Hoist Sail for the Heliopause and Home

by Andrew Plotkin profile

Science Fiction
2010

Web Site

Return to the game's main page

Reviews and Ratings

5 star:
(21)
4 star:
(38)
3 star:
(15)
2 star:
(8)
1 star:
(2)
Average Rating:
Number of Ratings: 84
Write a review


Previous | << 1 2 3 4 >> | Next | Show All


- David Kinder, June 7, 2011

- flamingoboots, May 24, 2011

- RandomExile, May 20, 2011

- baywoof, April 25, 2011

- Felix Pleșoianu (Bucharest, Romania), April 9, 2011

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Meh?, February 21, 2011
by Kim Ahmad (Toronto, Canada)

It's a weird experience to have such a flat response to the work of someone whose games you normally like so well, and to a game that caused such a splash of interest (also to a game with such an interesting title). However, while I liked the concept of Heliopause quite a bit, and a lot of the imagery was beautiful, I wound up not really enjoying the gameplay experience a whole lot.

A lot of it feels to me as if it were done on a dare rather than out of an attempt to make a compelling game. There's a great deal of customization, which do show of the flexibility of the tools and do sort of prod authors to think in new ways about what interactive fiction could look like. As other reviewers have mentioned, there's even an attempt to make a non-annoying maze -- something which worked for many people (but not really for me). However, in some ways, the game feels like a collection of these things. It's not without story, but the way the story is executed seems more at the service of showing these things off than building engagement.

The distance mentioned in other reviews is at least part of the issue for me -- you never feel very personally engaged with the game. However. there's more to it than that. There were more undefined objects than the usual Plotkin game, some of which were incredibly obvious ones to try to interact with, and this hurts the gameplay and the sensation of depth for sure. I spent a lot of time "guess the verb"ing, even in some cases where the verb the game wanted was one of the basic IF game verbs, because it's so seldom apparent when these do and don't apply. The "maze" was certainly less confounding than many mazes, but it was also very nebulous (pun intended) and poorly defined and I didn't feel like my actions had any relationship whatsoever with my "solving" it -- in fact, I know that understanding and thought had nothing to do with it, because I just did random actions and boom, it was solved. I don't think I built an understanding of what was going on there at all. And there were a lot of times where the game's attempt at hinting things to me clouded rather than enlightened things. The sum of all of these plus "driving" using a totally new system of controls is that it was always very front-and-center that you're manipulating a construction -- I never achieved any degree of immersion in the story at all.

And because it's often the case that these days one of the foremost questions is whether or not the game is accessible to new players (outreach being on everyone's minds lately), this is kind of the polar opposite of that. Now, I don't think making a game to appeal to dedicated players is a bad thing, but I think that this game will be lost on all but the most patient and forgiving players, and that most of what it has to offer is just turning conventions on their head. It's almost designed to specifically narrow the audience as much as possible. Not so much an in-joke, in that there's no joke in it, but definitely the dramatic equivalent. I don't know if that's a horrible thing, but it did stick out to me, especially as I was hoping that the unusual theme would be useful in order to draw in some of my friends who aren't bowled over by their internalized stereotypes of what IF covers.

It sounds like I really hated this game, mind you, and I didn't. I don't think it's horrible, and there are interesting things about it, although I do think that its ratings and buzz have been exaggerated by the reactions of die-hard community members who got into its newness and/or authors who were interested in the implementation. There are things to like about this game. I just came out of it with an overall, "Meh," which really surprised me.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- katz (Altadena, California), February 17, 2011

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Evocative, distanced, unmoving, February 17, 2011
by Victor Gijsbers (The Netherlands)

Andrew Plotkin's basic aesthetic mode is that of distance and emptiness. From So Far to Dreamhold and Delightful Wallpaper, he has given us large empty worlds seen from a distance by an almost abstract protagonist. This is the poetry of objects and spaces, not of persons and ideas.

In my opinion, Plotkin's strongest works are those where he moves away from this aesthetics and puts more emphasis on the human: Spider and Web comes to mind, but especially Shade. The simple fact that something is at stake for the protagonists of these games serves to give life to what can otherwise be a very abstract experience.

Hoist Sail for the Heliopause and Home falls into the former, less personal and more distant, category. Indeed, it takes the aesthetics of distance and emptiness to the extreme as Plotkin transports us into outer space. Relying mostly on commands that involve movement and rigging the sails of our solar-wind-powered craft, we explore a variety of astronomical objects and find mysterious natural phenomena and alien artifacts.

