Reviews by Kenneth Hutt
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I'm not sure what to make of this.
Let's start with the basics. You are on a train when ... a certain event occurs. You take some actions, and a surreal little story slowly unfolds. But, as far as I can see, you have literally no choice -- not even really any real appearance of choice -- at any point. There is one thing you can do, and must do, at any point to advance the story. What it is is always clear. And nothing else will achieve anything at all. The game is in control.
Within those pretty severe limitations, it's done well enough. The writing is clear and reasonably lively. The implementation is more or less sound, though there are some points where the technical joins show (Spoiler - click to show)(for instance when you try to talk to a person who the parser tells you is inanimate).
But you have no control at all.
Which brings up the different possible ways of looking at this. It could be that this is a genuine attempt to produce a game which tells a fast-paced story and that its "rails" were seen as necessary by the author to get that story told. If so, in my view, it is fundamentally unsuccessful. The complete absence of any sort of choice means that your actions are, in substance, no more significant than deciding to turn the page. And the story, though it has spirit, was not sufficiently interesting to justify that, at least as I see it.
The second possibility is that this is a game that is making a point about IF -- that its whole purpose is to see what happens when you have the trappings of IF without any real interactivity. The name of the game tends to suggest as much, as does at least one feature of the story itself ((Spoiler - click to show)where the pirate's commands themselves prove futile). Perhaps, as a technical exercise, that might help us reflect on such matters as the significance of the parser ("What if the game understands me perfectly, but is totally recalcitrant?") and the relationship between parser-based IF and CYOA -- an elaborate demonstration that the superficial freedom of the prompt is not to be equated with the ability to make any real choices at all. If it is such an exercise it succeeds as a technical exercise ... but not in a way that makes it actually interesting to play. And the point is surely sufficiently obvious that it seems hardly worth making.
A third possibility, I suppose, is that there is in fact some way to break away from the rails, and that the game is an elaborate puzzle -- a sort of "escape the railroad" exercise; that there is some way of cracking the game so that one acquires the freedom that IF seems to promise but this game deliberately withholds. That would be, as the kids say, cool, and my rather-less-than-lukewarm reception would be unfair. But if it is so, I'm afraid, I missed it or any indication of it.
It's all about the characters, September 27, 2011Love, Hate and the Mysterious Ocean Tower is a short story, designed to be played in a matter of a few minutes. That, of course, imposes certain limits on its range. But within those limits it is polished and intriguing.
Consistently with Pacian's other work, the story's focus is distinctly, and one assumes deliberately, not about some of the things that "classic" and "neoclassic" IF focus on. The things that are hidden or hinted at in this game are not about place or object, so that the task is not to explore place or object. It's not about puzzles. Indeed, the story rather explicitly turns its back on those traditional elements: (Spoiler - click to show)as when taking inventory reveals that Nicky is carrying a pile of useless books or (Spoiler - click to show)where the discovery of an intricate puzzle-lock leads, almost instantly, to its summary destruction by Peyton. For most of the story it's obvious where you must go and what you must do.
But this does not mean that the characterization, either of the people concerned or of the location, is inadequate. Quite the contrary. The surreal world and the characters are sketched, with additional elements occasionally revealed, in a way that very convincingly shows, without telling, an intriguing back-story and environment.
Nor does it mean that the game is not about choice. On the contrary, it is very much -- in the end -- about choice. As Victor Gijsbers has perceptively said, choice is most important when the reader/player is explicitly aware of it. Despite the combination of melodrama and camp on the surface of the story, the result manages to be touching.
The aim of this story is evidently not profound -- no mixture of Indiana Jones and Rocky Horror could be -- but for all that it manages to be not just light fun (though it is that), but something a little more too. Highly recommended if you like short, strongly drawn pieces to while away half an hour or so.
Something's not quite right ..., June 5, 2009This is a really solidly implemented short game, and undoubtedly enjoyable to play. Ultimately, however, I found it unsatisfying, and wondered why. I think there are two reasons.
First, I think the story is neither convincing nor charming. It's unconvincing in the sense that the characters are not psychologically convincing, the plot is vastly implausible, and the actions of the characters are not realistically motivated. None of this would matter if the story was told as a charming or even an intriguing espionage tale with period charm, a la Buchan or Fleming. But in the final analysis it lacks this sort of spirit or charm.
Secondly, in terms of its interactive characteristics, the game is rather manipulative. It has clear, even dicatorial, ideas about what you should do, where you should go, what you should be asking whom. It will nag you and cajole you, and ultimately even force you to do as it wishes. There's a lot of rather pointless searching for some object the game has just decided you must have. For me, at least, this gets tiresome--not so much a question of guessing the verb, as guessing the noun, as one tries to work out what object might repay searching. Even with a very solidly and deeply-implemented environment this is not all that enjoyable.
This leaves what is most interesting about the game, which is the ability to control person and tense. But, interesting as this is (and impressive as the implementation is) it's not interesting enough to carry the whole game.
So, certainly a game worth playing, both to experiment with tenses, and for its intrinsic interest. But not, to my mind, truly compelling.
Half baked, not hard boiled, May 18, 2009In summary: This game isn't trying to be great. But its modest ambitions are marred by mediocre craftsmanship. At its core (and what's best about the game) are a few neat but simple puzzles. Unfortunately only one really rewards thought; the others are either simple or random. There are some nice touches of humour, and the conceit of setting this as a radio drama is nice, especially with the (all to frequently seen) death or loss messages, which are well done.
But
(1) It's very linear. Not just in the sense that one scene must precede another (which is fair enough given the structure) -- but in the sense that each scene is linear, too. A succession of tasks to be accomplished in order. The game is full of devices designed to insist that you do things in the order the author intended. Interact ... but on my terms.
(2) Given that in the end it's only puzzles and light humour, both of them need to be great. And they really aren't. Some puzzles are poorly clued. Some are just UN-clued, being more a case of "Do X. Die. Undo. Don't do X again." There's a bunch of learning by dying. Others, by contrast, are very obvious. Of the various scenes, only two are really fully realised puzzles; it feels like the rest were skimped.
(3) The writing is so-so. Telling me that an apartment looks expensive and luxurious is not the same thing as describing an expensive apartment. I was also jarred by the mixture of specifically New-Yorky-names ("lower east side") and non-New-Yorky things (5th and Main anyone ... and a 5th Avenue apartment building with 4 apartments and no doorman?). This jarred, and it's lazy. Either set your story in New York, or in some imaginary city. (The same goes for the game's logic. If it's so late the lift-man's gone home, how come all the tenants are up and awake?)
(4) The implementation is really patchy. Some parts of it are impressively thorough. But in other cases I was unable to do things that should have been possible, including one case where the messages were positively misleading. In at least one other case, I was able to do something completely ridiculous, and I encountered what seemed to be one definite bug. Quite often the code obviously understood what I wanted to do but insisted on telling me to use a different verb. Beta testers are credited; but more testing was needed.
So what's good? Well, it's obvious that considerable care has been taken to accommodate many reasonable or unreasonable actions. The hints are well done, and thorough. The game (and this is definitely a game) will provide an hour or so of mild amusement, which is probably all it was intended for. But with a more self-critical polishing, this could be much better.
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