Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)
This part of my reviews contain:
Order
Blue Sky
Blue Chairs
The Bifg Scoop
The Orion Agenda
Trading Punches
Goose, Egg, Badger
Chronicle, Play, Torn
Order
To defend their small empire from an external attack, magicians summon
the PC who has the power to create things und thus fight the attacking
creatures. Neither the story nor ist ending are very surprising, but
the game could appeal to fantasy lovers. All puzzles are solved by
using the „create" command, so the term guess-the-noun is not a flaw,
but the basic game principle. I really liked the idea, but
unfortunately not the story.
4/10
Blue Sky
As a tourist in Santa Fe, the player missed his group and now has to
find it. This gives the opportunity to discover the obviously very
beautiful plaza of the city and the surroundings and in passingsolving
some not too hard puzzles. The idea of an interactive tourist guide is
pretty nice and the game made me want to visit the city. But to really
succeed, it would have been necessary to include more sightseeing
sites and far more information about them. I look forward to a bigger
post-comp release.
6/10
Blue Chairs
I ranked this one third of the comp and think it had the best writing
of them all. Its prose reminded me of the games of Robb Sherwin (which
is a big compliment). The game focusses on the story: a lost love, the
merging of dream and reality, truth and fiction and the possibilities
to determine one's own fate. The game is large and complex, with lots
of plot turns. Additionally, it gives the impression of many different
„solutions" and alternative endings (I'm not sure of that, having it
played to the end only once, but I definitly will play it again).
Still, it is not puzzle-free and has a sort of a maze. I thought that
was a bit distracting (not the puzzles but the maze-like second act),
so I won't rate it best score. Anyway: a definite recommendation.
8/10
The Big Scoop
The third mystery I played in the comp is a murder case, blamed on an
innocent woman. The player is a journalist who is given the
opportunity to solve the murder case and perhaps win the pulitzer
prize on the way. The game is far from spectacular, but on the bright
side doesn't have many flaws either. While the player solves nice
puzzles (very fair, yet some were too hard for me, but I guess that
was partly because I played it late in the comp and in the evening),
most of the thinking is done by Linda, the presumed murderer.
Accordingly, the story is pretty straight, brought forward by the
players actions but not really influenced by them. Nevertheless, it's
a fun game, best for a rainy sunday afternoon. In direct comparison, I
would chose Redeye, but that's a matter of taste.
7/10
The Orion Agenda
Stationed on a surveillance outpost in orbit of Orion 3, the player
observes the developing culture for a company called SciCorps. Even
better: thanks to a promotion he gets the chance to go on a field
mission for the first time. His mission is to disguise as an native
and investigate a problem in the SciCops base on the planet. Trouble
starts when the native Orionions discover them... I liked the story,
which reminded me very much of Star Trek's prime directive. Also very
nice is the slowly rising level of difficulty. The puzzles are well
clued and satisfying, although the stone puzzle lost me. There is an
interesting plot turn near the end. Although I didn't find it too
convincing, I liked seeing it. But there is a severe disadvantage
which made me mark down the game: it is almost unplayably slow on my
Palm m515. Sometimes it was one to two minutes (!) until I got a
response from the game. I finished it only because it was the only
game I had with me on a four hour train trip. I don't know what the
problem was, but I never encountered it before.
6/10
Trading Punches
After The Orion Agenda, this was the second game in a row that was
told as a flashback. I don't think that's a really good way to start a
piece of IF since it diminishes the feeling of being able to change
the story by the players actions. Trading Punches is a fantasy/SF
story about the first co-operation between humans and an alien race of
fire-beings. The author puts great detail in the world and the plot
and the story is nicely told. The puzzles are o.k. although sometimes
a bit confusing. I had a huge problem in chapter 2.2. where I remained
stuck although I consulted the walkthrough after a while. Restoring
and playing the part again, following the walkthrough step by step
worked, but I still marked the game down for this. I'm not a huge
fantasy fan, so if you are, try this one out.
5/10
Goose, Egg, Badger
In the night before her birthday, a girl on a farm has a lot to do:
clean the house, lock in the animals (which were, if I understand
correctly, freed by a burglar?) and so on. The main attraction of the
game is that most (all?) of the implemented nouns are also verbs. Or
so I'm told by the help text. Since I'm not a native speaker I won't
even try to guess what to „yak" or to „ape" could mean. The plot, of
course, is weak (cleaning up is something I try to avoid by playing IF
instead), but not the main point of the game. Perhaps I shouldn't rate
it at all, but rules are rules:
4/10
Chronicle, Play, Torn
Searching for his grand uncle, who practices occult arts, the player
discovers notes about a summoning of a kind of demon. He also
discovers a perished city. In the two hours until judging, I didn't
get into the mysteries any deeper. I also didn't get in the right mood
for the game, mostly because I was annoyed by technical errors: a lot
of reasonable commands that should solve the puzzles didn't work. When
I found a book about herbs and knew I had to identify mandrake using
it, „look up mandrake in book" didn't work. If you don't refer to the
book, which is titles „Of roots divine" as the „green book" you get
the answer „I don't know what you're referring to". It's frustrating
knowing the solution for a riddle but spending lots of time trying to
tell the game. There are other minor flaws: when I tried to „give"
something to a dog, I was told „You can only do that to something
animate". The verb „pet" (something I like doing with dogs) wasn't
implemented either. I will give the game another shot, but only after
it's beta tested more thoroughly.
