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 de