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Grab some popcorn, September 20, 2020Theatre was one the first modern IF games I played on the heels of Babel. I was immediately pulled in by the same plot device that Finley borrowed, what with the journal pages lying around to provide chilling backstory. I was also pleased that for the most part the puzzles are straightforward and the only way to put the game in an unwinnable state is doing something obviously stupid. For a while I had this one rated four stars.
I revisited this one again today and decided to lower my rating. I still enjoyed myself and finished it rather quickly, but several aspects turned me off this time around:
-- The reason you're stuck in the theatre is because you're in a "slum" and a "bad neighborhood" and a "thug" is waiving a knife at you for some reason. All of these words are steeped in racism. I'm sure that wasn't Wyber's intent and I used those same words regularly twenty years ago. And sometimes old things we like become painfully dated for similar reasons.
-- Other have mentioned this, but the writing is definitely uneven. There are some highlights for sure. Wyber never tells the player how to feel, which makes my heart sing, especially in the horror genre. And there are some good touches with the occasional sound or shadow that creeps around. But then there will periods of less subtlety, such as when you move some things around and, "You suddenly realise there was a body under the pile!"
-- The central Lovecraftian theme is intriguing, but other horror tropes are just thrown in that don't seem to fit and are never explained, such as (Spoiler - click to show)the possessed mannequins and the random cobra in a locker. Also, at one point a skeleton is said to be the source of a horrible smell. Decaying bones would not give off an odor.
-- Wyber breaks the fourth wall a few times to comment on his own writing, which doesn't help maintain the sense of dread one expects in horror.
Despite these criticisms I still am very fond of Theatre and am grateful that it led me to trying out Anchorhead. It's a solid entry in the Lovecraft genre and worth playing if you like that type of game.