royston. You wish you had your big rock.” Make any
sense to you? Nope, me neither. I was also kind of bemused when I tried to open
the boxes and was told that I couldn’t open my bed. If all that wasn’t
confusing enough, most of the other commands are, with the majority of them
seeming to be carried out for no other reason than they're necessary to
complete the game. Why would I try to wear the marmalade? Why would I try the
command ‘forward’ to move along a pipe when a simple directional command
doesn’t work? What possible reason could I have for pushing the chair against
the door? While I’ll grudgingly admit that the THROW SPANNER IN W.O.R.C.S.
command is kind of witty, why would I attempt THROW BOX IN HOLE immediately
afterwards?
On my own, I didn’t even
manage to get out of my cabin before becoming stuck. Fortunately I had the
advantage of being the guy who organised the Comp and so had the walkthrough to
fall back on. Good job as well, otherwise I’d have never progressed beyond the
first location.
On the positive side,
the standard of writing is fairly accomplished and while there are a few typos,
these are nothing terrible. Unfortunately, those are about the only positive
things I could find to say about the game. The intro was frustrating and the
guess the verb even worse. I'm assuming the commands were of the variety that
the writer felt would be obvious to the player, but they certainly weren’t to
this poor player. Even after checking the walkthrough, I'm not sure I would
have got most of them.
3 out of 10
AUTHOR:
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 4.00
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
The shortest game in the Writing Challenges Comp,
and also by far the easiest, Too Much
Exercise starts without any introduction to clue the player in as to what it’s
all about. Fortunately it soon becomes obvious: you’re a big man looking for
his next meal. (Actually there's a nice twist at the end of the game that
throws this idea out but you'll have to finish it to see exactly what this is.)
Comprising just four locations, Too Much Exercise isn't a big game by
any means. The necessary commands required to progress it are all fairly easy,
and what few puzzles there are don’t need much thought to figure out. The only
time I stumbled was when trying to make an offering after putting my wallet on
the altar – the coins not being in my possession stopped the task from working,
which had me muttering more than a few colourful comments at the computer
before I realised my error.
As well as being very small, this is also a very
easy game. While it has quite a few puzzles (for its size), they are all
remarkably easy and straightforward. None really require much in the way of
puzzling out. Of the four games in the Comp, this was the only one I was able
to complete without running into any actual problems (the wallet and the altar
notwithstanding). From start to finish, you're looking at perhaps ten to
fifteen minutes of gameplay time…
…which is more of a disadvantage than an advantage
really. The game is over with before you’ve really had chance to start playing
it; although, saying that, nothing about the game that I saw struck me as
particularly memorable. It’s okay for the ten minutes I spent playing it but
nothing more.
5 out of 10
AUTHOR: C. HENSHAW
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 4.00
REVIEWER:
Glum Fiddle has an interesting
premise, with great writing. Glum Fiddle
chose to expand upon the valley theme from the Writing Challenges. The setting and
characters are very humorous and the game made a really good first impression.
Unfortunately, I found that I became annoyed with the limits of the game whilst
I was playing it.
The game started really well, with a few good
puzzles, but then I became progressively more and more stuck, dying again and
again. I felt in this game that it was too easy to die without warning, and at
times I seemed to be learning from my deaths, rather than being able to predict
events before failing once. ADRIFT's standard behaviour of exiting the program
made it worse. Games with frequent deaths, like this one, should not make you
restart the game every time before being able to restore. The hints were not
very useful and I found this a difficult game to complete.
I had a number of problems with phrasing, such as
that I had to drop the plank not put it on the chasm. There seemed to be a lack
of checking alternatives in the testing of this game. If you stuck to the
standard path you were fine, but as soon as you stepped outside the game did
not work as well. An example is when I took the plank away from the chasm in
case I still needed it, and the giant ended up disappearing somewhere. Another
annoyance was that there was a message about an ogre breathing heavily that
repeated everywhere after a while.
I admit that I am probably being harsh on this
game, but it annoys me when I keep being killed whilst I am trying to figure
out what is going on. Overall this game showed great potential, but I felt it
just didn't quite reach it.
SCORE - 6/10
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
At heart, this is quite
an amusing little tale about a young woman embarking on a quest to rescue her
parents from a giant called Glum Fiddle, who seems to have abducted them for
nothing more sinister than teaching him to read Shakespeare and play chess.
Unfortunately, it’s hit by some pretty serious bugs – some strange, some
downright bizarre. Examine the vines and I'm asked which vines I mean: the
blackberry vines or the massive wrought-iron gate? Elsewhere, I was able to
pass through a locked gate by typing GO WEST when W wouldn’t suffice. By far
the worst error, and one no doubt caused by the GET command being overridden,
came when I tried to pick up some mud and instead found myself taking a pigsty!
(Actually, the pigsty never appeared in my inventory but it, along with every
static item in the game, can be picked up. Ouch.) The get command override also
allowed me to pick up the plank after Glum Fiddle had broken it and drop it
over the chasm again.
A few other things arose
which I was never really sure were bugs or not. I successfully found my parents
and hid in some barrels from them from Glum Fiddle, who promptly fell into a
chasm… and was never seen from again. No matter what I did after that, I
couldn’t seem to find him again and there also didn’t appear to be any way of
progressing the game. Armed with the walkthrough (one of the perks of
organising the Comp), I was able to successfully finish the game, but lacking
the walkthrough I'm not sure I would have managed it as a fair number of
non-obvious commands were required.
All in all, there's a
likeable charm to Glum Fiddle, but
it’s also marred by too many bugs (not to mention numerous typos and grammar
errors) for me to recommend it.
4 out of 10
AUTHOR: TONYB
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 4.00
REVIEWER:
Man
Overboard!!!
is a fairly easy game that chooses to use the ship's helm theme from the Writing
Challenges. The game does a good job of expanding the horizons of this concept,
without becoming a cliché such as a pirate adventure. This game is a comedy
game, with nothing being taken seriously. Unfortunately I found the humour to
be a little over the top at times and it was not nearly as funny as the game
wanted itself to be. It wasn't bad, just not great. Even if I didn't find every
joke funny, the writing style for the game is still good.
The puzzles are not difficult, so this game should
not take too long. The game uses the full ten room limit to create a convincing
layout for the ship. I liked having a room specially for the plank. A bit more
detail could have improved the game, with the NPCs in particular being fairly
lifeless. Reasons are given for their lack of responsiveness, but they really
might as well not have been there. My overall thoughts were that this is a
reasonable game, which can provide a good short diversion.
