Return to Ditch Day

by M.J. Roberts profile

Collegiate
2004

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Number of Reviews: 6
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Return to "Return to Ditch Day", January 14, 2024

“Return to Ditch Day” by Michael J Roberts is a classic plot-driven puzzle fest with engaging location and characters. I have never visited Cal-tech myself, but the text makes this setting come to life so I can easily imagine the campus buildings, the students and staff, and their community traditions. Central to those traditions is the annual Senior Ditch Day, during which seniors set up puzzles or “stacks” at their dorm room entrances, for undergraduates to solve while seniors are away.

The player character is an alumnus, now on campus representing his small tech company, to recruit graduating tech wiz Brian Stamer to join his firm. Brian is also being wooed by Frosst Belker, a villanous man representing a wealthier rival firm. Belker and the other NPCs come alive in ways which are difficult to achieve through parser fiction. NPCs move around, they talk to you, they cooperate and compete to solve the various zany stacks.

I think I may have started playing this game when it was first released. The opening scene felt familiar to me, but I’m sure I never completed it until yesterday, in about six hours, resorting only infrequently to online or in- game hints. I chose to play this game because it had been recommended to me as a good example of TADS3 source code, which I didn’t want to look at until after I had played it. The game was designed as a showcase for TADS3 and the ADV3 library. But even if you are not an author, or someone wanting to know more about TADS3, “Return to Ditch Day” is well worth your time. The puzzles are well designed and well clued, and great care has been taken to integrate the puzzles into the world building of this comic-nerdy version of Cal Tech.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Power Animals and Quantum Chickens!, March 14, 2021
by Rovarsson (Belgium)
Related reviews: Puzzler

Return to Ditch Day is a puzzling experience par excellence. Challenging brainteasers/-breakers with an engaging storyline.

It starts with a great introduction. An easy puzzle in an atmosphere-rich environment. It's completely linear (apart from some amusing things when you try to resist the railroading), but it's the perfect way to get acquainted with the mood of the game, the sort of puzzles to expect, your own character and, last but not least, your nemesis. (I swear, you'll wish you had a phaser set to "burn to a crisp" after a few turns in his company.)

Some time later, you are sent to CalTech, your alma mater, as a headhunter trying to get a brilliant student to work with your tech-company. And who shows up with exactly the same purpose? You got it. The need for payback on this character in your PC is great enough to spill out of the computer and into your mind. You want to beat this guy as much as your character does. Excellent motivation to tackle this puzzle-romp of a game.

It turns out this brilliant student has turned the tables on you: instead of a normal interview where you ask the questions and set the conditions, you are invited to solve his Ditch Day-stack. He will sign with the man who solves it first. This task will lead you to hilarious situations, complicated puzzles, and a good amount of science and engineering.

Ditch Day is a CalTech tradition where the seniors leave campus and block their rooms with clever puzzles. The challenge is to solve the puzzles and get in the room (where there are treats as a bribe not to trash said room). This means that the gamespace, CalTech Campus, is bustling with activity. There are stacks (i.e. puzzles) everywhere in the dorms, the students are gathering in the hallways and in front of doors trying to solve them. This lively atmosphere gives the game a lot of energy, making you keep wanting to engage with it.

The campus is a big and complicated place so mapping it thoroughly is necessary. (I read in her review that Emily Short did not and made her way through anyway. I'm not Emily Short.) There are no mazes as such, but especially the dorm-area is twisty enough to lose your bearings. I actually started this game about ten years ago, but I quit halfway through because I didn't know where I was half the time. (That bend through the dorm-library is a cruel inside joke of the author, I'm sure of it.)

There are many NPCs. You can only talk to a few of them, but all the others seem like real persons too, concentrating on the stack of their choice or exchanging hints and clues with each other. The ones you can speak to are mostly limited to the problem at hand, giving you objects or clues. The way they act and talk to you is very personal though, giving them each their own identity. (I really liked Erin.) And although your nemesis doesn't answer any questions, he does have a snide comment ready to everything you do around him.

