Reviews by Danielle
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Minigames, Meet IF! Plus Bananas!, November 11, 2010ROGUE is a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi trek that'll keep you coming back for more.
Normally when I play IF, I play to get through the story. And often, IF is streamlined to that end: the rooms you encounter and the people you talk to and the objects you find are all designed to either get you "in" to the story (through atmosphere and object descriptions) or get you to the end of the story.
ROGUE's mission areas are one of the few instances I've seen in IF where you can plunk around for a long, enjoyable time, not doing anything to further the plot (if you desire). In other words, ROGUE's mission areas act as a minigame, and a darn fun one at that.
You can play an infinite amount of missions, because they're procedurally generated. But they're not lame missions, no--each world you're beamed to has its own fully-realized character, whether it's a cybernetic city or a series of grassy fields.
When you're done with a mission, you return with all kinds of crazy loot, resulting in kooky commentary from the doctor about the booty. Oh, yeah, and you get money, too, which means you can buy things from the store. Delivery to your, uh, "home" is automatic; once you've bought something, return to your house and see the awesome alien junk you've acquired!
The ability to buy all the store's random merchandise and play the missions at your leisure, without being required to do anything to advance the plot--heck, without being *penalized* for not advancing the plot--delighted me. Absolutely delighted me.
I also enjoyed the unconventional setup of ROGUE. It starts in a prison. I was expecting it to go 1984, but then I (Spoiler - click to show)wind up a lab experiment. I was expecting it to go (Spoiler - click to show)PORTAL, but then suddenly I'm roaming around like a (Spoiler - click to show)TOMB RAIDER with access to the Home Shopping Network. Then things go kablooie and now I feel like I'm driving through (Spoiler - click to show)DIE HARD. And that ending? (Spoiler - click to show)What is this, THE PRESTIGE meets TEMERAIRE? It was wonderful to have my expectations swept aside in such fun ways.
I do have one complaint, though, and it almost made me take off a star.
Dr. Sliss' cursing.
I understand this game has a subversive sense of humor. And yes, parts of Dr. Sliss' questionaire raise an eyebrow. But in my mind, the main bulk of the game felt "PG," so encountering such strong language in the finale felt really REALLY jarring to me. It didn't fit the tone of the rest of the game.
Plus, while I know IF is generally made By Adults, For Adults...the whole scenario has a Bruce Coville/ARTEMIS FOWL kind of vibe that I think middle-school kids would get a kick out of. I would have loved to've played this game as a kid, and I know there are a lot of parents and children out there today who'd have fun playing through this together. With all kindness, I invite the author to consider editing out that language in a post-comp release.
Even if that never changes, I highly recommend ROGUE OF THE MULTIVERSE. You'll love the alien cultures, you'll love Sliss, you'll love the rip-roarin' finale, and you'll love taggin' random items for booty. It's a blast.
Raises more questions than it answers, October 28, 2010I liked the sense of mystery introduced in this piece--coming in from the rain, Estelle, just nosing around someone else's life.
The introductory section struck me as a little purple-prosey, but by the end, the writing either improved (injecting a lot of atmosphere without any cheesiness) or I stopped noticing any flourishy bits.
Here's where I'm lost: even though the author states that this is an interactive story, and more about your interpretation than puzzles...I didn't really feel like I got all the stuff I needed to construct my own background.
In particular, (Spoiler - click to show)I couldn't even tell if I was real or not. Some little bits made me think that hey--maybe I'm a figment of this gal's imagination or a separate personality?--but other evidence seems to point to the idea that I'm real and abusive. Or maybe I killed the houseowner in the first scene??. And I couldn't quite figure out how Estelle fit into all this. And I really WANTED to know.
It's pretty well-implemented, and there's a couple of interesting things to do (like (Spoiler - click to show)replacing the dry flowers in the bathroom with the roses...which I might have dyed with hair dye??), and overall, you'll enjoy snooping around someone else's house for an evening.
But the interpretive aspect of the work/work's meaning just didn't do it for me.
Mysterious, Ambitious, Compelling, October 21, 2010Gris et Jaune was the first IFComp 2010 game I played, due to the writeup over at JayisGames.com. In effect, they said: "We'd hate to spoil even the beginning for you. Just play."
So I did. And I think you'll enjoy it best that way, too, so I'll keep my comments brief.
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The beginning grabbed me in a way that I haven't experienced since parts of ANCHORHEAD.
I've never seen this setting before in IF. It begs the question: why hasn't someone set a piece here before?
There's a lot going on emotionally. More than you'd expect from a work featuring (Spoiler - click to show)a zombie.