All of this works very well: if you want to see how to do a travel-based game, playing Hoist Sail for the Heliopause and Home is required homework. The descriptions of the galaxy are evocative and inspire some of the wonder that can be generated by popular accounts of astronomy. But is is all very abstract, very distant. One does not feel involved: certainly not on an emotional or intellectual level, but not even on the more basic level of being in control of a protagonist. We do not feel in control, since the protagonist is exploring but we are not. We have no freedom. We are just along for the ride.

The final sequence of moves is deftly done, as it suddenly transports the story to a different genre. But the admiration it inspires is the admiration with which we look at a perfectly spherical marble ball, not that with which we look at a statue; the pleasure it brings is that of contemplating Peano arithmetic rather than that of contemplating Macbeth.

I love spherical marbles, Peano arithmetic, and Hubble Space Telescope pictures as much as the next guy, but I doubt whether they are a good model for fiction, interactive or otherwise. Count me among those who hope that Hadean Lands will involve human beings with thoughts and emotions and desires that remain unfulfilled. (Although I will probably never get to play that game, given the platforms for which it will be released.)

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- Juhana, February 11, 2011

- PDearmore (Central New York), February 3, 2011

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Game of the year, January 29, 2011

This is exactly what short interactive fiction should be. Effortlessly evokes a classic science-fantasy style to tell a satisfyingly complete tall tale with perfect circular logic. Gameplay-wise, the interface and commands are based on the nautical model ("HOIST SAILS" etc) which will likely be initially unfamiliar to the player. The writing, however, does a great job of directing the player to the right commands to use very subtly, an invisible tutorial offering a guiding hand. Every puzzle builds on what you previously learned, often you will instinctively know what to type: the sign of a master of the form at work. I challenge you to think of a better game released in 2010.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- Ben Cressey (Seattle, WA), January 25, 2011

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
heliopause again, home again, lickity-split, January 16, 2011
by Aintelligence (Canada)

Creativity is one of the most important things to remember about in IF, and like other games Plotkin has made, the creativity wfas very evident from the beginning. Of course being a trek fan (and basically any other scyfi show out there excluding vampires), the universe created is unlike anything I've seen in my IF, with sails, strange creatures and exploration.

I suppose what struck me first about this, was that it wasn't a combat mission like most space adventures are. Instead, it utilized the exploration component of space. Furthermore, the exploration isn't simple south, north east, west, up, down, in, out system, but uses sails to direct the spacecraft. through a series of furrowing and unfurrowing, tightening and untightening the sails, the player can move around the universe. Of course going left and right is not possible, but the puzzles utilized well, the inability to move anywhere but straight. Furthermore, it was impressive to not how well everything was implemented in the game. There were so many commands which could be used to do each action, making the game run extremely smoothly.

plot kin, as always, makes good use of characters and storyline. Like so many of his games, everything is well thought out, and just enough information is given so the player can fill in the rest using their own imaginations. Quite frankly, the descriptions in the game were done so to give the player a sense of awe at the beautiful universe around them, and let them picture it mostly themselves. The character was a little on the bleak side, but i think enough was known about him, and his excitement of the unknown was very clear.

I'll say it right now that I absolutely hate mazes with a passion. I've always hated mazes (for an obvious reason), and I didn't really think I'd ever like them. However this game has a brilliant maze that I even enjoyed. I don't want to spoil it because it is so well done, but I will say this: the maze was interesting because it took skill to maneuver through it and it wasn't just guesswork the whole time, which I just love in a maze. As for most of the puzzles in the game, they are not difficult, but instead very interesting and fitting in this story.

I loved this game and I'd recommend other players to go to "the heliopause, and Beyond"!

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- Carlo, January 1, 2011

4 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
A simulation ... and a boring one at that., December 27, 2010

So I read the reviews and, after playing it, I still can't figure out: why would anyone like this game?

You basically "raise anchor", "loosen sail", "tighten sail" and so on to take some light-sail based ship around. You can't even use the command "ORBIT" -- as in "orbit the star" or "orbit the planet." Seriously? The author couldn't think of this most obvious command??!

This isn't a game. It's a simulation -- and not even a fun one since you have to keep typing out the full commands. (It's really "fun" because you have to time the commands to type them at the right time in order to make sure you can escape a pulsar or orbit a planet or something.)

The writing -- what there is of it -- is not so much bad as it is just totally bland. I was so disengaged with this simulation that I didn't even bother trying to finish. For whatever reason, I think people are more responding to the author than to the work itself.

