Dual Transform

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Engaging, surreal, and relatively easy, February 10, 2010
Dual Transform isn't a hard game. I don't think it was meant to be hard. It doesn't take too long to figure out how the game works and from there, it's just a matter of using logic to complete the next puzzle. Once you become immersed in the game, logic is replaced by a kind of instinct where you understand what to do next even before you comprehend why it has to be done. The puzzle system creates an environment that is unlike anything I've seen previously. Your surroundings are ever-changing and you must find a way to manipulate them to get to the next "room".

After playing the game for a few minutes, I felt drawn into its beautiful world. Each "room" represents a physical property and the more time you spend in the environment, the more immersed you become in the sensation of said property. The back-story of the PC is never fully explained, but
I didn’t feel a need for more information. The PC is a researcher, trying to design a three-dimensional, sensory workspace. The story behind the puzzle is intriguing, but simple enough so that the player doesn’t get lost in an overwhelming amount of data.

The "one object only" concept was implemented well and simplified the game at some points, while making it harder at others. The descriptions were well-written and used plenty of sensory information to create a realistic atmosphere. The ending puzzle brought the game to a beautiful, surreal, and somewhat surprising close. Hopefully, the author will follow up with a sequel like the ending implies.

Symbolic Symmetry, May 20, 2010
This is a relatively easy one-room game by Plotkin that tries it’s best to stretch the ‘one-room’ category into a more robust game. Shade (also by Plotkin), is also supposedly a ‘one-room’ game but expands on that limitation by having several discrete areas you could enter and exit in order to interact with items there or see more detail when examining. Here, Plotkin takes a different approach to doing more with less, and the one ‘room’ you are in is actually a virtual reality that can be dramatically changed by invoking different icons representing different environments.

Of course, if that was the only gimmick of the game, you could easily argue that Dual Transform is a multi-room game with a unique method of traversing from one to the next. What makes this game unique is that some of the objects in the room are persistent, and when you invoke a new environment, that object takes on the aspects of the new room but is considered to be the same physical item.

It’s easier to understand with an example. This isn’t from the game, but, if you were in a cave with a large boulder sitting on top of a box or switch you wanted to access, but couldn’t lift the boulder because it was too heavy, you could invoke another environment, such as a beach. In the beach environment, the boulder would take on new characteristics fitting the new room and possibly become a beach ball. You could then move the beach ball, or deflate it, or tear it in half. After dealing with the relatively light and deformable beach ball, you then invoke the original cave environment. The beach ball would turn back into the boulder (fitting with the environment), but remain in its current location or condition, so it would be flat, or in two pieces, or moved to the side, allowing you access to your original objective.

This idea of objects being persistent but in different forms is the bulk of the puzzles in the game. As you progress you acquire new environments to invoke and learn how the persistent objects change to match their new surroundings. The game is short, and relatively easy once you understand how each room affects your inventory, and concludes with a satisfying puzzle that requires you to use all of the environments in the right order to solve.

Due to its brevity, I don’t have quite as much to complain about. The story is essentially non-existent, and what is there (provided at the beginning) doesn’t entirely make a lot of sense. Supposedly, you are a programmer working to create a perfect virtual workspace and you do this by invoking primal concepts and trying to shove them into a smaller virtual environment where they will all interact. Despite existing in a computer and starring a programmer, the whole idea is very abstract and symbolic rather than deliberate and material. As such, it plays with the same concepts I’ve seen in other Plotkin games where reality and dream collide, such as Shade and Spider and Web. The ending can also be considered just as vague (Spoiler - click to show)and, surprisingly, indicates that there will be a sequel. A first for Plotkin, I think.

Ultimately, it’s a fun little game that won’t take too long if you can grasp the essential concepts. You aren’t going to be quite as challenged as other Plotkin games but, for me, that’s not a big deal. The lack of a meaningful story, though, is a real letdown. I recommend it, though only if you’re looking for a brief diversion.

Atmospheric. Surreal. Brilliant, June 6, 2010
There are certain names one hears often when he starts digging into IF - and not too deep, at that. Emily Short. Graham Nelson. Aaron Reed. Jim Munroe. Jon Ingold. Eric Eve. And of course Andrew Plotkin, aka Zarf.

It is of course debatable whether everyone will hear these particular names. It's even more debatable whether these names are automatically linked with quality. One hears Paul Panks or Rybread Celsius just as often, in wildly different contexts. So it's a matter of opinion that, in my case, the names I've mentioned in the first paragraph are linked with quality, and with games I enjoy playing.

What am I driving at? Simply this: Plotkin is one of those names you hear the most often. He's been around a long time, and has an impressive collection of games under his hat. At the time of writing this review, Dual Transform is his most recent game. Time to ask - is he still an author worth playing? Is he riding on his past fame? Does he still have something to say? Are his games still worth playing, his prose worth reading?

My answer is simply this: Dual Transform shows very effectively *why* Plotkin is one of those names you hear often, one of those authors you have to play.

The background story is relatively sparse. There's just enough of it to introduce you to the PC's motivation (an important contract and an approaching deadline), and together with the first couple of moves, it provides all the knowledge you need. You quickly discover gameplay will consist of travelling between a series of rooms, rooms with a subtle relationship to each other, manipulating your environment in search of "forces".

It is, if you will, a one-room scavenger-hunt. An unlikely combination if ever I saw one. But here it is.

Now, why is this game so bloody good? Well, for a start, it's a very interesting scavenger hunt, and a very interesting room. You never really know what you'll be looking for next, and you're constantly surprised by subtle changes in the room. There is no monotomy, unlike, say, Dreamhold, which is a scavenger hunt for seven items spread in a more fixed, less mutable geography (if it doesn't show, I didn't have much fun with Dreamhold, though it was very fun at first). The single inventory item is also highly mutable.

There's also a second phase of gameplay, once you're done with the scavenger hunt. This second phase is very easy, but very nice to play through. It can be completed simply by wandering around at random, but there's a certain pleasure in figuring out the exact next step to take, even if it can be brute-forced.

But gameplay isn't the only reason this game is so good. There's another aspect of the game which I haven't seen on other reviews in this site, which is why I wanted to write my own review. I wanted to add this.

The prose and the atmosphere. I found the prose bloody brilliant. And the atmosphere, oh! Each of the rooms was described with just the right choice of words, each setting vivid in its own. Because each room is very distinct, characterised by so different images, smells, sounds and feelings, it's easy to feel drawn into this game, which is what I look for in a game: immersion. Immersion and atmosphere and good prose.

There's a reason Plotkin is one of those names you keep hearing about, and he's still got it. He can still dish out high-quality titles like nobody's business. Programming is always solid. The final product is polished. The writing is superbly suited to the story told, even if the story is highly secondary to the main puzzle and the setting.

I swear, the imagery on this game often verges on the poetic. I loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

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