Varicella

5 star: (63) 4 star: (33) 3 star: (22) 2 star: (9) 1 star: (0)

Average Rating: Number of Reviews: 10 Write a review

Newest FirstOldest FirstMost Helpful FirstLeast Helpful FirstHighest Ratings FirstLowest Ratings First

1-10 of 10

Il Reggente., January 24, 2024

How Unseemly!
-------------

The King is dead! All hail the Ki... well, seeing that Prince Charles is a five-year-old nasty specimen of royalty who has barely outgrown his toddler nappies, that should be "All hail Primo Varicella, Regent of Piedmont!"
Once you've managed to outmaneuver your rivals to the Regency in the maze of backstabbery and treasonous wit that lies before you at this time, that is...

Several times during my earliest forays into Interactive Fiction, 20-odd years ago, I started playing Adam Cadre's Varicella and quickly bounced off it. My expectations then were firmly geared towards long linear quest-adventures, and this game's time-limit and simultaneous sub-puzzles stumped me. I never got much further than trying to kick one of the guards in the nads when he wouldn't stand aside. (A swift death was my reward.)
In the past years, I have played and enjoyed a bunch of optimisation games, and delving into the historic vaults of IF had exposed me to many Cruel games with numerous try-die-repeat puzzles. With the added wisdom and experience so accumulated, I felt ready to once again tackle this highly acclaimed Classic of the Renaissance with an openness of mind and the patience to appreciate it on its own terms.

>"Photopia has made more of a mark, I suppose, but Photopia is a short story; Varicella is a world. There are so many things to see and do…"
--Adam Cadre on Varicella--

A very true assessment. What the author doesn't mention is that no single playthrough will ever contain even half the content this game has to offer. Merely to gather the absolute minimum of information necessary to solve the game requires multiple focused playthroughs. Finding out about the other conversation topics, item descriptions, hidden nooks kept me happily engaged for a good while after I had solved the central puzzle.

Varicella is amazing.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----Rise Of Primo Varicella; A Truthful Account Of Our Behind-the-Scenes Assistance To One Palace Minister In His Ruthless Ascent to Power----
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--> I. In which We Acquaint Ourselves With The Pallazo del Piemonte:

As a first move, we slide our pocket pocket watch into our breastpocket, we won't be needing it anytime soon. Let death come as it wills. (In other words, do not pay notice to the advancing clock in the status bar.) In these first few visits to the Palace, our primary focus shall be on the basics of this imaginary world: the Map! Exits and entrances, locked doors and other puzzles, the locations of items to pick up and NPCs to chat up.
The Palace on each level is built according to an almost completely symmetrical floor plan. This arrangement will be most convenient later on, when time is of the essence. For now, we might as well draw our map and note and label the offices of our rivals for future reference.
Pairing the practical to the pleasant, our tour allows us to take in the halls, rooms, and corridors of the Palace, all described from Primo's point of view.

>\>LOOK

Your Quarters

You may have been relegated to the top of this tower, but that hasn't impeded you from imbuing your quarters with an excellence that not even a team of interior decorators flown in from Kyoto could achieve. Only someone with your finely-honed sensibilities could have taken this amount of space and kept it from seeming appallingly cramped. Though the panoramic windows to the north and west do their part in opening up the room, you still have to give most of the credit to yourself.

His attention to the smallest details of ornamentation reveals an inordinate fondness for luxury and style, this seeming to be his greatest priority in life, apart from his unquenchable thirst for power.

--> II. In Which The Gap Between Primo Varicella's Knowledge And Our Own Is Bridged, And Our Shared Understanding Is Broadened:

Having lived here for years, Primo has been involved in the palatial scheming and plotting for a long time before we made our entrance. It's essential for the player's understanding of what's going on to absorb all the information at hand to catch up with him.
Both the explicit asides in and the implicit hints at palatial power-dynamics between the lines of the room descriptions have already given us a view of the treacherous web of ambitons we'll need to navigate. A good way to get more insight is Primo's own record of his rivals and potential allies. (He has a nifty gizmo...)