SCORE - 5/10
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
An entry to the Writing Challenges Comp I hosted
(see? Even now the comp has ended, I'm still plugging it at every
opportunity!). This one chose the ship’s helm location for its setting.
You're Captain Jean Luc-Warm (yes, very witty) of
the Royal Navy cargo ship, HMS Challenged. You’ve been assigned to deliver a
cargo of IKEA furniture to the inhabitants of the
Amusing intro. Amusing game on the whole. Within
the confines of a game that is restricted to a maximum of ten rooms in order to
meet the comp requirements, there's a fair bit to do here, although I felt the
lack of NPC interaction could have been improved upon.
There was only one bit in the game that stumped me
and this involved looking under something. At every other point in the game
that I tried, LOOK UNDER [ITEM] had produced the same response as EXAMINE
[ITEM], leading me to suspect that the two were going to be treated the exact
same way throughout the whole game. Not so. At one crucial point, I was
required to LOOK UNDER an item to find a couple of things – this I discovered
after checking the walkthrough to see if there was anything I was missing about
the game. Perhaps strangest of all was that the item I needed to look under (a
pantry) isn't the sort of item I would otherwise have even tried to look under.
Isn't a pantry a small room off one side of a kitchen where food is stored? And
aren't those small rooms off one side of a kitchen where food is stored
generally situated on the floor? As such, is it even possible to look under one
of them?
Other than that, any faults the game had were
pretty minimal. There are a few NPCs around the ship to speak to. The
conversation system used is in the TALK TO [NAME] format but whereas this works
with some NPCs, it doesn’t with all of them. Instead you get hit with ADRIFT’s
default advising you to ASK [NAME] ABOUT [SUBJECT], only when I tried this I
never managed to get a meaningful response from anyone no matter what I tried.
Then again, I don’t think conversation is really required for this game as I
managed to reach both of the endings without engaging in a single conversation.
Aside from a few rough edges (and the odd typo here
and there!), this was a pretty decent game for a newcomer: amusing and nicely
written. Very easy as well. None of the puzzles really require any thinking
about, and assuming you don’t trip yourself up with the items under the pantry,
you ought to be able to get through the entire thing in about 10-15 minutes.
Fortunately the pantry problem only affects one of the game’s possible endings
so if you can’t figure it out, no need to worry. Just go for the other one.
7 out of 10
REVIEWER: TDS
General(for players)
This entry is TonyB's first effort at an IF game
and it isn't too bad. You are the captain of a cargo ship on the way to
"the
Exploring the ship I found an alarming number of
common first-time technical mistakes such as every room description starting
off with "You are in..." and actions in descriptions. Your crew is
pathetic and there's no npc interaction within the game. You're given the common
excuses as to why you can't talk to them. Since the game is a comedy it could
benefit from funny conversations with the ship's highly incompetent crew
members. The game could've also done better with a little more length. Some of
the rooms and all of the characters were useless and could've provided for nice
puzzles or at least been a little more entertaining. Although I do like the
fact the game has multiple endings. It adds to the replay value and many
games(especially small ones) would do well to have them. The writing needed a
boost along with every other aspect of the game.
However, this is his first game. Be aware
the game has a ridiculous amount of technical errors(which I will discuss in
the technical review). If you can get over that you'll find a decent adventure
you can beat in a couple minutes.
5/10
Technical(for authors)
*This is my analysis of the game. Everything I
suggest are just suggestions that I think would make the game better.
Hmm...where do I start? How about the first thing
that hit me upon playing.
Sloppy intro
The introduction to the game is rather sloppy. It
gives the game title twice and the second time it is in quotes. No need for
quotes and no need restating the title twice for an intro screen. There are
colors which some may find to be a signal of newbdom but I personally don't
mind. The intro also breaks the "fourth wall" a couple times by
saying things such as "Welcome drifter" and "we start our
quest". It also mentions how many rooms there are within the text. Since
it's a comedy it isn't too bad but if you're going to break the fourth wall, do
it elegantly.
"You are in..."
syndrome
Every room description in the game starts off with
"You are...." This is silly because we know by the room title we are
in the room! Adding "You are.." at the beginning every room
description shows the author is new to the whole authoring game. Try not to
start any room with "You are in..." and your writing will improve,
guaranteed.
Actions in descriptions
The unwritten rule(actually I think it is written)
of IF design is that you never put actions in descriptions.
You notice a
large mouse scuttle across the floor and vanish under the pantry.
That is in one room description and it never
changes. So every time I enter the room a large mouse scuttles across the
floor. That is BAD.
There is some
writing on the wall in red marker pen that reads "Please knock before
entering". You decided not to bother knocking as you know the first mate
is never in his room, and, as you operate a "no knocking policy"
prior to snooping round people's rooms looking for stuff to steal.
Also BAD. The player is being controlled way too
much. It's the player's choice to knock on the door or not. Remember,
descriptions describe a place, person, or thing. I shouldn't examine a
floorboard and end up pulling it up, you know?
Descriptions
>x floor
A wooden
floor...what more can I say?
You can say a lot more! Force your brain to pump
out a creative way to describe it. Leaving the description bare hurts your
creativity in the long run.
> x shark
A shark is
circling the water below you...
Details, details, details. What does the shark look
like? Although I have an idea of what a shark looks like it's the writers job
to paint an image for me.
Misc.
You can move North,
East, South, West, up or down.
I don't know if this is how old school text
adventures did it or just the mark of a first time
author. But there is no reason those directions should be capitalized. It
doesn't help me notice it in the text and sticks out like a sore thumb. One
shouldn't just flat out say "You can move north, east, south, west, up, or
down" either. Mix the exits in the room descriptions. It looks much better
and the player knows where he or she is going.
QuickNotes
·
Easy on the exclamation marks.
·
Don't capitalize so much.
·
When using ellipses (using multiple
periods like this...) use three if you use in the middle of a sentence, four at
the end of a sentence. "Press any key" doesn't count.
·
Don't say the player is wearing
something in the room description unless it changes or player can't take it
off.
·
NPCs need life. Give them a soul
for god's sake!
Lots of potential on author's part.
Next game should be better.
