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Dinner with Andre

by Liza Daly profile

Humor, Romance
2000

(based on 21 ratings)
2 reviews

About the Story

"A date by candlelight in a fine restaurant. Should be a perfect evening." [--blurb from Competition Aught-Zero]


Game Details


Awards

Nominee, Best Puzzles - 2000 XYZZY Awards

18th Place - 6th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2000)

Editorial Reviews

Baf's Guide


You're on a date, getting ambushed by all sorts of embarrassments and trying to save face. Fun puzzles and nicely goofy feel, though your character can be a bit of a drag--she's so insecure that you may want to shake some sense into her rather than going along with her schemes. Still, everything works well, and there's an enormously funny take on snooty waiters that makes the game worth trying all by itself.

-- Duncan Stevens

SPAG
[...] I thought the pieces meshed together really well; they all tie into the initial scenario, and the pacing is superb: a series of linear puzzles, then the game "goes wide" with a tough multi-element puzzle, then tightens down and is at peace briefly, easy, relaxed, everything is going right... and then BAM, ouch, followed by an easy end game. Perfect. As an added plus, the elements of DwA end up serving as a bit of a parody of some romantic genre cliches, indeed with the ending almost coming off as (unintentionally) mocking Masquerade, which uses those cliches to create its archetypal romance genre story.
-- Sean T Barrett
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SynTax
[...] a well written original game about a date from hell. It starts out as a story-based game but then poses increasingly difficult obstacles in your path.
-- Dorothy Millard
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>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

Solving the game's puzzles requires coming up with the funny response that the game had in mind, and using a less funny but still sensible response, or even a different funny response that the game hadn't envisioned, puts the player at a rather unhelpful dead end. Thus, in the first puzzle I had figured out what I wanted to do, but hadn't come up with the particular funny way of doing this thing that the game was looking for, and therefore I found myself going in ever more frustrating circles. Therefore, if you're anything like me, you probably shouldn't be afraid to turn to the hints in DWA, but once you do, you'll have a pretty good time. If only we could say that about all our disastrous dates.
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Member Reviews

5 star:
(1)
4 star:
(8)
3 star:
(9)
2 star:
(2)
1 star:
(1)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 2
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A mid-length humorous dinner date with a series of disasters, February 4, 2016

This mid-length parser game is the humorous story of a young woman on a date that gets worse and worse. You have to use quick thinking and a bit of slyness to get past overpriced food and clumsy waiters.

The writing is memorable and funny. The puzzles are a bit underclued, though, and many reviewers (including me) turned to the copious hints.

There are two or three puzzles in quick succession, followed by one big, mega puzzle involving a collection of obstructing waiters.

Overall, fun with hints.

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0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Worth a few minutes of your time, September 5, 2011
by Deboriole (San Diego, CA)

The whole premise of this game is that you are stuck in a restaurant and have to come up with a way to pay. It's an interesting little puzzle but not as outlandish as I had hoped for. I had big dreams of hiding the bill under the bread or sneaking out the bathroom window -- but alas, these are not the solutions. The real solution is kind of a let-down but definitely makes the most sense in retrospect.

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Dinner with Andre on IFDB

Recommended Lists

Dinner with Andre appears in the following Recommended Lists:

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I wanted to do a list of comedy games, but I think people rarely think "I want to play a comedy game"; to me, the phrase brings up some kind of jokey, goofy game, like many of the poorly made Twine games that people make now. Instead,...

Polls

The following polls include votes for Dinner with Andre:

Romance Games by Molly
In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm looking for games that deal with romance and relationships.

Solved without Hints by joncgoodwin
I'm very interested in hearing truthful accounts of at least somewhat difficult games (or games that don't solve themselves at least) solved completely without recourse to hints, walkthroughs, etc.




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