This leads us straight to the next step: seeking out the other palace residents. Each and every one of them has their own flavour of wretchedness. Be it raw lust for power coupled with the guileful cunning needed to reach and hold a position in the Palace, the powerless misery of being a mere plaything in the machinations of the Court, or the distanced watchfulness of one awaiting the developments before choosing sides, all the players on this stage are deeply disturbing.
For at least one of them, the ordeals that life amidst these scheming villains have pushed her firmly beyond the reach of reason:

>\>ASK CHARLOTTE ABOUT ME
"i see a little varicella of a man," Princess Charlotte replies. "scaramouche! scaramouche! will you do the grim fandango? i think you will!"


Primo, with all his cynical scheming, is not by far the worst of the lot.

Gaining access to the personal quarters of the other palace inhabitants confronts us with the first few obstacles. Easy and straightforward as they may be, they provide the necessary first steps toward the cogs and wheels we'll need to set in motion. Careful navigation of the conversations and attentive investigation of their rooms will reveal secrets and weaknesses to be exploited later on. The items available in the private rooms point us toward potential ways to eliminate our rivals.

--> III. In Which Fragments of the Scheme are Discovered and Executed:

The accessible rooms and halls of the Palazzo di Piemonte fully investigated, the other denizens interrogated in as far as they would let us, important-seeming items in our inventory, the mind reeling with possible scenarios... It's time to finally act upon the hunches and what-ifs that were triggered by our exploration.

Each of Primo's rivals has their own puzzle-chain, their own sequence of steps toward their elimination. Because life in the Palace moves along at its own pace, and our adversaries are busily deploying their own sets of perfidious tactics, many of our actions are time-dependent.
A number of obstacles require intimate knowledge about the other residents gained in previous conversations to goad them in our desired direction. Other hurdles are of a more physical or technical nature, where we manipulate nature instead of people.
The main objective here is to find the way to take out each of Primo's rivals separately, without worrying yet about the others during one particular tour.

--> IV. In Which I Piece together Primo's Plan:

Alas! I failed at this final task. I had figured out the movements and weaknesses of Primo's rivals, and for each of them I found a way to exploit this knowledge against them. The distinct sequences for eliminating each of the other power-hungry wolves were clear to me, without even once peeking behind the curtains.

++++
Speaking of peeking behind curtains, we're treated to a nice reference to the Bard if we do precisely that:

>LOOK BEHIND TAPESTRY
The tapestry is flush against the wall, with nothing behind it but cool marble. You were expecting Polonius?
---Adam Cadre, Varicella---
--------------------------------------------------/
QUEEN
"What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
Help, ho!"
POLONIUS (behind the arras)
"What ho! Help!"
HAMLET
"How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead."
----He kills Polonius by thrusting a rapier
through the arras.----
---William Shakespeare, Hamlet---
--------------------------------------------------/
++++

Despite repeated attempts, I never succeeded at ordering the moves in these discrete seqences into an effective interlocking whole. After getting rid of the majority of opponents, there always remained at least one foe that I had not dealt with soon enough.
It's not enough to execute the separate sub-schemes one after the other, no matter in which order. Primo needs to think many moves ahead and slide the distinct plans together to have a chance of defeating the large-scale puzzle. Acquiring items and solving preparatory puzzles for a later adversary must be taken care of while still dealing with the present opponent, so that the whole of the masterplan is as time-efficient as possible.
When I felt utterly defeated and finally looked at a step-by-step walkthrough, the ultimate all-encompassing sequence of moves presented itself as a magnificent complex web, dealing with every circumstance and threat in an interwoven simultaneous master scheme.

Following the walkthrough and seeing events unroll showed me a vision of an inescapable, interlocking, overarching solution which has an almost mathematical beauty.

--> V. In Which Primo Varicella Prevails:

At the end of this horrible tale, Primo stand atop a heap of corpses, rewarded with the Regence of Piedmont. With the child Prince Charles under his protection and authority, his dream of power is fulfilled.