5/10
This part of my reviews contain:
Order
Blue Sky
Blue Chairs
The Bifg Scoop
The Orion Agenda
Trading Punches
Goose, Egg, Badger
Chronicle, Play, Torn
Order
To defend their small empire from an external attack, magicians summon
the PC who has the power to create things und thus fight the attacking
creatures. Neither the story nor ist ending are very surprising, but
the game could appeal to fantasy lovers. All puzzles are solved by
using the „create" command, so the term guess-the-noun is not a flaw,
but the basic game principle. I really liked the idea, but
unfortunately not the story.
4/10
Blue Sky
As a tourist in Santa Fe, the player missed his group and now has to
find it. This gives the opportunity to discover the obviously very
beautiful plaza of the city and the surroundings and in passingsolving
some not too hard puzzles. The idea of an interactive tourist guide is
pretty nice and the game made me want to visit the city. But to really
succeed, it would have been necessary to include more sightseeing
sites and far more information about them. I look forward to a bigger
post-comp release.
6/10
Blue Chairs
I ranked this one third of the comp and think it had the best writing
of them all. Its prose reminded me of the games of Robb Sherwin (which
is a big compliment). The game focusses on the story: a lost love, the
merging of dream and reality, truth and fiction and the possibilities
to determine one's own fate. The game is large and complex, with lots
of plot turns. Additionally, it gives the impression of many different
„solutions" and alternative endings (I'm not sure of that, having it
played to the end only once, but I definitly will play it again).
Still, it is not puzzle-free and has a sort of a maze. I thought that
was a bit distracting (not the puzzles but the maze-like second act),
so I won't rate it best score. Anyway: a definite recommendation.
8/10
The Big Scoop
The third mystery I played in the comp is a murder case, blamed on an
innocent woman. The player is a journalist who is given the
opportunity to solve the murder case and perhaps win the pulitzer
prize on the way. The game is far from spectacular, but on the bright
side doesn't have many flaws either. While the player solves nice
puzzles (very fair, yet some were too hard for me, but I guess that
was partly because I played it late in the comp and in the evening),
most of the thinking is done by Linda, the presumed murderer.
Accordingly, the story is pretty straight, brought forward by the
players actions but not really influenced by them. Nevertheless, it's
a fun game, best for a rainy sunday afternoon. In direct comparison, I
would chose Redeye, but that's a matter of taste.
7/10
The Orion Agenda
Stationed on a surveillance outpost in orbit of Orion 3, the player
observes the developing culture for a company called SciCorps. Even
better: thanks to a promotion he gets the chance to go on a field
mission for the first time. His mission is to disguise as an native
and investigate a problem in the SciCops base on the planet. Trouble
starts when the native Orionions discover them... I liked the story,
which reminded me very much of Star Trek's prime directive. Also very
nice is the slowly rising level of difficulty. The puzzles are well
clued and satisfying, although the stone puzzle lost me. There is an
interesting plot turn near the end. Although I didn't find it too
convincing, I liked seeing it. But there is a severe disadvantage
which made me mark down the game: it is almost unplayably slow on my
Palm m515. Sometimes it was one to two minutes (!) until I got a
response from the game. I finished it only because it was the only
game I had with me on a four hour train trip. I don't know what the
problem was, but I never encountered it before.
6/10
Trading Punches
After The Orion Agenda, this was the second game in a row that was
told as a flashback. I don't think that's a really good way to start a
piece of IF since it diminishes the feeling of being able to change
the story by the players actions. Trading Punches is a fantasy/SF
story about the first co-operation between humans and an alien race of
fire-beings. The author puts great detail in the world and the plot
and the story is nicely told. The puzzles are o.k. although sometimes
a bit confusing. I had a huge problem in chapter 2.2. where I remained
stuck although I consulted the walkthrough after a while. Restoring
and playing the part again, following the walkthrough step by step
worked, but I still marked the game down for this. I'm not a huge
fantasy fan, so if you are, try this one out.
5/10
Goose, Egg, Badger
In the night before her birthday, a girl on a farm has a lot to do:
clean the house, lock in the animals (which were, if I understand
correctly, freed by a burglar?) and so on. The main attraction of the
game is that most (all?) of the implemented nouns are also verbs. Or
so I'm told by the help text. Since I'm not a native speaker I won't
even try to guess what to „yak" or to „ape" could mean. The plot, of
course, is weak (cleaning up is something I try to avoid by playing IF
instead), but not the main point of the game. Perhaps I shouldn't rate
it at all, but rules are rules:
4/10
Chronicle, Play, Torn
Searching for his grand uncle, who practices occult arts, the player
discovers notes about a summoning of a kind of demon. He also
discovers a perished city. In the two hours until judging, I didn't
get into the mysteries any deeper. I also didn't get in the right mood
for the game, mostly because I was annoyed by technical errors: a lot
of reasonable commands that should solve the puzzles didn't work. When
I found a book about herbs and knew I had to identify mandrake using
it, „look up mandrake in book" didn't work. If you don't refer to the
book, which is titles „Of roots divine" as the „green book" you get
the answer „I don't know what you're referring to". It's frustrating
knowing the solution for a riddle but spending lots of time trying to
tell the game. There are other minor flaws: when I tried to „give"
something to a dog, I was told „You can only do that to something
animate". The verb „pet" (something I like doing with dogs) wasn't
implemented either. I will give the game another shot, but only after
it's beta tested more thoroughly.
5/10
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