Technical
Rating - 1/10
Overall
Rating(not average) - 2/10
AUTHOR: C. HENSHAW
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 4.00
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
Another one room game and quite a bit better than the
previous one I played by the same author (Lab Rats) but still with more than a
few rough edges.
You're a magician, as the title might imply, and
you're entertaining kids at a party. Nice idea, and some interesting tricks you
can perform (albeit none of them really qualify as 'magic', they're more the
sort of things TV magicians tend to perform instead of genuine magic), but in
the confines of a single room there's only so much that can be done. It might
be worth fleshing this idea out a bit, including a few genuine magic tricks
with spell components and the like, but then as the same idea has been used
before in an ADRIFT game (The Magic Show), maybe it's best left as a single
room game after all to avoid further comparisons.
Quite a few of the magic tricks involve nothing
more complicated than simply picking up an item. You don't even have to figure
out how to use it, as once the item is in your possession the game will take
over and perform the trick for you. Like… magic! Unfortunately, it's not all
this straightforward as several of the tricks require some serious thought to
figure out what needs to be done, and a few others, alas, are hit pretty bad by
guess the verb. Lab Rats had guess the verb problems that had me climbing the
walls in frustration at one point. There's nothing as heinous as that here
thankfully, although several minutes spent trying to figure out the correct
thing to type in relation to the balloons (and wrestling with more ambiguity
errors than you can shake a stick at) was almost as bad. Surely the author must
have been aware of such problems?
A few obvious responses - like bursting the
balloons or waving the wand - didn't seem to be covered, and sometimes produced
rather strange error messages along the lines of I HAVEN'T LEARNED HOW TO DO
THAT. Not the best error message in the world when faced with something simple
like bursting a balloon or waving a wand.
Of the nine separate magic tricks that need to be
completed in order to finish the game, I got all but two on my own (both
relating to the balloons) so overall this was a fairly easy game. Amusing as
well for as long as it lasted - probably ten or fifteen minutes - although
there were more than a few typos in the text that really should have been
caught by a careful proofread.
5 out of 10
AUTHOR: COREY W. ARNETT
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 4.00
REVIEWER: TDS
Even though you know better,
some unseen force draws you up the long path towards the house for a closer look.
No good can come of this, you are certain, but the attraction is simply too
strong. You must investigate. You are beginning to develop an uneasy sense that
all is not right here, but that it is somehow up to you to find out. Church
bells in the distance sound out four o’clock in the afternoon. It will be dark
soon. And with the night comes things that go bump.
I always laugh at that last sentence. The whole paragraph is incredibly
overwritten. So much for good first impressions.
Before the game even starts you are hit with even more ridiculous lines
such as:
The sun has breached the
horizon and its fervent intensity warms the land, pulling the moisture from the
ground in a sinuous miasma that rises up into the atmosphere like languid
serpents.
Yes, the game is quite literary. A bit too literary
for my tastes. When the game finally does begin you are creeping around a house
for no reason. In my case I was stuck wandering around for quite some time
before I realized I’d missed a very important item. I had missed an item list
that told me what I’d be collecting. That’s what the game is about. Collecting
items on a list. You have to be kidding me.
Wading through room after room of stale (yet full)
descriptions doesn’t interest me. Very little action progressed the story at
all. In fact there’s a huge gap from the beginning to end where story
advancement is concerned. You don’t learn much more about it except from these
two points. This would be fine but there are no good puzzles to hold the story
up. Most of the puzzles have been thrown in for the sole purpose of keeping the
player busy. Actually all of the puzzles have been created for that
reason. The flowery writing is the weak glue that keeps the game from falling
apart to reveal what it really is. A tedious, story-thin treasure hunt.
To beat the game you must collect items off a list and travel to the
center of a maze to win. If that sounds fun to you then this game will keep you
busy for ages.
If I judged games on how good they look instead of how well they play
this game would get a 9/10. But because presentation isn’t everything I give it
a…
3/10.
AUTHOR: TALEWEAVER
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 3.90
REVIEWER: SARA
In this game, you play a Japanese teenager on a
typical weekend day (in other words, no school!) I would place this piece of IF in the
“slice-of-life” genre and the game does do a relatively good job of faithfully
simulating Akari’s daily life.
Unfortunately, that simulation can sometimes be a little bit pedantic in
the sense that it provides little in the way of “escape value.” I wasn’t particularly caught up in the story
or involved in the action, despite the fact that the world-modeling implementation
was adequate. Along those same lines,
Akari’s day lacked a sense of urgency or any clear goals. Accordingly, there wasn’t very much to
command action or to require much of the PC.
The walkthrough reveals that the game ends after a
certain number of turns… at the end of the day, so to speak. So, there is no real way to “win” the game,
although there is a scoring system that awards points for certain actions. The walkthrough also revealed that I tried
many of the actions that the author had in mind, while there were others that I
missed completely and would have never thought of had I not read the
walkthrough.
One of the most interesting aspects of this piece
is that it DOES provide insight into another culture (unless, of course, you
happen to be a Japanese teenager yourself!)
Japanese customs and terminology and even dietary preferences are woven
into the game, which is quite intriguing!
The game also reveals a bit about what is important to modern Japanese
youngsters… also neat to know. On the
downside, this may have the effect of making the player feel more like a
spectator than a participant. It is as
if one is observing Akari’s life, rather than participating in it or living it,
which makes the pace of the work feel rather slow at times.
The writing is rather sparse, in the sense that
room descriptions are relatively brief and many nouns are non-examinable. Still, I didn’t note any particularly jarring
errors in grammar or spelling, which certainly helped make for a pleasant reading
experience in that regard. In short,
however, I felt much as if I was reading an essay by a Japanese teenager about
her life, rather than playing a game.
There are puzzles in the game and they are
reasonably well-crafted, although certainly not complicated. I wish there had been more of a sense of
payoff to successfully solving the puzzles, however. Because the problems posed were essentially
of the routine, day-to-day variety, and there was very little urgency, it
didn’t seem to matter much whether I solved the puzzles or not. The only real impact for doing so was the
point value added to my score for performing certain actions.
The characters in the game were largely
undeveloped, except for the PC. All of
the NPCs felt rather static and cardboard to me, almost as if they were objects
rather than characters. Conversation is
minimal, except if you happen to guess the few things that the author has
allowed you to “ask [character] about,” but this is not an uncommon problem by
any means.