>"Yet it cannot be called talent to slay fellow-citizens, to deceive friends,
to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; such methods may
gain empire, but not glory. Still, if the courage of Primo Varicella in
entering into and extricating himself from dangers be considered,
together with his greatness of mind in enduring and overcoming
hardships, it cannot be seen why he should be esteemed less than the
most notable captain.
--Nicoló Macchiavelli, Il Principe; Chapter VIII: Of Those Who By Their Crimes Come To Be Princes.-- ("Agathocles" changed to "Primo Varicella)

The short epilogue concludes the story of Regent Primo Varicella in a fitting manner. It left me staring unseeing into the distance, pondering the fate of my luxury-loving, power-lusting companion whom I, contrary to my wishes, had grown somewhat fond of.


Varicella is among the very best IF has to offer. Magnificent.

The game Photopia should have been..., January 8, 2024

Okay, confession time. I've never been a big fan of Adam Cadre's work and have spent the last few years wondering if he's heavily into bribing people to say nice things about his games because I could never see what the fuss was. Photopia left me cold; Lock & Key confused me so much I don't think I managed to do a single thing right; I gave up with Narcolepsy five minutes into it despite telling myself I'd at least give it a fair go before passing judgement. So when I was looking around for a game to play and chanced upon Varicella I wasn't, despite its reputation, really expecting much. I figured that at best it would be a well written mess that had been heralded as a masterpiece for reasons which I would never understand (which is pretty much my opinion of Photopia). So imagine my surprise when not only did it turn out to be very good, but also one of the best text adventures I've ever played.

What's it about?

The complicated goings-on at the Palazzo del Piedmonte where you, one Primo Varicella, are the Palace Minister. Despite the rather grand title, you wield little actual power and your duties generally include those of a glorified butler. But you're a schemer and eager to seize every opportunity that comes along to better yourself. And if this comes at the expense of others, well... too bad.

And now such an opportunity has presented itself. The King has just died and his son, Prince Charles, is five years old. Soon there's going to be a power struggle for the position of regent (who will officially rule the land in the Prince's stead but unofficially can do pretty much what he likes) and you intend to come out on top. Of course, that means dealing with your rivals as quickly as possible but you have few qualms about that sort of thing. "Dealing" in the case being a polite term for murder.

The introduction is good. Very good. Primo Varicella at once becomes a real and believable character, although it's easy to see why he's held in such poor esteem by everyone he meets in the game. He's a fussy little man, obsessed with manicures and interior design who considers himself the only genuinely sophisticated person at the palace. He's also quite happy to murder anyone who stands in his way, hardly a quality likely to endear him to other people. On top of that, he has an over-inflated opinion of himself and his own abilities, as demonstrated so well during the introduction:

Piedmont, it seems, will be requiring the services of a regent for the foreseeable future. And you can think of no better candidate than yourself.

There you have the introduction which does an excellent job of setting the scene.

Difficult game?

Oh yes. I've played some difficult games before but none that come close to Varicella in terms of sheer, downright impossibility*.

* Okay, maybe an exaggeration. After all, I've finished the game so I have firsthand knowledge that it's not impossible, but play it a few times and see how far you get. If you're like me, you'll spend your first four or five plays through the game not having a clue how to finish it.

My first time through the game I actually felt like I was making some pretty good progress. I wandered around the palace, chatted to people, discovered a few things, got a good feel for how I felt everything was likely to pan out - and then I got killed. Yep, soldiers stormed the palace, grabbed me and a moment later one of my rivals, clearly better at this sort of thing than I was, proceeded to shoot me in the head. Exit one fussy little man. Hitting UNDO didn't undo my problems unfortunately as the event with the soldiers and the subsequent untimely demise is on a timer and the program only allows one UNDO in a row. So all UNDO did for me was allow me to relive the moment of my death. Over and over again. Oh joy.

Undeterred, I restarted the game and tried to do better this time. I didn't succeed. Before long, I found myself replaying the final events of the previous game and getting steadily more annoyed at what I felt was an unfair and somewhat premature ending. I'd have probably quit then if not for the slight problem that Varicella was just so damn good that I couldn't bear to quit.

