Being Andrew Plotkin

by J. Robinson Wheeler profile

Screen, Satire
2000

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5 star:
(8)
4 star:
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Number of Ratings: 56
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- SirIgnotus (Somewhere, probably.), June 23, 2023

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A postcard from Zarf's insides., November 18, 2022
by Rovarsson (Belgium)

Quick recap: the protagonist of the movie/game finds a magic door that leads into John Malkovich'/Andrew Plotkin's mind. Shenanigans ensue.

For the most part, the game follows the plot of the movie quite closely. The biggest alterations are jokes and references to IF in general and Zarf's games in particular. Since I wasn't around in the era of sizzling and bubbling creativity on the intfiction newsgroups in the 90s, a lot of the references went over my head. I'm also not intimately familiar enough with Andrew Plotkin's work to recognize all the jokes and shout-outs.
However, having roamed the internet for IF-history sources, a lot of the game did ring a funny bell.

For a text-adventure about a PC who's a hobbyist text-adventure writer entering the mind of one of the most renowned text-adventure writers of the era, there's actually precious little actual text-adventuring to do.

Most of the game pushes you along the rails laid out by the movie, with frequent conversations where you can choose to say a silly thing or an even sillier thing. Only in the very last sequence before the epilogue does a puzzle show up. And it's a rather mediocre one at that. (One could call it a callback to the classic puzzles, if one were generously inclined...)

The writing and tempo are great though. Exciting scenes zip by at rollercoaster speed, the descriptions are detailed and evocative, the conversations are very funny indeed.

I enjoyed the ride.

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- VanishingSky (Nanjing, China), July 9, 2022

>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

I was the perfect audience for this game, or near-perfect anyway. I've seen and enjoyed Being John Malkovich, the film by Spike Jonze. I've hung around the IF scene for a long time. I've played every Plotkin game, even Inhumane. I've also played every Infocom game, which turns out to be helpful as well. Even with all that, I'm not sure I caught every reference (especially given the prodigious list of such references provided by the author in the endnotes), but I think I caught a lot of them. Consequently, I'm not sure how somebody who doesn't fulfill some or all of the above criteria would react to BAP, but I can tell you this: I thought it was a delight.

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- Cryptic Puffin, December 8, 2021

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Somewhat amusing, but misses some shots., October 28, 2021
by mg51
Related reviews: three stars, unfinished

I appreciate what Being Andrew Plotkin was trying to do, but it fell a bit flat for me. Between the kind of unnecessary and awkward romantic plotline and a lot of jokes that were probably just too meta for me, it felt repetitive and overly linear, with almost no room for exploration with the frequent P.O.V. switches, leaving me with an overall sense of dissatisfaction with the environment. And in spite of the frequent P.O.V. switches, I never found myself attached to or invested in any of the characters. I should say I haven't seen the film this is based on, and while I don't know if that would have made me enjoy the game more, it probably would have given context to some elements I wasn't a fan of.

Basically, to me, this game relied too heavily on plot and not enough on gameplay, an issue I had with Photopia too, but unlike Photopia, the story wasn't interesting enough for me to continue forward anyway. When I reached the point in the story where you can find yourself in an infinite loop and couldn't figure out how to stop it, I gave up on the game.

So, because I didn't finish, please take my rating with a grain of salt. I can't speak to the entire game. I have selected to have my rating excluded from the game's overall rating too for this reason.

Note: this rating is not included in the game's average.
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- Zape, September 2, 2021

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Mixed Emotions, June 3, 2020
by Zoe Victoria (Under your bed)

This game was one of the Many Preinstalled text adventures that came when I downloaded Frotz on my iPad. The title seemed interesting so I decided: why not try it out?

I can't say I regret that decision really, I mean the experience was Pretty enjoyable. I enjoyed the dialogue options, that's not really something seen often in this medium, at least not to my knowledge. But I can't help but find the gameplay a little lackluster, you basically type what it tells you to type to advance the story, one of which I personally couldn't manage because I'm (Spoiler - click to show)Not very familiar to the way these games are coded since I use quest to make my games rather than inform. Point is, there really isn't any exploration, or puzzles, or challenges of any kind. So much so that you could probably sell this just as well, if not better, as a non-interactive fiction. A short story, a Zarf fanfic if you will.

I think I'd get a bit more enjoyment out of this game if I had watched the movie this game was based on, or played the game this game was based on,or knew a bit more about the IF community than I do at present. But despite my nitpicking, there We're Things that I enjoyed about this game, namely how the author described locations and such differently depending on the current PC, especially Zarf, I think they nailed his descriptive manner of writing fairly well. So if you're a fan of Zarf and his work, then check this game out. I'm probably just not the target demographic.