As for plot and story, both were a little
thin. Without a compelling goal to spur
action, the experience was much more like an exploration than an interactive
narrative. Game play progressed
smoothly, though, with little evidence of “bugginess.” There was an occurrence or two of “guess the
verb,” but I found those issues to be relatively easily solved and certainly
not game-stoppers. A reading of the
walkthrough definitely revealed several cases of “read the author’s mind” and
in each case, I had failed to do so.
In conclusion, this game could be much improved by
augmenting descriptions to add atmosphere and capture the attention of the
player, as well as implementing more variety and innovation in the tasks of the
PC to make for a more compelling story line.
Overall rating:
** out of ***** for faithful simulation, fair puzzles, and
cross-cultural value.
AUTHOR: MYSTERY
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 3.90
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
Background: you're a schoolboy who has to get ready
for school.
Hardly the most enthralling of introductions
unfortunately. The game’s READ ME task makes a big point of emphasising the
fact that this game is for kids. IT IS FOR KIDS! it shouts at one point and
that point should be kept in mind if people decide to rate it. Hmmm… Sounds to
me like someone who has written a bad game and is trying to ward off any
negative comments it may receive.
But on with the game itself. What’s it like? Not
too bad for the most part. A few typos here and there yet nothing too hideous.
The only problem that presents itself is, wait for it, the dreaded guess the
verb. And this game has guess the verb galore. Some of the guess the verb
issues are just downright strange – WEAR UNIFORM doesn’t work yet produces a
message advising me to try something else. (Being advised what I needed to try
would have been helpful.) However, PUT CLOTHES ON works fine. Now, even
accepting that this game is aimed directly at kids, how many of them are likely
to type PUT CLOTHES ON instead of WEAR CLOTHES? (I discovered this not by trial
and error but by opening up the game in the Generator to see what I was
missing.) Another location features a bowl and a box of Frooties but whereas
Frooties can be referred to in some instances, POUR CEREAL IN BOWL is required
to actually get anything done.
Directions in the game appear only after certain
tasks have been completed, never a favourite idea of mine. So your bedroom to
begin with has just one exit, north to the bathroom, yet once you're wearing
your uniform another exit opens up to the east. Likewise, you can’t leave your
house until you’ve eaten your breakfast (perhaps the breakfast cereal contains
certain ingredients that make the invisible front door somehow visible). And
you can’t do anything outside your house… well, at all. The game seems to reach
an ending outside of your house with no further tasks to complete, no items to
examine and nothing to do at all as far as I could tell.
Overall, First Day isn’t a horrible game but
it has the impression of one barely even finished. Outside the house there are
no examinable items or even any tasks that need performing – is that the end of
the game? But if so, shouldn’t there at least be some kind of THIS IS THE END
OF THE GAME message displayed on screen?
3 out of 10
AUTHOR: DARKLING
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 4.00
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
Background: you're a half-elf called Alex
Thassylian, the daughter of (wait for it!) Sysallandrianthasa Thassylian. Today
your friends, Greg and Selana, have embarked on a journey but seem to have left
without first waking you.
A decidedly strange title for the game, but The
First To Arise: Alone With A Pug isn't at all bad. It’s nicely written, has
a few difficult (but easily solvable puzzles) and was quite enjoyable to play
for as far as I managed to get before becoming well and truly stuck (not all
the puzzles are easily solvable unfortunately).
The pug of the game’s title is some kind of
intelligent dog called Flash who the player can question about a few subjects
in the ask [name] about [subject] style. Normally I'm not a big fan of
this but here it works pretty well as I was able to question Flash about a fair
number of subjects and get decent responses to most of my attempts. That he
kept running away in the midst of conversations and I was forced to pursue him
round the house just to get answers was annoying though.
Some of the puzzles are awkward. Questioning Flash
reveals the location of a key, yet examining that location fails to reveal said
key. After first muttering a while over what looked like an error in the game,
then a bit of wrestling with guess the verb, the key is discovered but, while
it will unlock a door elsewhere in the game, it can’t open it due to the wood
having warped. Getting through the door seems to be the main aim of the game
but it got the better of me in the end as no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem
to find a way of getting it open. (I felt the game was pretty decent overall so
I won’t go on at length the fact that there are several unbarred windows in the
house that the player could, in real life, have climbed through to get outside
if he was determined.)
Of all the older ADRIFT games I played recently,
this one stood out as the best of the bunch. While not an exceptional game (I
didn’t reach the later stages so if it became exceptional then, I unfortunately
missed out on that), it was head and shoulders above the others. Just don’t be
put off by the overly strange title!
6 out of 10
AUTHOR: FLAME ACHRON
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 3.90
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
Background: (from the intro) You are [name], in a quest
to save Florand, from the Distant Fox of D'narolf, in the paralell land.
Hardly the kind of introduction that makes you sit
up and take notice, is it? Then again, the quality (or otherwise) of the
introduction is pretty much par for the course for the rest of the game so it’s
at least a good indicator of what is to come.
The Fox isn't a game many people are likely to enjoy. It
features minimal room descriptions – most being little more than a line in
length with no attempt made to add any depth – NPCs who can’t be interacted
with aside from buying items from them, bad spelling, worse grammar… and, if
that wasn’t bad enough, you find right at the end that you can’t complete the
game if you picked the wrong class at the start!
Other annoyances pop up in the form of a troll that
disappears partway through a combat and isn't seen from again after that. (Is
this ADRIFT’s combat system moving the troll after it dies and not telling the
player about it, or just a weirdness on the part of the game itself?) Overall,
you'll probably be through the entire game in a matter of minutes as there are
no puzzles to solve here and the bulk of the commands that need to be entered
are directional ones. Move from point A to point B, kill a troll, enter point C
(assuming you're a Sorcerer… if not, bad luck. You can’t finish the game) and
you're there. Certainly the easiest game I've played for a long time, but if I
was asked what the point of it was I’d be hard pressed to tell you.
Oh, and it also features a truly jaw dropping
description for an item called the warrior sword: THIS IS A SWORD FOR WARRIORS.
Classic.
3 out of 10
AUTHOR: SOCKETS
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 3.90
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
Background: your father
sends you out with the trash, then along to the local serial killer’s house to
fetch some milk. Before long, you're being chased by some guy with a chainsaw.