In a word: boring.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | View comments (7) - Add comment 

- Markoff23, December 18, 2010

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
The Wine-Dark Cosmos, December 17, 2010
by Sam Kabo Ashwell (Seattle)
Related reviews: science fantasy, fantasy, fairytale, SF

Heliopause looks, on the surface, like far-future SF. It's a veneer. A very good, lovingly crafted veneer, rich with knowledge of astronomy and the knowing evocation of tasty SF tropes; but the heart of the game is fantasy, and this is understood, and it's very adeptly handled.

The framing of the story makes it clear that we're dealing with a tall tale, a reliable signal not just of narrative unreliability, but of entry into realms of Story where versimilitude is beside the point. The threefold repetition, the fisherman's-wife motif of a fourth greedy wish cancelling the previous three, the three gifts whose use emerges only at the moment of crisis -- these are solid motifs of the fantastic, and deftly employed. The protagonist gives lip-service to the idea that he's collecting stuff for its unique scientific properties, but really what's being sought isn't something with a technical application so much as Herodotean wonders.

SF treats space as a rational quantity to be managed in some way or another: an ocean to chart, a frontier to advance, an empire to administrate. In Heliopause, space is the Great Forest of Arthurian knight-errant and Grimm fairytale, or the ocean of the Odyssey: anything might be encountered there, but you won't be able to plot it on a map. The principal controls, which you're given enough time to figure out intuitively but not enough to really master, feed into this feeling, as does the low-level approach to scenery; the standard IF game encourages a rather Aristotelean, sift-through-lists approach to one's surroundings, but this feels more like fable than fieldwork. The problem with this in a game context is that things end up feeling quite linear; the sense of vast possibility in the early stages gets closed down towards the end.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | View comments (1) - Add comment 

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Go Forth, November 27, 2010
by The Year Is Yesterday (California)

This is but one of the plethora of non-standard commands the game recognizes, and it is this expansive vocabulary that serves as its greatest strength.

When play begins, you set off in an interstellar sailing vessel, bound for mystery and intrigue and unmapped, boundless space. From the get-go, the parser gently encourages you to utilize nautical phrases from "weigh anchor" or "drop anchor" to "unfurl sails." This subtly but effectively enhances immersion: it encourages you to think like the PC, turning this fantastical vessel into something you comfortably command rather than another strange machine. It also allows for some interesting navigation: you are at the mercy of the solar winds, turning movement itself into a constantly-shifting puzzle. Often, your only option will be to adjust the rigging and hope for the best.

The writing, as usual for Plotkin, is superb, and the cosmic landscape is full of mystery and alien beauty. Without spoiling too much, the end-game sequence (Spoiler - click to show)reminded me a bit of Old Man and the Sea, but it feels appropriate and melancholic. Since you are constantly moving forward, descriptions will change with every turn, while remaining similar enough to let you know you haven't left the "room." Puzzles are few and mostly simple, navigation is overwhelmingly linear, and the story is brief, but what's here blazes with the same sense of adventure and discovery that we felt playing pirates as kids.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- Nusco (Bologna, Italy), September 21, 2010

- Mr. Patient (Saint Paul, Minn.), September 16, 2010

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Beautiful adventure, August 8, 2010

This is just...gorgeous. The writing is incredible -- your fantastical solar-sail ship feels familiar, while the places you sail to evoke that thrill of wonder and alienness even though to the player, everything should be equally strange. Playwise, it's a bit of a "hoist sails and find out what happens" interface rather than letting you affect the plot much, but that works perfectly with the premise: you're an explorer just seeing what's out there. This is a game to play for the storytelling rather than the challenge. The puzzles are clever but not particularly difficult and the parser will accept both a wide variety of authentic nautical terms and more landlubber-friendly versions. If you sail, this will be particularly enjoyable, but if you don't you won't be lost at all.

It's mostly a story of pure exploration, but the ending is crisply wistful and satisfying. It has a bit of a Ray Bradbury feel to it -- the nostalgic stories, not the creepy ones.

The only problem I had was that in one situation, I tried multiple ways to get out of a trap, only to find myself suddenly free without doing anything different that I could see. I'm not sure if that was a bug or me doing something slightly different without realizing.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- Joel Webster (Madison, WI), July 26, 2010

- Simon Christiansen (Denmark), July 19, 2010

- Anya Johanna DeNiro (Minnesota), July 12, 2010

- karcher, July 11, 2010


Previous | << 1 2 3 4 >> | Next | Show All | Return to game's main page