Part of its difficulty stems from the sheer shortness of the game. There is an incredible amount to do to reach an ending which doesn't involve one of your rivals killing you before you kill them and a lot of what needs to be accomplished to steer the game along the path you're after isn't at all straightforward or obvious. A lot, in fact, is the sort of thing you're unlikely to stumble across through sheer luck and instead needs to be plotted out very carefully over a period of many, many games. It's possible to make a few wrong moves here and there, waste a bit of time, but the shortness of the game and the available time you have to complete everything you need to do means that time-wasting just isn't an option. If anyone tells you they finished this game on their first play through they're either a) lying, b) lying, c) lying or d) relying on a walkthrough. Even knowing roughly the sequence of events that you need to go through in order to win, it's still far from easy to actually get there in one piece.

Saving your game regularly - the sort of thing anyone who has played more than a few text adventures knows to do instinctively - is less effective in Varicella due to the game's shortness. Several times after dying I reverted to a previous save only to find myself in another no-win situation because I hadn't performed a certain action by a certain time. In a lesser game this sort of thing would have driven me to distraction (and sent the game off to the recycle bin) but here it's almost forgivable considering the game's other strengths. Almost. When you've just died for the tenth time in a row because you missed something not particularly obvious right at the start of the game, it gets increasingly harder to keep feeling positive.

Persistence seems to be the best way to get anywhere. A couple of times I didn't even try to finish the game, I just explored different avenues that were open to me and if one avenue didn't seem to lead anywhere I restarted and tried something else. One entire game I sat by my surveillance equipment and watched everything I could through it, seeing what I could discover about my rivals that they might not want me to know. In the end, persistence does pay off in that you finally manage to put everything together but you might be forgiven for thinking that you're getting nowhere.

Any characters?

Lots, and very good they are, too. They're a pretty despicable bunch for the most part and at times I was reminded of films like Pulp Fiction where every character, no matter who he or she is, is a nasty piece of work. You might find it hard to sympathise with them - they are, after all, a bunch of back-stabbing, conniving, evil little hellions who would throttle an old woman for her last coin - but it's possible to relate to them all the same. They're all interesting characters with a fully fleshed out background and while none are as well detailed as Varicella himself, they nevertheless perform their duties admirably in giving the player some worthy adversaries to pit himself against.

Not that everyone is against you. With a little bribery, you can find one ally and some detective work and inspired questioning will get you another. Asking as many questions as you can of the characters is a good way to learn things but this is best done in a session when you're not planning to finish the game as the sequence of events that trigger after a set amount of time are likely are come around long before you've exhausted every conversation piece you can think of.

Charlotte is perhaps the only character in the game who doesn't fall into the despicable category, although she has more than a few despicable acts done to her. She spends the majority of the game locked up in the asylum atop one of the palace towers following a mental breakdown after her husband was shot on their wedding day. Several of your rivals regularly rape her (an option, fortunately, you're not able to pursue yourself).

Not a game for kids

There are several dark threads running through Varicella. Charlotte's rape is one of them. Spend enough time checking your surveillance equipment and you'll find an unpleasant scene (mercifully interrupted before its conclusion) with another of your rivals about to molest the young Prince Charles.

Now I started the game thinking that Primo Varicella himself was the lowest of the low due to his plotting to wipe out his enemies, but it quickly becomes apparent from playing through even a portion of the game that he's actually quite a lot less despicable than of his rivals. While more than happy to indulge in power-grabbing games and murder of people who haven't actually done anything to him, he's certainly more tolerable than his rivals. It's probably true to say that he's bad but not half as bad as anyone else.

The tale of the unsatisfying ending

You know on internet forums how when they're about to tell you something that you might not want to know they tend to put a row of dots or SPOILER SPACE with the letters one per line so there's no way anyone can glance at the spoilers without realising what they're looking at? Here we have a single row that says SPOILER so skip over the next few paragraphs if you haven't reached the end of the game yet and don't want it spoiling for you.

