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by David Welbourn

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Eduard the Seminarist

by Heiko Theißen

2007

(based on 8 ratings)
2 reviews

About the Story

It's the evening of May 13th, 1824, in Germany. You play as Eduard, a student at the seminary. You want to sneak out and meet your friends Wilhelm and Scardanelli in Pressel's gazebo before midnight.


Game Details


Awards

23rd Place - 13th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2007)

Editorial Reviews

Jörgs Wort[be]reich
Rezension zum IF-Comp 2007 (German)
Du spielst Eduard Mörike zu Zeiten seines Theologiestudiums im 19. Jahrhundert in Tübingen. Des nächtens versuchst du, zu deinen Brüdern im Geiste Wilhelm Waiblinger und Friedrich Hölderlin zu gelangen.

Es ist schwer zu sagen, was der Autor mit diesem Werk vorhatte. Einen Einblick in diese bestimmte geschichtliche Epoche zu bieten? Dafür gibt es zu wenige Informationen und der Detailgrad ist zu niedrig. Eine Verdeutlichung des Strebens der drei Philosophen? Davon ist praktisch nie die Rede. Eine Erzählung zur persönlichen Annäherung an die geschichtlichen Figuren und deren Unbillen im literarischen Alltag? Dazu hängt sich das Spiel zu sehr an Tüfteleien auf und bleibt in den Beschreibungen zu allgemein.

Eines aber läßt sich sagen: Es geht in dem Werk vor allem um diese verdammte Kerze. ...
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A meandering game with many ways to lock you out of victory, April 19, 2016

In this game, you are in a seminary and are trying to do... something. The game is never clear about what you need to do.

The game is short, with a few puzzles. I kept trying things on my own, then looking at the walkthrough for the next step, but there are so many ways to lock yourself out of victory.

In the end, I think that this game is a bit too fiddly for my tastes.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Frothology Review: Eduard the Seminarist, December 3, 2007
by Dr.Froth (Houston)
Related reviews: if comp, if comp 2007, frothology

Join the amazing adventures of Eduard in this action packed thrill-ride of one mans quest to make it to....to.... a poetry reading?!


Story:

Unlike many of the games I have been playing lately, this is the one area where ETS really falls short. There is not even an introduction sequence to set the mood of the tale or establish what you are supposed to be doing.

Things do not improve much as you play along in search of the means to meet up with your buddy Scardanelli. I had hopes upon reading the newspaper that I was about to encounter a cool plot twist (I think it is cool when an author starts you off in a seemingly boring and mundane place only to pull the rug out from under you a little ways in) but I was disappointed. In fact, I'm not sure that the author knew exactly what he wanted to do with Scardanelli, considering the fact that you can refer to him by two different names later, one of them being connected to the newspaper. Unfortunately, that plot line is never explored or explained.



Interaction:

The coding on this is better than the story (probably because there is some code while there is not really a story here). There are a couple of guess the verb problems. "Get onto trampoline" works while "get on trampoline" does not. Several other instances of this had me reaching for the walk-through.

The instant death from the window was lame. I had accidentally typed "s" instead of whatever direction I had meant to type and then...BAM... I'm dead. I went back to see what had happened and this is what I discovered:

x window

you see nothing special about the window

climb window

I don't think much is to be achieved by that

climb out window

I only understand you as far as wanting to climb the outside

jump out window

I only understand you as far as wanting to jump

s

You jump out the window and land most unsoftly on the ground.



Now I know that it is fun to kill the player off, but there should have at least been a warning. Something like, "A fall from this height could kill a man" and then if the player did it again...BAM you're dead. That still does not explain why jump out window did not work, especially when that is exactly what happens when you die.

There were a few other issues, such as missing exits from room descriptions and a general lack of purpose. I also was able to make myself stuck in the Gym by dropping the candle and having it go out. I then had to reload the game because I could no longer move around. (Once again, no warning).



Presentation:

This looks like all the other Inform games I have ever played.



Did I have Fun:

I did not hate this game, but I did not really like it either. So while I did not experience a lack of pleasure (like one might get from obtaining frost bite on the colon), I did not have the time of my life. Doubt I'd ever play this again.



Final Thoughts:

I just can not find the point to this game. There is little to no help from the author. You are probably going to need the walk-through to get all the way to the end of this but then again I can't really think of a reason to do so. There is no resolution other than a "you win" ending of about 2 sentences. I guess this is appropriate considering that there was not much of a story to resolve.

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Eduard the Seminarist on IFDB

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My new walkthroughs for February 2019 by David Welbourn
On Wednesday, February 27, 2019, I published new walkthroughs for the games listed below! Some of these were paid for by my wonderful patrons at Patreon. Please consider supporting me to make even more new walkthroughs for works of...




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