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weather.z5
For all systems. To play, you'll need a Z-Machine Interpreter - visit Brass Lantern for download links.
weather.z5
original competition entry
For all systems. To play, you'll need a Z-Machine Interpreter - visit Brass Lantern for download links.
Weather.zip
Contains Weather.gmp
Map (in GUEmap format) and walkthrough
GUEmap file. Requires the GUEmap viewer - visit http://www.cjmweb.net/GUEmap for information. (Compressed with ZIP. Free Unzip tools are available for most systems at www.info-zip.org.)
weather.sol
Walkthrough

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A Change in the Weather

by Andrew Plotkin

Fantasy
1995

(based on 26 ratings)
2 member reviews

About the Story

"Walking away from a picnic, you are suddenly caught in a country storm. You must protect a bridge from being destroyed. An ultra-linear game." [--blurb from The Z-Files Catalogue]

Game Details

Language: English (en)
Current Version: Release 6
License: Freeware
Development System: Inform 6
Forgiveness Rating: Cruel
Baf's Guide ID: 235
IFIDs:  ZCODE-6-960613-2183
ZCODE-4-950819-FC88
TUID: 00wlim27k5d1hmf2

Awards

1st Place, Inform Division - First Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (1995)

Editorial Reviews

Baf's Guide


A deceptively simple premise: You get stuck out in the rain. This is one difficult little game, made of interlocking time-sensitive parts with ample opportunity to get things irrevocably wrong. Consists of two acts, one before and one during the all-important and landscape-transforming downpour. Well-polished prose. Excellent building of tension. Odd and twisty map. Very satisfying.

-- Carl Muckenhoupt

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Member Reviews

5 star:
(2)
4 star:
(14)
3 star:
(6)
2 star:
(2)
1 star:
(2)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 2
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Frustrating, well worth playing anyway, June 17, 2009
by Brian Conn (Rhode Island)
For me the main obstacle was that certain puzzles require you to have a good idea of the 3-D topography of the game world. I'm not very good at constructing that kind of thing in my head, and the game, although decently clear, was not very good at helping me, and so there were several key actions that I never would have guessed without a walkthrough.

The parser is also limited, but that didn't really give me trouble.

What the game does do exceptionally well is build a sense of isolation and real dread out of what would seem to be an innocent scenario. The writing is excellent, not just in the sense of describing sunsets (though it does that too), but in that it maintains a subtle and seamless emotional tone throughout. Your friends are just across the river, but you nevertheless get the feeling that there is something serious at stake -- much more so than in most games where you are jumping off buildings and saving the world and so on.

My advice is to go in committed, spend some time, and try your best, but look at a walkthrough before you start to hate the thing. The solutions to the puzzles are satisfying but not worth banging your head against the wall for.

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Puzzle-fiends Only Need Apply, October 20, 2007
by AmberShards (The Gothic South)
Honestly, that's the only way to sum up this game. While it features well-written prose and probably the best use of weather in IF, the puzzles utterly destroy any enjoyment you can wrench from the game. Not only are they timed puzzles, but feedback is wholly missing. Result: you die over and over again until you finally throw your hands up and find something more humane. It's a shame that the prose is wedded to such monstrously unfair puzzles.

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This is version 4 of this page, edited by Dave Chapeskie on 29 April 2009 at 6:45pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item