Violet

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On Not Writing to Save the Relationship, April 9, 2012

My history with interactive fiction is fraught with frustration and failed attempts. I remember having at least two games on my Commodore 64 (or maybe my Apple IIc) that I started but never finished. After a long hiatus from interactive fiction I discovered a text adventure buried in the Terminal on my Mac a year ago. After several attempts to solve it, I set it aside. A few months later, I found a copy of Adventure that I installed and played a few times. I still haven't finished it.

For some reason I can't yet explain, I continue to be drawn to text-based adventures. About a month ago, I stumbled upon Andrew Plotkin's The Dreamhold which led me to install Zoom and frequent the IFDB. I started downloading games based on recommendations focusing mainly on games for beginners with solid storytelling. Violet is the third game I've played and finished without help from walkthroughs.

The game presents you with an ultimatum - write 1,000 words on your dissertation or your girlfriend Violet is leaving you. In total, you are presented with six distractions to resolve. During my first few attempts at the game, I could see clearly the objects I needed to work with and I had a vague idea of what to do but the how escaped me. My inexperience with IF probably worked against me more than anything. I'm still learning about all of the common actions you can perform in an IF world. After my third or fourth foiled attempt I decided I was going to hate the game. I decided that there was no plausible ending that would satisfy me. But I was starting to gain ground with the puzzles and I kept going.

I think I restarted the game around five or six times before I solved it. And I really wanted to hate the ending. As I worked my way through it I started commentating audibly. I said things like "This game is [bother]," and "Seriously?!" and "This reminds me of MacGyver in a bad way." I also became quite disgusted with Violet, the quirky narrative voice that seemed to enjoy berating me and making me feel stupid for attempting to solve the game's puzzles in decidedly rational, logical ways.

This afternoon I played the game through to the end and I laughed out loud. And I smiled as I read the conclusion. And I uttered my final commentary on the game: "That was crazy!" And I shook my head and smirked for at least a whole minute. And I realized that if I were a person who could find no humor in absurdity I would have been less than amused.

Violet works very well as a beginner's game. In hindsight, the puzzles aren't difficult but each one is more nonsensical than the last. Once you embrace the absurdity you are on the fast track to finishing the game. The game also strikes a nice balance between interactive and fiction. It presents the player with challenges and punctuates them with monologues that clearly convey the backstory, the stakes and the immediate obstacles.

Although I found Violet (as a character) to be maddening, she did inspire all of the anxiety and motivation I needed to play through to completion. In the end, I think I just wanted to prove her wrong and shut her up, so I will close by saying thanks to Violet for (sort of) giving me the last word. If I could choose my own ending, I would totally break up with her.

Fun and clever game, October 5, 2011

Initially I got frustrated by this game because I just wanted to explore the room and not worry about what Violet would think, or have the game end because she left me. But once I figured out all I had to do was 'write' once in awhile, I was able to explore to my heart's content. What really excited me about this game was the amazing expanse of commands. Anything that crossed my mind seemed to be achievable. To my further delight, many of the crazy solutions I came up with actually worked and helped me toward my goal. This is one of the best IF games I have played in awhile. The puzzles are great and I got totally immersed in the world.

Dysfunctional relationships ahoy!, March 8, 2011

This is a game where you’re trying to work on your dissertation, but distractions keep getting in the way. Violet is the girlfriend who is going to leave you if you don’t get the writing done.

There were many things I liked about the game, but the pieces were better than the whole. I got frustrated several times when the game told me I couldn’t resolve a puzzle a certain way because Violet didn’t approve. In the end I wanted to give up on the PhD, dump Violet, and go play in the park with the zombies and mole men.

Perhaps just not my style, January 24, 2011

The impeccable implementation did not compensate for the fact that I didn't like either Violet or the player character. Violet's voice is perfectly believable, but it's also nagging, wheedling, and irritatingly superior; the player character's inability to focus was enough to make me declare him/her a lost cause. I appreciate the ambiance, but however detailed, the story didn't place me in a world where I wanted to spend any amount of time.

Romantic? Comedy?, July 6, 2010

This is a surreal, funny little one-room game. You are a doctoral student having trouble concentrating on your dissertation. Your girlfriend has threatened to break up with you and move back to Australia if you do not write 1000 words by the end of the day. She narrates the entire game -- for example, if you "get" something, she quips "Yours, plucky wombat!" or whatever nickname she picks that time. There are quite a lot of amusing easter eggs to discover.

Violet's sense of humor is...sardonic to say the least. I would not want her as my girlfriend, but as a character, she's hilarious and the relationship is very believable. The puzzles, with one exception that I found frustratingly non-intuitive, are fun and just challenging enough to be interesting. There's often this marvelous sense of "Oh, I can't possibly be supposed to do that, can I?" Yes, whatever action you were contemplating with looming dread is exactly what you are supposed to do. The plot skirts the line between tragic and comedic, but stays on the "comedic" side, at least for me. However, I wouldn't recommend playing this while getting over a bad breakup unless you have a rather dark sense of humor ;-)

Earns a spot on the 'all-time favorite' list, June 9, 2010

After reading a review on here, I popped open Violet to read a few quick sentences. Unfortunately, I had to surrender my computer to my husband for an appointment 10 minutes later. Violet was so well-written and interesting that I ended up co-opting my husband's computer and downloading an interpreter so I could keep playing. The game was just too much fun to put down.