(Spoiler - click to show)

The ending was the game's weak point for me. Is there more than one ending? I'm not sure. I finished the game a couple of times and the ending I got was the same each time so I'm assuming it was the only one. If so, well... what a poor way to finish the game.

You win, defeat your adversaries, become regent for the land... and then the Prince grows up, turns into a real terror, stages an uprising, overthrows you and has you tortured to death. Hmmm....

While this certainly made a change from the usual run-of-the-mill game endings where you live happily after ever or find the big treasure chest or slay the evil dark lord and save the world, it's the kind of ending that makes me wonder what the whole point of the game was. Surely there must be a better reward for all that hard work than being tortured to death? Even the endings where I failed and got shot were more satisfying.

Of course, it's altogether possible that there are other endings that offer a more fulfilling conclusion to the game. But I finished it twice - once on my own (and slightly aided by the walkthrough) and once solely with the walkthrough - and both led me to the death-by-torture ending.



Better than Photopia?

Definitely. Now if people spoke about Varicella in the same kind of hero-worship tones that they do Photopia, I could understand where they were coming from. But whereas I finished Photopia and was left wondering just what the big fuss was, when I finished Varicella I immediately played it again several more times just to see what else I had missed. Recommended.

9 out of 10

Cinica e originale, November 1, 2022

Avventura molto breve e molto particolare, che si svolge in una sorta di moderno medioevo. Ho apprezzato il cinismo e lo humor nero che permeano la storia, non mi è piaciuto invece il fatto che per via dei tempi ristretti saremo obbligati a giocare molte partite prima capire cosa fare e in quale ordine, rendendo tutto un po' troppo meccanico e ripetitivo.

Caution: Murder ahead, November 18, 2016

This is probably about the 'darkest' IF I have ever played--you are a 'lowly' palace minister who is seizing an opportunity to essentially become king(after the king has died) by eliminating your rivals, one by one. And you have two hours(within the game, not on the clock) to achieve this. When I say 'eliminate', I mean actually killing your rivals--albeit indirectly(get my hands dirty!? Perish the thought!). If you object to this idea, then I strongly advise against playing this game. I know it's 'only fiction' but I can see how some would be turned off by it. But being the persistent IF-er, I pressed on...
It took me about 7 days to figure this game out, and should you decide to 'press on' like I did, I suggest you do the following--
1. Lay aside any expectation of 'winning' within the first few playthroughs. You will not. This game has a very tight time schedule, instead of a turn-counter, there is a time clock that measures out time according to how long the author estimates your chosen actions would take(instead of each action taking 1 turn, a 'wait' may take 2 minutes, a move between rooms may take 10 seconds, etc, though the clock at the top will advance only in 5 minute increments--it will not visibly advance with every move, so you have to guess). Most estimates I have seen say that a successful playthrough should take about 100 moves(which would sum up to about 2 hours, game time).
2. Expect to play through to the end(a failure,(Spoiler - click to show)when the war secretary-turned-warlord takes over the city-state) many times. But see each playthrough as a means of exploring the palace(you really won't be able to go anywhere outside) further, and getting to know each NPC more, by surveillance, observation, questions, etc. Search your own room, first, figure out the machinery.
3. Probably the best perspective to take is to realize that, at the beginning of the game, you ALREADY have a plan(to eliminate your rivals)--you just need to recall what it is, and put it in motion. Your initial playthroughs will be about figuring out the component parts of the plan, then you will need to put them together timing-wise.
4. These parts will interlock, in the final game(where you actually win) in such a way that you will need to work on each of the rivals simultaneously, putting a move or two in here and there against each. The order in which you execute these moves is very important. One mistake can be costly. You have to find out the correct order in which to destroy them.
I must make a confession, here. Though I have found out how to eliminate each of the rivals(there are 5), I never got the order correct. I kept dying, because I would forget something, took too long to do another thing, etc etc. Finally, I decided that I had other things I wanted to do and put the game aside. The 'enjoyment' that I got came from the 'figuring out' process, and I was content to know that I 'could' have figured out the timing. This game is truly rigorous. If Mr Cadre's intentions were to completely vex you, then he succeeded with me.
I did enjoy the rich descriptions and full character developments. Clearly, you are meant to explore all of these before completing the details of your plan and carrying them out with the final playthrough--in which you will NOT have time to do any information gathering. Look at EVERYTHING. ASK QUESTIONS. Experiment with ALL take-able objects. USE the equipment(for example, in some of my first playthroughs,(Spoiler - click to show) I did nothing but sit in the room and watch each one of the main NPCs on the surveillance system, particularly the rivals, for the entire two hours. I did this for each NPC.).
But for all its intricacy, there are some flaws. I think that the seeming anachronisms (palace guards, albeit with rifles, the 'war' with Venice, etc) were intentional, the author is bringing the old era of city-states(the Carolingian League) into the future, with electronics, helicopters, etc. The two biggest flaws that I can recall are--
1. Indifference; apparently, none of the deaths that you will have caused will be investigated, despite the social rank of the victims(in fact,(Spoiler - click to show) in the one in which there IS a reaction,you are present and it's obvious that you supplied the weapon. And surely, the queen and/or her son would notice that her brother-in-law had been murdered by the falling toy, which she had to have seen you take...!??.
2. In case no one noticed, (Spoiler - click to show)there is a cannibalistic plant taking over the palace! Nothing is said as to what was/will be done to eliminate it! Unless I missed something.
It bears repeating that in this game, YOU WILL BE DOING A LOT OF KILLING. Which perhaps leads to a third flaw--(Spoiler - click to show)when you destroy the war minister, you will also destroy his army. There may not be many people left to rule..!!??
Therefore, I gave it three stars. With these things in mind, I hope you enjoy the game, should you choose to play it.