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- SqueeglesMcGee, October 27, 2019

- SchnickelFritz (TX), December 26, 2018

- Mr. Patient (Saint Paul, Minn.), November 17, 2017

- ArchDelacy, November 2, 2017

- shornet (Bucharest), April 26, 2017

- Sobol (Russia), January 6, 2017

- E. W. B., March 9, 2016

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A comedy game with intense chase scenes and romance, February 3, 2016
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 1 hour

I have never seen Being John Malkovich, but this game is loosely based on it. In this game, you gain access to Andrew Plotkin (a.k.a. Zarf), author of games such as Shade, So Far, Spider and Web, and a million others. You play several characters, including Zarf and a couple of young lovebirds.

The game is relatively short, taking less than an hour. The humor is mostly absurd humor, with numerous references to Zarf's fiction. I had only played a few games at the time; it is probably worth it to work through a lot of Plotkin's games (like So Far and A Change in the Weather) before playing this game, or afterwards. Unfortunately, these games are extremely hard, so if you're not a puzzle fiend, consider a walkthrough.

Great writing, mostly good puzzles, and a fun setting. I recommend it for everyone.

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- Aryore, December 13, 2015

- Ivanr, October 13, 2015

- Pegbiter (Malmö, Sweden), June 16, 2015

- scottmbruner (alameda, california), May 22, 2015

- Shchekotiki, April 14, 2015

- CMG (NYC), April 7, 2015

- Thrax, March 12, 2015

- Lorxus, March 10, 2014

- KidRisky (Connecticut, USA), December 20, 2013

- John Simon (London), November 1, 2013

- Jim Kaplan (Jim Kaplan has a room called the location. The location of Jim Kaplan is variable.), June 20, 2013

- DJ (Olalla, Washington), May 9, 2013

- Floating Info, April 3, 2013

- deathbytroggles (Minneapolis, MN), January 30, 2012

- Digibomber, July 29, 2011

- Sam Kabo Ashwell (Seattle), July 20, 2011

- perching path (near Philadelphia, PA, US), June 26, 2010

- Dan Efran, June 15, 2010

- Patrick M. McCormick (United States), May 14, 2010

- Christopher Bogs, April 19, 2010

- Josh Ragem (ID), December 31, 2009

- TempestDash (Cincinnati, Ohio), December 4, 2009

- googoogjoob, August 15, 2009

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Good and funny game, June 9, 2009

The concept of the game is quite funny : it transposes the movie Being John Malkovitch into the interactive fiction world. I saw the movie before, and when I played it I could see all the references to this (odd) movie ; however, because of an imperfect knowledge of IF classics, I missed some other references to other interactive fiction games (the author provides a list of those references at the end of the game). The game is quite funny in itself too ; the story is linear (not a drawback for me though), and you can sometimes have the impression that you are watching a movie ; the implementation is good (though (Spoiler - click to show)you can take the copier in the early scenes because you can take it afterwards...). Not exactly a classic, but certainly a great game.

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- Cheryl L (Australia), January 9, 2009

- Wesley (Iowa City, Iowa), September 1, 2008

- Timo Saarinen (Finland), August 4, 2008

- lobespear, April 25, 2008

- brattish (Canada), March 27, 2008

- jfpbookworm (Hamburg, New York), February 25, 2008

- Dan Schmidt (Boston), January 31, 2008

- Michel Nizette (Brussels, Belgium), January 18, 2008

- Miron (Berlin, Germany), December 11, 2007

- VK, November 28, 2007

- anj tuesday, November 18, 2007

- Emily Boegheim, November 11, 2007

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
An in-joke, but suitable for a wide audience, November 10, 2007
by Kake (London, England)
Related reviews: J. Robinson Wheeler, ****

Being Andrew Plotkin probably makes a good deal more sense if you've watched Being John Malkovich; so if you haven't seen it, you may well enjoy the game a lot less than I did. I'd definitely recommend watching the film first, if possible, since a fair bit of the amusement I got from the game came from remembering similar scenes in the film. I don't think playing the game first will make you enjoy the film any less, though; and I don't think it counts as a spoiler to note that it's certainly not a direct transplant from screen to, er, screen — and the ending is quite different.

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- Nusco (Bologna, Italy), October 31, 2007

- Stephen Bond (Leuven, Belgium), October 26, 2007

- Sami Preuninger (New York City), October 23, 2007

- Corey Arnett (British Columbia, Canada), October 20, 2007

Baf's Guide


A parody of the movie Being John Malkovich; here, the target is IF luminary Andrew Plotkin, a.k.a. Zarf, author of Spider and Web, So Far, and other well-regarded games. In-jokey, to some extent--you'll probably get more out of this if (a) you've seen the movie and (b) you're familiar both with Zarf's games and with the IF community as a whole--but still playable without knowledge of the in-jokes. Highly linear with very few puzzles; you really can't get very far from the path the game sets out. This is a very funny effort, though, and it's amusing in a knowing way--the fights over identity that the movie depicts are adapted to the IF context in a way that acknowledges the confusion of the player-PC relationship.

-- Duncan Stevens

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