The narration in the game is entirely from the point-of-view of a girlfriend, and it sparkles. Almost every command you type evokes a witty response. As I played, I found myself falling in love with the girlfriend behind the keyboard who makes clever artwork and calls me cute pet names.

The puzzle behind the game is deceptively straightforward: you need to write. There are many highly entertaining distractions and the puzzles center around masking them. The solutions to the puzzles are logical and a built-in hint system helps keep you from getting stuck.

Everything about the game shines, from the well-implemented commands and descriptions to the strong and well-developed characters that kept me glued to the game until the finish. The writing is so good that you will want to play it again, just to see more of the fun distractions and hear more cute pet names.

Gem of a game!, June 7, 2010

If you came to VIOLET wanting a huge dungeon-crawler, you'll be disappointed. But if you're in the mood for something different, this game is a perfect little tidbit.

It's all about Violet. Come to think...yeah, it is all about her. A generic parser voice would turn this into another game about accomplishing a mundane in-office task. Instead, Violet editorializes upon your actions (whether good, bad, or stupid), and mentions memories that remind you that there's more at stake here than a thesis.

I also think if this game hadn't had such a good hint system, I would have had to've knocked down a star. Intially, it's a little tricky to catch on to the thread of logic, so when the hints ended up being more like the UHS system (in which a number of clues are given before the answer's handed out), AND in Violet's voice, I was very happy.

Violet is fun to listen to (my favorite pet name: "weet-bix"), and you feel a lot of genuine affection in the writing of this game. The spot-on implementation, charming voice, and perfect length make this equivalent to a short-story masterpiece.

Really good (most of the time), December 20, 2009

Violet is the story of a man or woman (for me it works only with a female PC) who has to write 1000 words for some kind of university paper in order to keep his girlfriend from leaving, but is constantly distraced by his surroundings. (happy now Peter Pears!?)

Story & Setting: cute, works very good actually, there's a lot of humour which is a very good thing in this kind of story, it's fun to explore the world, the style is great (except for the annoying Aussie slang)

Interactivity: pretty good

Puzzles: mostly solvable, one or two things don't make sense but still far above average, the very good hint system clears up all possible "stuckabilities"

(Spoiler - click to show)
I really liked that you have to regretfully destroy all of Violet's gifts in order to progress


Replayability: very linear, so it can be played 2-3 times at the most, but there's lots of fun stuff to try out

what didn't work: the end

the end felt rushed and was not up to par with the rest of the game, I just expected more, (Spoiler - click to show)
maybe even a sad ending, the revelation that Violet was watching all the time is just pure nonsense


game of the year? probably not, but I haven't played any other from this year, so I wouldn't know

4/5

Like Reaching Land After Days At Sea, July 30, 2009

Did I play the same game as the other reviewers? Reading the reviews and the contrasting their sparkling appreciation to what I experienced makes me seriously question if most of the reviewers are on high-grade antidepressants or terminally too-nice. Shaking off that bit of strangeness, let me say first that I started playing Violet expecting a lot. (Yes, those reviews did bias me towards expecting something off-the-charts good). Reality was a bit lacking in comparison.

First, the narrator (Violet) is wearying. Yes, you can say that she's cute; yes, there is this whole exotic appeal to her, but the endless needling, the superiority, and the martyr complex simply wear you down after a while. She is so overdramatic that it drains your energy. Women like her are why guys collapse into saying "Yes, dear," and try to do whatever their wives want, simply to be left in peace.

With that said, the game itself is strangely unforgiving. To solve the puzzles, you must instinctively disregard what Violet wishes. Furthermore, you often have to (Spoiler - click to show)destroy the very things that celebrate your relationship. I'm not sure what the author intended, but that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's like I'm being forced to annihilate love.

Worse, the puzzles themselves are poorly clued, and often feature an exceedingly strict parser (for instance: "ear" doesn't work, but "ears" does), or important details that should be present when you examine something, but are missing. I've never used the hints on any game as much as I did with this one. This left me feeling very frustrated. I understand that the puzzles are odd, but if that's the case, then shouldn't near-misses be subtly nudged towards the answer? Instead, they are rewarded with standard responses. Probably the most egregious example of this was (Spoiler - click to show)the whole slingshot ordeal.

The ending felt more like how you feel after reaching dry land after being at sea for a few days: you're filled with relief that it's over. Yet even here, the relief is not admixed; there's a bit of creepy cruelty present as well. I'm definitely unsure that I would go to Australia with Violet if I were the main character.

That's another thing -- the main character is a guy who's apparently rather loose, and the game features quite a bit of sexual innuendo. The fact that it's couched in humor doesn't ameliorate the facts of the situation. In one scene, you're listening to the the PC's ex and another man engage in various unspecified sex actions from behind a door. Yuck.

The game features snappy dialog, a seamless conceit that never once breaks memisis, and an interesting narrator. The execution of the puzzles, however, is unfair and frustrating. There are also a few bugs remaining (for instance, there is no response to throwing the coaster). Taking it all into consideration, Violet isn't fantastic, but it could be improved quite a bit by cluing the puzzles better and by implementing a few more verbs.

No wonder he's the winner !, January 4, 2009

Very rich and well-polished (no bugs and one specific answer for each action), this game is also funny ! I liked the way the story is told through the eyes of Violet ; moreover telling the player at any time what he has to get rid of (noise, Internet, etc ! - anything can be a disturbance !) is a great thing. The only thing I didn't like is (Spoiler - click to show)that you sometimes have to destroy objects made by your beloved one to advance ! ;)

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