A tightly-timed game with many NPCs, where you watch and commit disturbing acts, February 3, 2016

I avoided this game for some time, as I knew it had some disturbing content, but I was curious, so I went in and played through it. I feel, looking back, that I didn't really need to do so.

The gameplay is intricate, with six or more NPCs taking actions every turn. You play one of many possible regents to a young prince who must battle for supremacy. The game is mostly set in a blend of medieval, modern, and slightly futuristic technology.

Each enemy is deeply flawed. Some are motivated by greed, others by lust. The game deals with pedophilia, repeated rape, murder, alcoholism, misogyny, etc. These topics don't make a game bad, if they are handled well; but the game has a worldview that makes you squirm, where you are implicit in violence and death, and where human happiness is impossible.


Other people may not have the same reaction. Heck, I played it for quitea bit, before usinv a walkthrough to the end, making me hypocritical. But I can't recommend it in general.

Hints For Beating Chicken Pox, March 19, 2015

For a game like Varicella, that's been reviewed to death and has even had academic papers written about some of the characters, I don't know that it's all that useful to write a review that lists my likes and dislikes. (For the record, I liked the structure, writing, and setting lots and lots. I disliked the implied extreme sexual violence; I'm not particularly squeamish but this game made me squirm.) I do think the game's handling of its female characters is under-explored. (Cadre strikes me as trying to have his cake and eat it, while insisting that he doesn't even like cake.) More on that later. I thought I'd focus the review on providing some hints for new players.