I remember playing all
four versions of Jason Evans 4 – the first almost okay although still
flawed, the second bad, the third dire, and the less said about the fourth the
better (but it almost gave Death Agency a run for its money as Worst
ADRIFT Game Of All Time). But I’d never played any of the first three games.
Partly this was because of what everyone said about them (that they were
unbelievably awful) and partly because of the way the writer used to make a
point of referring to himself as “The Master Horror Game Writer” on the ADRIFT
forum and was forever talking about his latest “masterpiece”. Hmmm…
But curiosity got the
better of me, so, with the lack of current ADRIFT games around, I decided I’d
try the first game and see if it was as bad as everyone said.
And was it? No.
Actually, it was a lot
worse…
The writing is, and
let’s not beat about the bush here, terrible. Truly terrible. Probably the
worst writing I've ever come across. There are spelling mistakes galore and
some appalling grammar. If all that wasn’t bad enough, the game is written from
first person perspective yet the default responses are second person. In a good
game, this would be annoying. In a bad game, it’s just another nail in the
coffin.
Aside from that, we have
some serious lapses in anything approaching logic. The player is sent to get
some milk from his neighbour, Jason Evans, despite the man’s reputation. On top
of that, when he arrives at Jason’s house, lets himself in and finds a crazy
man thumping on the window, does he run like heck to get out there as soon as
possible? Nope. He hunts around for some milk first. Sheesh…
Play the game with the
Generator open at all times. You'll need it. I'm probably not spoiling the game
(it’s already too spoilt as it is) by saying that the milk you need is on top
of the fridge, but you'll never discover this if you play by the rules.
Examining the fridge reveals nothing. You can’t open it. Only by checking the
Generator and discovering the bizarrely worded task USE CHAIR ON FRIDGE did I
manage to locate and take the milk.
There are too many errors
in the game to make it even vaguely playable. After taking the milk, a man
bursts through the window into the kitchen, yet when trying to examine him
you're told he isn't there. In another location, you need to escape from the
man by breaking a statue, yet never is there any indication as to why this
should make a difference. Elsewhere I found myself at a dead end, but when I
tried knocking on a door I'm told there's actually another road leading off to
the west.
That was about all I
could take. The terrible reputation that the Jason Evans’ games have achieved
over the years seems well founded. This is one truly awful game.
1 out of 10
AUTHOR: MATT (DARK BARON)
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 3.90
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
Background: you're an adventurer called Liqid who
is bald and has decided to go on a quest for more hair.
What the…?
Yep. You read that right. An adventurer called Liqid.
Who is bald. Who is going on a quest for more hair. No wonder I don’t remember
much about the game from when it first came out. I probably took one look at
the introduction (littered with spelling mistakes as it happens) and quit it
five seconds later. The fact that it was credited to someone with the bizarre
name of Matt (Dark Baron) didn’t help matters much either.
There are so many things wrong with the game that
making any kind of progress is a constant guess the verb battle. Or, more
appropriately, ‘guess what the heck the writer was thinking’. Want an example?
Well… one room has a rusty bell in it that needs to be rung. But does RING BELL
work? Nope. RING RUSTY BELL? Nope. Seems you need to put RING *THE* BELL in
order to get the game to understand what you want. Grrrr.
The game also makes use of ADRIFT’s built in combat
system which is every bit as bad here as it is in every other game I've played
that has used it. Most of the time, it’s simply a case of typing KILL DRUNK
WITH SWORD until either you or the drunk fall down dead and seeing such
wonderful messages as this
You HIT Drunk with the
Sword. Drunk hits you.
You HIT Drunk with the
Sword. Drunk hits you.
You HIT Drunk with the
Sword. Drunk hits you.
You HIT Drunk with the
Sword. Drunk hits you.
displayed on the screen. Anyone who thinks that
combat systems have no place in a text adventure would certainly be speaking
from a stronger footing if they played this game.
What else is there to say about the game? There are
numerous spelling mistakes – a few in almost every sentence – as well as more
grammatical errors than you'd see if you attended the Grammatical Errors
Convention; there are descriptions for very few of the items mentioned in room
descriptions (and the ones that have descriptions are seriously lacking (the
key carries the wonderful description IT IS A SMALL BRONZE KEY)); item names
begin with capital letters (Sword and Cabinet) for no apparent reason; a
location with a pit that kills you a turn after you enter it (some kind of
event runs that moves you over the pit and then plunges you downwards to your
doom, whether or not you actually wanted to do that or not); a ferry man armed
with a (sic) Schmitar; and unhelpful and often sarcastic responses to
reasonable commands.
All in all, this is one terrible game.
1 out of 10
AUTHOR: PAUL JOHNSON
PLATFORM: INFORM
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
I've played a couple of other games by the same author
recently - House Of The Midnight Sun,
which was very good but also flawed, and Jet
Blue, which was okay but also flawed and probably contained one of the
highest number of typos I've ever seen in a game. The Ghost Train actually comes between the other two but I missed
it out at the time because, like HOTMS, it's a horror and I felt like a change
of pace. But while looking around for a game to play recently, I remembered
this one and decided to give it a whirl.
First Impressions
My first impression of The Ghost Train was that it was a bit too linear for my liking. It
begins in a train compartment, with you and your fiancé, Ingrid, travelling
home to see your family for Christmas. Nothing seems to happen for several
moves, after which the train crashes and you, perhaps unsurprisingly, are the
train's only survivor. You awaken at the side of the wrecked train, wander
around for a bit, and then return to the scene of the crash… only to find the
wreckage missing. All very eerie.
Stranger things follow. Your fiancé's necklace,
which she was wearing on the train, shows up nearby, and you even hear her
voice on an old phone. This is all very atmospheric and well written and bodes
well for the rest of the game.
Unfortunately, the start of the game seems to be
most polished and things seem to go quickly downhill. Later parts have a rushed
feel to them, as well as making precious little sense. While I could get my
head around the idea of the game to begin with, later on it just seemed to lose
its way.
Problems
The most noticeable problems with the game are the
constant grammatical errors which seem to litter almost every location.
Frequently the game will put two different parts of a conversation on the same
line whereas other times they are separated by a couple of lines space, or put
apostrophes in the wrong place or just format the text in such a way that it
often looks out of place on the screen. None of these are major problems and a
few would be easily forgivable, but a decent proofread through the text could
have picked up 99% of them.
