A Wind Blown From Paradise

by N.C. Hunter Hayden profile

Surreal
2013

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Number of Ratings: 13
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Too-buggy short game of underground train travel, November 16, 2021
by Wade Clarke (Sydney, Australia)
Related reviews: IFComp 2013, Inform

(This review originally appeared as a blog post of mine during IFComp 2013.)

A Wind Blown from Paradise is a small parser game that uses the drudgery of underground train travel and the wind blowing down the train tunnels as a metaphor for a greyed-out life not lived in the present; the siren song memories of the past are in technicolour. It's an idea well suited for delivery in IF format, but the delivery of this game is unfortunately frustrating. The solution shows me I had almost reached an ending after about 10-15 minutes of play, but I still quit at that point because I was tired of being thwarted by the random train travel mechanic and interrelated technical problems: the game failing to properly note when I was on a train or off it, turns being out of sync, some commands failing to give any response, a lack of basic synonyms, etc. These common problems could have been sorted out with input from folks with a little Inform 7 experience, but unfortunately the author hadn't spoken to any of them prior to IFComp 2013 (I know I because I spoke to him online at the time). There are also subtler design problems in that the game's responses don't give enough information to indicate that the game state may be changing, or that you may be progressing. It's too easy for the player to wander around in this one feeling lost, stuck in a repetitive loop with no guidance.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A short surreal game on a train with bugs, August 1, 2017
by MathBrush
Related reviews: less than 15 minutes

This is a rather buggy surreal game set on a train.

It's hard to say much about it, because I get stuck on the second platform; whenever a train comes in, and I try to get on, the game says 'The train isn't here, idiot.', which is hardly encouraging.

In fact, the game in general is fairly insulting to the player (try typing YES repeatedely). I've decompiled it, but can't find much.

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- Anya Johanna DeNiro (Minnesota), November 25, 2013

- streever (America), November 18, 2013

- Egas, November 17, 2013

- Hannes, November 16, 2013

- Sam Kabo Ashwell (Seattle), November 16, 2013

- Floating Info, November 16, 2013

- Karl Ove Hufthammer (Bergen, Norway), November 16, 2013

- Edward Lacey (Oxford, England), November 16, 2013

- Mr. Patient (Saint Paul, Minn.), November 8, 2013

- ifwizz (Berlin, Germany), October 21, 2013

- Juhana, October 8, 2013


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