Spoiler-free Hints
1) The game has a reputation for being impossibly difficult. It's really not. I suspect it's the intended playstyle that throws people off and gives them this impression. The puzzles are clever, but logical and well clued.
2) There are multiple solutions to many (all?) of the game's major problems. Some of the solutions are exclusive to each other (e.g. by using one, you preclude another), but there are multiple ways to combine the multiple solutions to ultimately solve the game. (Though I'm pretty sure there's only one 'winning' ending.) This creates the initial impression that there are lots of red herrings in the game (and I suspect that there are still a few), but most of what seem like red herrings are actually used for other solutions to your problems.
3) You will die. Many times. This is, I think, what lends the game its aura of difficulty. But if you expect it, it's kind of freeing. You can experiment: spend a whole playthrough standing in or watching a room to see what happens there, try various methods of solving puzzles, feel free to do dangerous seeming things, etc. This playstyle is apparently known as 'accretive protagonist'; it's like the movie Groundhog Day, where each playthrough allows you the opportunity to learn something and over many runs, you can build up enough knowledge to complete a successful one. The protagonist hints in the introductory text that he has a master plan. You can view your task as the player is to discover what that plan is and put it into action.
4) The time restraint is somewhat tight, but there's some slop built in for mistakes. Since the solution to the game is mostly modular, you can focus your experimentation in one playthrough on trying to achieve a particular solution to one problem, then in the next on optimizing it. Then move on to another problem, etc.
5) There's a jpeg map that comes with the game. It's worth printing it out. The geography of the game is simple and logical (though with many rooms), but the map helps keep your directions straight.
6) There's a lot to discover about the setting of the game and the characters that isn't vital or even useful for the solution. It's worth it to spend a few playthroughs wandering around, examining things, and asking questions.

About the Women (heavy spoilers)
(Spoiler - click to show)I've read a few reviews that mention Cadre's use of Sierra as his mouthpiece. If asked the right questions, she'll discuss women's political and cultural status both in the Piedmont and in the geopolitical reality of Cadre's setting. She comes off as something of a freedom-fighter for women's equality. Then she takes Rico's money and wields a team of assassins to assist him in cementing his power (which may actually be the good ending in the game.) She's obviously based a trope: the femme fatale. And Sarah is the weeping, simpering, weak woman. And Charlotte is crazy. (Note that Sierra herself seems to despise these other female characters, or at best evinces no sympathy for them.) And what are their ultimate fates? Sarah is murdered by her own son (who only ever refers to her as 'bitch'), and Charlotte gets locked back up in her cell. These women aren't agents, they're caricatures intended to be manipulated by the player, then pushed back into the background. Maybe that's Cadre's point, but then you have to look at the rapes.

Sarah was raped by her stepfather (crudely revealed by Sierra), Charlotte has been raped by Rico and Louis, and Sierra herself has been raped by Modo. In other words all of the female characters in the game have been subject to repeated sexual violence. Sarah's and Sierra's rapes serve very little purpose to the story: perhaps Sarah's is used to justify or explain her temperament and maybe Sierra's is used to make Modo look more evil. Charlotte's and that of Prince Charles are even more unsettling -- they're used to advance Varicella's agenda. You wouldn't be able to solve the game without those rapes. And maybe Cadre is trying to implicate the player or make a statement about agency or something. But it's a cold, disturbing, alien thing.

Conclusion
I'd give this game 5-stars for its great imaginative setting, for its thoroughly complicated but fascinating plot, for its very strong writing, for its technical accomplishments and for its engaging play-style. But I found that the implied sexual violence jarred both with the tone of the narration, with my desire to sense more agency from NPCs (especially female ones), and with my tolerance for utterly depraved human monsters stalking the halls.

Mixed bag, April 19, 2010

+) it's huge

-) but it's not deep

+) lots of potientially interesting characters (Charlotte, anyone?)

-) that aren't developed properly

+) lots of conversation topics

-) but no actual physical interaction with the "dummys" (and I mean none whatsoever! not even with yourself! oh the missed opportunities!)

+) interesting premise

-) but horrible retro-future-medieval Italy setting (THAT genre again! NO make it stop already! please! the horror!)

+) lots of funny moments

-) that take you right out of the illusion of a believable world since they very often violate the continuity of the setting

+) interesting ambivalent main character

-) we learn nothing about afterwards (where is his personal life! oh the missed opportunities!)