One problem I came across was due to the unhelpful
way the game described a creature that was trying to kill me. He was referred
to alternatively as "ticket collector", "corpse" and
"skeleton" yet examining any of those or trying to interact with them
just hit me with one error message after another. I figured out what I needed
to do, yet it wasn't until I checked the walkthrough and realised I actually
need to refer to him as "ghost" (which he clearly wasn't) that I was
able to deal with him.
A previous game I played by the same author - House Of The Midnight Sun - showed a
high standard of testing for the most part. This game doesn't. There are
strange errors popping up all over the place, not the least of which is a list
of deaths I found in the chapel which I couldn't seem to figure out anything to
do with. Examining it hit me with the strange error message I ONLY UNDERSTOOD
YOU AS FAR AS WANTING TO EXAMINE THE LIST OF DEATHS, with EXAMINE being
replaced with READ or GET if that's what you try instead. Perhaps strangest of
all is the fact that I wasn't even aware a list of deaths existed in the chapel
until I tried, following a prompt in the game, to locate some information on my
fiancé and in response to SEARCH INGRID I was told "In the bookcase is a
list of deaths".
One particularly frustrating thing the game does
part of the way through is put some of the location descriptions in poetry
(very bad poetry, and often riddled with spelling mistakes). The first time I
saw this I assumed it was just some quote from a poem that the author had
decided, for whatever reason, to include in his game… and I promptly ignored
them afterwards. It wasn't till later in the game, when I'd exhausted just
about every other option and was struggling to find some way forward, that I
realised the poems weren't just there for decoration and actually served a
purpose. Annoying? Oh yes.
Problems
Again and again while playing The Ghost Train I was forced back to the walkthrough. A couple of
times it was a case of me not trying hard enough or simply missing a clue that
was presented to me (nothing new there!); other times it was down to some very
definite faults in the game design. Aside from the ghost being referred to as
different names during the game, there was an error in the name of a church I
had to research information on. The church is down as 'Gorgan' in the
inscription I found, yet 'Gorgon' is what you need to type to find out any
information on it. Whatever positive things the game has going for it, and it
does have a few despite the largely negative tone of this review so far, they
get lost amidst the sheer number of problems.
Some of the game's puzzles are easy to figure out.
Some are difficult but well clued. Some are so vague as to be almost
impossible. Even after seeing the walkthrough, I'm still not sure about some of
them. Obviously someone managed to solve them so they're not as impossible as
you might think, but it's hard to imagine many people having the patience to
reason them out. Towards the end of the game in particular, the puzzles become
generally less well clued as if the author either got bored or was simply
trying to finish the game as quickly as possible. A conversation option towards
the end of the game, involving Satan (or Salan as he's wrongly referred to on
occasion), requires the player to ask a question about a subject that there's
no reason to ask about.
Clearly whatever kind of testing this game went
through prior to release was poor at best.
Overall
Despite the many, many problems with the game, I
found myself enjoying playing The Ghost
Train for the most part, but every time I thought it was going to turn into
a really good game, I ran into another error, or another impossible to figure
out puzzle, or a whole mass of typos one after one, and my favourable opinion
of it dropped a notch. Any game that has me consulting the walkthrough on a
regular basis isn't necessarily a bad game in itself, but when the puzzles I'm
stuck on are down to guess the noun issues (like with the ghost/ticket
collector/skeleton/ corpse) or misspellings (Gorgan instead of Gorgon), I start
to wish I'd played something else instead. Fix the errors, a mammoth task in
itself, and this would be a well above average horror game. As it stands, it's
still good enough in its own right but definitely not anywhere as good as it
could have been.
This is the third game by the same author I've
played recently, and while I've enjoyed them all to one degree or another,
they've all been particularly prone to bugs and guess the verb. Each has
contained more than a few of each, this game being the worst of the three, and
indicates an author too eager to properly test his games out before releasing
them or one who simply doesn't think that bugs and guess the verb are a
problem. Now if this was some talentless hack who couldn't write worth a damn,
I'd just make a point of avoiding any future games he releases and decide I
wasn't really missing anything, but the writing in the games is generally good,
the storylines interesting, and my overall feeling is that the games are well
above average. So it's a crying shame that he just can't pay a little more
attention to detail and maybe even take the time to proofread his text. None of
the games have been masterpieces, but the potential is certainly there… if the
problems can be fixed.
4 out of 10
<<THE FOLLOWING REVIEWS ARE
FOR AIF GAMES, WHICH CONTAIN STRONG SEXUAL CONTENT>>
AUTHOR: LUCILLA FROST
PLATFORM: TADS
REVIEWER: DAVID WHYLD
The author’s first game,
British Fox & The Celebrity
Abductions, was highly spoken of in the AIF community when it came out, yet
for some reason I never seemed to have got round to playing it. But when the
sequel, written in TADS (the original was an ADRIFT game) put in an appearance,
I decided I’d give it a go to see what all the fuss was about. Would it live up
to the hype generated by its predecessor? Or would it just be another of those
games that the AIF people love but the rest of the world hate?
Thankfully it was the
former.
To Cage A Magpie follows the adventures of cockney
thief, Angela Hall, AKA The Magpie, who uses her powers of being able to fly
and turn invisible to rob from the rich and… well, keep it for herself. (Where
did she get these powers from? Don’t know. The game doesn’t see fit to
enlighten me.) Obviously Anj (as she's known to friends) hasn’t made good use
of her talents as she's living in a grimy council flat when the game begins.
There are a few problems
with Magpie but considerably less than I expected from an AIF game. It’s been
tested, for god’s sake! Actually tested! Unfortunately the testing missed out a
few annoyances like a crucial item required to progress the game only showing
up after the ‘stuff’ in Magpie’s apartment has been searched a certain number
of times (the actual number seems to vary from game to game). As such, I spent
a good fifteen minutes scratching my head in frustration before I could even
leave the apartment. I’d searched everywhere, done everything I could think of,
tried the hints which, this being an AIF game, were non-existent, and was just
on the verge of quitting when I decided to search again and, lo and behold, I
found something useful! After that, the game progressed quite happily for a
while, although I’d question the necessity to make the player search something
a random number of times. After you search once and fail to find something
useful, why would you keep searching on the off chance something you need will
show up?