The writing is practical. It focuses on clarity, describing where you are and who/what is there. There is a lot of situational and action-comedy in the game, but this never becomes the main focus.
The writing is also very, very good at controlling the pace and steering the player in the right direction through clues. The size of the map and the sheer amount of puzzles you encounter on your first exploration can be overwhelming. It's important to know and remember that this is actually a very friendly game. It doesn't want to frustrate you (too much) or deliberately mislead you. If you take it slow and do things in the order the clues show you, you'll discover that there is a completely logical sequence of puzzles that build on each other towards the endgame.
But! Beware! There is a storyline that diverges from this main puzzle-sequence. It is not necessary to win the game, but it is for getting full points. It's also a lot of fun. And you get to search the steam tunnels under the university!

And now for the meat and bones of Return to Ditch Day: the puzzles. I surprised myself by not needing to look at the hints except one time, when it was (to me) underclued how to get a student to help me with an object. And I am not a great puzzler. However, I did what I wrote before: slowly going from clue to clue, without letting myself be overwhelmed by sidetracks. (I did save at a certain point, went on an exploration and experimentation rampage through campus and found tons of fun stuff and fruitflies and a solvable computer-code puzzle. After that I just restored and went on my methodical way.)
Many different puzzles, many different strategies. Some require reading and learning. Sometimes you need help from others in a tit-for-tat way. There's a puzzle where you have to manipulate NPCs by learning a bit more about them. There are gadgets and machinery to be played with. And ultimately, there is codecracking. Glorious, in-your-face-nemesis codecracking...

I spent three evenings captivated by Return to Ditch Day. Hours of reading, thinking, laughing. This game is great.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Featured on Radio K #7, June 12, 2016
by Adam Cadre (Albany, California)

Alex Hoffer and I discuss Return to Ditch Day at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbjl7VmA1jk#t=30s

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
An utterly remarkable game; solve crazy puzzles and learn about engineering, February 3, 2016
by MathBrush
Related reviews: 2-10 hours

I'll be upfront and say that, by modern standards, I wasn't impressed with the original Ditch Day Drifter. This sequel, however blows my mind.

The introduction is especially good. Reminding me of the hidden temple sequence in Lydia's Heart, you have to race another tech firm to pitch a product to a southeast asian company. You have to deal with both fidgety technology and a decaying factory.

The game then makes a huge transition to Caltech, scene of the original Ditch Day Drifter. As then, you must explore the campus, solving stacks, reading memos, going in the tunnels, going to the store and kitchen.

But boy, the world has changed! Crowds of independent NPCs, immersive room descriptions, real conversations, etc.

The game has a fairly unique premise: your character must learn (or relearn) about physics and engineering to crack the code on a high-tech box. Puzzles are drawn from real-life techniques, and you learn a lot; however, the game is adapted for those with no real-life experience. You convert IP addresses to hex form and back; you learn about quantum coherence and decoherence; you learn how to use network analyzers and even cherry pickers.

I enjoyed the beginning more than the rest of the game, but that's because open nonlinear games often intimidate me.

I recommend this game for everyone. Even if you're not great at IT, like me, the game treats it like any other 'magic system', telling you how to use things. It's fun.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
One of my Favourites Ever..., June 30, 2013
by Tristano (Italy)

This game is one of my all-times favourites. The plot is simple, the atmosphere relaxed, the prose capturing. It's quite a long game, but since it's packed with puzzles there are no dead times in the game.

If you like big maps, Return to Ditch Day offers a generous environment. And, if you are a puzzles lover, you'll find planty of puzzles in this game — some minor, others more intricate.

Surely, it's more puzzle oriented than plot-oriented, yet the well polished prose and mechanics grab the player's attention, fix the plot in the mind and keep the game pace alive.

A game that won't let down lovers of classic IF.

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Return to Mike Roberts, November 22, 2007
by puzzler (Everett, Washington)

I particularly enjoy Michael J. Roberts' games, so I was pleased to see he had released a new game. This game serves as a showpiece for what TADS 3 can do. For example, TADS 3 has a new conversation system that is exceptionally well thought out. The game is filled with rich and interesting puzzles, but because of its "showcase" nature, there are some elements that are more tedious than fun (lots of consulting various things about various topics, an elevator, lots of locked doors to show off the key ring functionality).

My only negative comment about the game is that the plot feels, well, rather geeky. Overall, I enjoyed this game quite a bit, but because of its many math, science, and tech puzzles I wouldn't recommend it to the average player. You don't really need to know much about math, science, and tech to solve the puzzles (your character refreshes his memory by consulting various references in the game) but you will enjoy the game more if you like these topics.

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