+) detailed world, in which

-) the puzzles MAKE NO SENSE, without a solution this is impossible to finish (e.g. the crack in the compass rose - I did find it by myself but to deduce that this detail of thousands is plot-critical is IMPOSSIBLE)

-) generally clever and I think researched writing

-) but sometimes the writing drops significantly for inadequately explored reasons, certain moments take you right out of the game - e.g. that guards would shoot you for offending them, I mean gee you're only the 5th most important man in the state, that means nothing?! or the feminist whore (sic!!!) *epic facepalm*

this also includes extreme mood swings in the tone of the game - compare Charlotte's saddening backstory with the entrance guard antics for an example

generally speaking, exploring the world is great fun! talking to characters is sometimes, but once you're done with that better whip out the solution and finish it quickly, cause you will discover nothing more interesting afterwards

the actual story is very thin, that you potentially have to replay it multiple times while there is no variation whatsoever doesn't really make it more interesting

the single worst part of Varicella is the epilogue, I deduct one half point for this complete and utter nonsense that seems to have been written by Andrew Plotkin since it's so totally opposed to anything that happens in the game in tone and content

overall, go play it, it has its moments that make it worthwile, but it's no Photopia or I-0, and it's no masterpiece by any standards

One of the deepest IFs ever, August 20, 2008

Although David Whyld's review almost says it all, I wanted to express my opinion on why this game is awesome, and what is the best way to play it (yes, you have to be prepared: preparation will lead to a deep gaming pleasure, while getting to Varicella unprepared might lead some people to total frustration).

THE GAME:
The king is dead. Within your palace, all will happen, and you will have to plan your way to the throne. That is: get rid of all the opposition. Within 100 moves. You are a vile, treacherous man, and you will behave as such.

GET PREPARED:
You have a very limited amount of moves before Varicella ends, and you have to plan everything with a huge amount of accuracy. Personally, I totally hate games with time/move limits. But this was not the case. Because this game is wonderful. And because I was prepared.
You gotta think of yourself as a time voyager. Varicella is simply the body that you will evilly posses in your journey. Thus: you have a mission, but you also have time-voyager curiosities.
Begin by satisfying the curiosity. Dedicate a number of games just to the discovery of what happens in the palace, and when. It will not be boring at all, because the world you'll get immersed into, is a deep and fascinating one. And in it, a lot of things change during those 100 moves.
After you know what's going on, and possibly when, you can get on the puzzles/treacherous-plannings. Start by solving a puzzle a game. Then, when you think you have solved everything, put them in the right sequence for the final rush.
Other than that, if you're not a lover of draw-the-map-yourself, you might also want to download the map.

If played the right way, this game will totally capture you. The palace is rich and detailed. Almost everything is interactive. And, while some NPCs are quite interesting, others are totally fascinating. Plus, for once we have an IF where you play a vile, immoral, and clever character: and this adds a lot more depth and fun ;-)

Very fun... if only it was not a 'replay puzzle' type of game!, October 18, 2007

I give 5 stars because even with absolutely no interest in palaces or royal family stuff the game got me interested from the start thanks to the exceptional writing (fun to read, fun to explore, simply fun to be there and to be Varicella, how unseemly!).
But this fun had a limit, and it was a time limit.
I played only once and died with no clue. What a shame, I was having so much fun exploring everything at my pace, I even surprised myself asking all the questions I could think of to the prince Louis just for laughing at his answers.
Why would a so enjoyable game have a time limit? Is it some kind of attempt at suicide-design?
When I realized the game was in fact to be explored many time through many lives I lost interest, mostly.
I thought it then looked more like archeology than actually enjoying a game.
Another "Guess What The Author Had In Mind" type of game, how unseemly!
What a shame since it is maybe the best IF game I have been given to try(not finish).

PS : I had liked the map to pop up in the game when typing 'map' instead of having an external file.

Sudden death, October 18, 2007

Although Varicella regularly gets high marks, I've never been able to enjoy it: it's of the "die many times in order to learn what you have to do" genre, you'll die many times not learning anything first because you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, and even knowing what you have to do you'll die many more times figuring out how to execute it correctly. As such, there's too much drudgery here for me to enjoy the play of the game, and the time pressure takes away from my ability to appreciate whatever worldbuilding has been done. To many people's taste, perhaps, but not to mine.

1-10 of 10 | Return to game's main page