Photopia

5 star: (274) 4 star: (186) 3 star: (70) 2 star: (21) 1 star: (3)

Average Rating: Number of Ratings: 555 Write a review

This is a work so hugely influential to IF development that anyone interested in the history of the form should try it: it experiments with non-linear presentation of time, menu-based conversation, and constrained game-play to support a specific plot. A number of its features look perfectly ordinary now, but were ground-breaking at the time. Photopia's particular form of menu conversation, for instance, was spun off into a library used in a number of other works.

How well does it work, beyond that? Opinions vary. Some people consider it the most moving piece of IF they've ever tried. I personally found it wavered between effective and manipulative, with the main character too saintly to be true. While it was worth playing, it is by no means my favorite piece of character-oriented IF story-telling.

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- robkun (London, UK), October 21, 2007

- Brian Campbell, October 21, 2007

- Michael R. Bacon (New Mexico), October 20, 2007

- Gregory (USA), October 20, 2007

- yandexx (Saint-Petersburg, Russia), October 19, 2007

How could a game be exhausting when the puzzles are solvable?

I have not finished the game(yet?). I went as far as the school gym...
But having all these pieces of stories with no real solid link is overwhelming to keep in mind. The only attractive thing is the writing style...
There would be only two or three storylines, it would be nice, and maybe there is only three, who knows? THIS is the problem. (I must say I play with gargoyle, so I don't have the colored interface.)
Giving the fact that playing itself is not really fun I think I will give up.
But something wants me to continue, something wants me to see all the pieces come together at the end...
It is like suffering a long run to get a promised ice cream... but I am beginning to wonder about the taste of the ice cream.

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Baf's Guide

Scenes from a handful of ordinary lives alternate with chapters of a child's colorful science-fantasy. Sweet and sad, and complex enough that you may need to go through it twice in order to fully understand how all the fragments fit together. Very story-driven, with menu-based conversations and virtually no puzzle content. My only complaint is that it isn't terribly interactive - indeed, you're practically driven through it on tracks, and any actions that you don't take tend to be rendered unnecessary. But the story is intriguing enough, and well-written enough, and moving enough, that this seems a small quibble. This is probably the most successful example I've seen of interactivity at the service of fiction, rather than vice versa.

The author intended this game to be played with colored text. Although I normally dislike such things, I agree that it works in this case. A monochrome version is also provided for those who feel differently.

(NB: The first release of this game credits Opal O'Donnell as the author. This was a deliberate deception on the part of the real author, carried out with the permission of the real Opal O'Donnell.)

-- Carl Muckenhoupt