The storyline involves
stealing a briefcase from the house of one Mr Smythe, inside which are a number
of confidential documents. Getting into the house is easy enough (there are
several different ways to get inside) but getting the briefcase, and them
getting out of the house again, is a nightmare. Kudos to the writer for coming
up with such a mind bogglingly frustrating series of events, and I suppose it’s
to her credit that I kept on struggling with things long after I’d have given
up with most other games. Part of the incentive to keep on trying is the way
every time you fail, you seem to get ever so slightly closer to what you're
trying to achieve and it’s easy to think “ah, but if I did it that way
instead…” then you'll get to where you need to be.
Magpie is unusual for an
AIF game for several reasons. First, as stated above, it’s been tested and
while this hasn’t eliminated every problem (try searching Mr Smythe or Lady
Windsor and you'll see what I mean), it’s certainly gone a long way towards
making this one of the few AIF games released recently that’s actually well
worth playing. Second, the game is about the storyline and not solely focused
on the sex. In fact, there's not even that much sex in Magpie, and even less
that directly involves the player. Smythe and Windsor will have a lengthy sex
scene, but this progresses whether the player is actually present or not. A
later sex scene, necessary to the game’s completion, features the player and
Windsor herself, although it’s more erotic than the usual explicit hardcore
writings that plague most AIF games. I'm sure even a few of the regular IF
crowd could play this game and not be unduly offended over it.
One of the game’s
oddities, although it didn’t really affect the game in the long run, was the
way the description of Smythe’s living room is repeated for both the stairs and
the kitchen, thereby making it awkward sometimes telling where the player is. A
couple of times, I could have sworn I was actually in the living room but the
game wouldn’t let me move upstairs because it seemed to think I was in the
kitchen.
By far the worst thing
about the game, and the ceaseless repetition of which was enough to tempt me to
bash out QUIT a time or two, is the PC’s craving for a smoke. Now if this
happened once or twice throughout the game, it'd be acceptable. But every few
moves? Definitely not acceptable. Before I’d even managed to leave my apartment,
I was overcome with the urge for a smoke. I had another while trying to get
into Smythe’s house, another once I was inside, several others whilst searching
for the briefcase… Tedious puzzle? Oh yes. But then it’s not even really a
puzzle as simply typing SMOKE fixes the cigarette craving – or at least resets
the timer so you have a whole four or five moves before it begins all over
again. Strangely SMOKE and SMOKE TAB (another name for the cigarettes)
sometimes produce different responses, SMOKE TAB being a stealthy smoke while
SMOKE being a non-stealthy one that various NPCs in the game will detect if
they're close enough. This might have been a nice enough puzzle if I hadn’t
been typing SMOKE TAB right from the start of the game and so was unaware of it
for the most part.
If you decide not to
bother smoking a cigarette, or you run out, the game ends after a certain
amount of the time with Magpie deciding to abandon her mission and go off in
search of some more smokes. This she can do even if she happens to be locked in
Smythe’s house at the time with no other way out!
Many of the game’s
puzzles are of the try and die variety: meaning you try something not knowing
whether it’s going to succeed or kill you. Often this is the only way to make
progress and while it isn't much of a hassle to reload the game if it kills
you, or simply type UNDO a few times, it becomes annoying when you're dying
every few moves. As some of the puzzles (getting hold of the key being the
worst offender) are time based and can only happen at a certain time, it’s a
fair bet you're going to be reloading and UNDOing a lot. By the time I finally
got hold of the key without Smythe catching me, I must have died a dozen or
more times.
There are many ways to
put the game into an unfinishable situation and some had me almost climbing the
walls in frustration. The way the game’s sequences fit together is quite
ingenious, often requiring split second timing on the behalf of the player in
order to solve them. I ended up dying numerous times because I’d left something
a fraction of a second too long and either Smythe or Windsor caught me. Other
times, I died when the ultraviolet sensors came on and I was detected because I
hadn’t moved out of the way in time.
While not a perfect game
(I'm still having nightmares about the endless craving for smokes and getting
the safe open without being caught), To
Cage A Magpie is certainly a decent one. Compared to the recent bug-ridden
AIF offerings, it’s a delight. Beta-tested, well written, an actual honest to
god storyline, multiple ways of solving many of the game’s puzzles… it’s the
kind of thing the AIF community is crying out for, but which it gets so very
seldom indeed.
Highly recommended.
7 out of 10
LIST OF GAMES REVIEWED IN THIS ISSUE AND
PREVIOUS ISSUES
The Adventures of Space
Boy! Volume I by David
Parish ([1] issue
5 review by David Whyld / [2] issue 6 review by
The Adventures Of
Thumper: Wonder Wombat by
Sarazar (issue 3
review by
Akari’s Story by Taleweaver (issue 8 review by Sara Brookside)
Authority by Eva Vikstrom (issue 4 review by David Whyld)
Back To Life…
Unfortunately by David
Whyld ([1] issue 2 review by
Laurence Moore / [2] issue 2 review by Lumin)
Bedlam by Mark Whitmore (issue 4 review by David Whyld)
Bolivia By Night by Aidan Doyle (issue 4 review by David Whyld)
The Cabin by Blue Roses (issue 2 review by Lumin)
Can I Do It? by Chillindawg (issue 7 review by David Whyld)
Can It All Be So
Simple? by The
Dominant Species ([1] issue
6 review by
Castle Quest by Andrew Cornish (issue 4 review by David Whyld)
The Cave Of Morpheus by Mark Silcox (issue 2 review by THoiA)
Chasing the Russian by Greg Broulette (issue 7 review by David Whyld)
City Of Secrets by Emily Short (issue 2 review by David Whyld)
Crazy Old Bag Lady by Sprite (issue 6 review by
Darkness by Richard Otter ([1] issue 2 review by David Whyld /
[2] issue 3 review by Red-Sith)
A Day At The Seaside by Matthew Hunter ([1] issue 4 review by David Whyld /
[2] issue 4 by
The Demon Hunter by David Parish (issue 7 review by
Doctor Who & The
Vortex Of Lust by Christopher
Cole (issue 2 review by
THoiA)
Escape to Freedom by Richard Otter (issue 5 review by David Whyld)
Escape to New York by Richard Otter (issue 7 review by The Dominant
Species)
The Final Question by David Whyld ([1] issue 5 review by C. Henshaw /
[2] issue 5 review by Stefan Donati)
Fire In The Blood by Richard Otter ([1] issue 4 review by David Whyld /
[2] issue 4 by
The Fire Tower by Jacqueline A. Lott (issue 5 review by David Whyld)
First Day by Mystery (issue 8 review by David Whyld)
First to Arise: Alone
with a Pug by Darkling
(issue 8 review by David Whyld)
Flat Feet by Joel Ray Holveck (issue 4 review by David Whyld)
The Fox by Flame Achron (issue 8 review by David Whyld)
Frustrated Interviewee by Robert Rafgon [AKA
Future Boy! by Kent Tessman (issue 5 review by David Whyld)
The Ghost Train by Paul Johnson (issue 8 review by David Whyld)
Glum Fiddle by C. Henshaw ([1] issue 8 review by
Halloween Hijinks by David Whyld (issue 5 review by
The HeBGB Horror by Eric Mayer (issue 2 review by David Whyld)
Hoedown In Ho-Town by S. Welling (issue 3 review by David Whyld)
House Husband by C. Henshaw ([1] issue 4 review by David Whyld /
[2] issue 4 review by
House of the Midnight
Sun by Paul
Johnson (issue 7
review by David Whyld)
How It All Began by Kevin Treadway (issue 4 review by David Whyld)
The Hunter by Red Assassin (issue 7 review by
In The Claws Of
Clueless Bob by David
Whyld ([1] issue 5 review by
Jack of Shadows by
Jason Evans 1 by Sockets (issue 8 review by David Whyld)
Jonathan Grim: Space
Tourist by Ren ([1] issue 8 review by
Laboratory R.A.T.S. by C. Henshaw ([1] issue 6 review by
Lauren’s Awakening by TotalDirt (issue 5 review by David Whyld)
Lights, Camera, Action by David Whyld (issue 6 review by
The Magic Show by Jason MacInnes ([1] issue 2 review by David Whyld /
[2] issue 2 review by Laurence Moore)
The Makeshift Magician by C. Henshaw (issue 8 review by David Whyld)
Man Overboard!!! by TonyB ([1] issue 8 review by
The Merry Murders by Mel S (issue 1 review by Woodfish)
The Monster In The
Mirror: Part 1 by Mystery
(issue 4 review by
The Monster In The
Mirror: Part 2 by Mystery
(issue 4 review by
Mortality by David Whyld (issue 7 review by The Dominant Species)
Mount Voluptuous by Christopher Cole (issue 1 review by David Whyld)
Murder In Great Falls by Mel S ([1] issue 1 review by David Whyld /
[2] issue 1 review by Laurence Moore)
The Murder Of Jack
Morely by Mystery
(issue 2 review by David Whyld)
Must Escape! by Robert Rafgon [AKA
Must Escape!
(introduction) by Robert
Rafgon [AKA Robert Street] ([1]
issue 5 review by C. Henshaw / [2] issue 5 review by David Whyld / [3] issue 5
review by Stefan Donati)
The Mystery Of The
Darkhaven Caves by
David Whyld (issue 4
review by Laurence Moore)
Neighbours From Hell by David Whyld (issue 1 review by Laurence Moore)
Normville by BBBen (issue 5 review by David Whyld)
Outline by Robert Rafgon [AKA Robert Street] ([1] issue 5 by C. Henshaw / [2] issue
5 review by David Whyld / [3] issue 5 review by Stefan Donati)
Pathway to Destruction by Richard Otter (issue 7 review by David Whyld)
The Plague (Redux) by Laurence Moore (issue 7 review by The Dominant
Species)
Point 2 Point by C. Henshaw ([1] issue 5 review by David Whyld /
[2] issue 5 by Stefan Donati)
Private Eye by David Whyld (issue 4 review by
The Prostitute by The Anonymous Martian (issue 4 review by Laurence Moore)
Provenance by Corey W Arnett ([1] issue 7 review by David Whyld /
[2] issue 8 review by TDS)
The Quest for More Hair
by Matt (Dark Baron) (issue 8 review by David Whyld)
Regrets by David Whyld (issue 6 review by
Rift by Red-Sith ([1] issue 5 review by C. Henshaw /
[2] issue 5 review by David Whyld / [3] issue 5 review by Stefan Donati)
Selma’s Will by Mystery (issue 4 review by
Sex Artist by A. Ninny (issue 5 review by David Whyld)
Shadow of the Past by Catherine Post (issue 7 review by David Whyld)
Shards Of Memory by David Whyld (issue 1 review by Greybear)
Showtime at the Gallows by The Dominant Species (issue 7 review by
Silk Road Secrets:
Snakes And Ladders by KFAdrift (issue 2 review by David Whyld)
A Spot of Bother by David Whyld (issue 7 review by
Sun Empire: Quest For
The Founders by Tech (issue 3 review by
Take One by
Target by Richard Otter ([1] issue 6 review by
Threnody by John Schiff (issue 4 review by David Whyld)
The Timmy Reid
Adventure by
Jonathan R. Reid (issue 3
review by
To Cage a Magpie by Lucilla Frost (issue 8 review by David Whyld)
Too Much Exercise by
Varicella by Adam Cadre (issue 3 review by David Whyld)
Vendetta by James Hall ([1] issue 7 review by The Dominant
Species / [2] issue 7 review by
Veteran Experience by Robert Rafgon [AKA
Veteran Knowledge by Robert Rafgon [AKA
A Walk At Dusk by Eric Mayer ([1] issue 3 review by David Whyld /
[2] issue 3 review by Laurence Moore)
We Are Coming To Get
You! by Richard
Otter ([1] issue 2 review by
David Whyld / [2] issue 2 review by Laurence Moore)
Where Are My Keys? by Richard Otter (issue 1 review by David Whyld)
The White Singularity by Irene Villanueva ([1] issue 6 review by Stefan Donati /
[2] issue 6 review by David Whyld)
Whom The Telling
Changed by Aaron
A. Reed (issue 4
review by David Whyld)
The Will by Ambrosine (issue 5 review by
Wizard’s Playground by Evil_Flagpole (issue 7 review by Greg Boettcher)
The Woodfish Compendium by Woodfish (issue 1 review by David Whyld)
The Woods Are Dark by Cannibal [AKA Laurence Moore] (issue 2 review by THoiA)
Zack Smackfoot by
KFAdrift ([1] issue 5 by C. Henshaw / [2] issue
5 review by David Whyld / [3] issue 5 by Stefan Donati)
Zombies Are Cool, But
Not So Cool When They're Eating Your Head by Mel S (issue
2 review by David Whyld)