That said, I'm not sure how much of that emotion was conveyed clearly. I had a lot of questions about a certain character (Spoiler - click to show)--Mama John-- and how things fit together between some characters. (After emailing the author--whom I found very congenial--about it, it sounds like we may see some changes in the post-comp edition; hopefully the emotional links will become more clear.)
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Gris et Jaune isn't perfect. But there is something very special about it. Play it. You'll feel the heart that went into it.
On Memory, October 20, 2010The night before I played this, my church had a speaker who was, at the time, Bishop (a pastor) to a number of kids who lived through the Columbine shooting. He recounted two of the survivors' stories. Those stories were on my mind while I played this.
The game calls itself "An Interactive Anecdote"--and I feel that's an accurate assessment. The way it's told, the details it leaves out, and its emotional inconclusiveness (in parts) gives this work a feeling of exploring a memory. Some moments are crystallized; they always happen the same way. Other moments are nebulous and change each time you revisit.
I can't say that I know what this piece is saying. I'm not even sure I liked it, or "got" it. But it was interesting, and maybe you'll get more out of it than I did.
Delightful writing; unusual method., October 20, 2010I'm not one who tries to "outguess the author" when I read mystery novels or watch movies. I enjoy the ride. So maybe I'm not the target audience for this piece.
CUFF contains a really fun play idea--I just had a hard time getting it going. The first playthrough, I threw the wrong guy in jail (sorry!). The second time, after I thought I'd exhausted the number of items I could examine, I hit a wall. Almost none of the descriptions repeat themselves more than once, so I reached for the walkthrough.
I don't think I would have solved the crime without it. Even after the walkthrough, I didn't quite catch the thread of logic. But I also feel this way after reading some mystery novels, so it could just be the way my head works.
Definitely play this one--the writing is a plum, perfectly in-genre--just know it takes a very careful eye to untangle the real mystery.
Hummingbird: Finally A Reason for Massive Pecs, October 20, 2010HUMMINGBIRD is fun superhero adventure that does a good job of taking a visually cool superpower, translating that power to text, and still making you feel cool while using it.
The author purposely designed some moments to reward you for mastery of the superpower, and those moments really pay off.
I felt like the second part of the game needed a more direction. I had a hard time figuring out what I had to do, and one idea I thought was a fun and valid solution to a problem wasn't even in the ballpark of what the author had in mind--(Spoiler - click to show)I really wanted to drop those curtains on the goons!!
As a result, I played most of the endgame with the Hint guide out.
Afterwards I wanted to replay the FRENETIC FIVE series, so I'd say if you're a fan of superheroes, and also superhero parodies, you'll enjoy your own flight with the Hummingbird.
Plain, sugar-free, no-fat, whipped-creamless, slice of life., October 20, 2010OK, so really it's more of a programming test. You get home, you have to do some things, then shut down your house for the night before you go to bed.
Now, I haven't programmed my own IF game, but I've dabbled in it a few times and, you know, I've got to give Anonymous credit for finishing and releasing this thing.
It's competent. The parser replies aren't *too* snarky, there are "reminder" texts that occur to help keep you on-track and towards your goal. There's even a cute hamster.
My main complaint was that, in order to solve (Spoiler - click to show)"taking out the trash", you had to go to a section that is (to my memory) never mentioned in any other room's description. I mean, I searched for that (Spoiler - click to show)trash can for over 20 minutes, and I don't even think there are 5 rooms in the entire house. It was a very annoying problem that could have been fixed with just one line of description.
So it's probably not a game most need to play.
But I still want to give the author kudos. Kudos for producing this. You did it! You finished a whole game.
Gem of a game!, June 7, 2010If you came to VIOLET wanting a huge dungeon-crawler, you'll be disappointed. But if you're in the mood for something different, this game is a perfect little tidbit.
It's all about Violet. Come to think...yeah, it is all about her. A generic parser voice would turn this into another game about accomplishing a mundane in-office task. Instead, Violet editorializes upon your actions (whether good, bad, or stupid), and mentions memories that remind you that there's more at stake here than a thesis.
I also think if this game hadn't had such a good hint system, I would have had to've knocked down a star. Intially, it's a little tricky to catch on to the thread of logic, so when the hints ended up being more like the UHS system (in which a number of clues are given before the answer's handed out), AND in Violet's voice, I was very happy.
Violet is fun to listen to (my favorite pet name: "weet-bix"), and you feel a lot of genuine affection in the writing of this game. The spot-on implementation, charming voice, and perfect length make this equivalent to a short-story masterpiece.
"...and to introduce some of the hotter spring 2010 education technologies,"
Methinks the developers of this game weren't thinking of the IF community when they developed that blurb. "Hot" (and its variants) and "IF" do not go together, unless we are talking about some distant solar entity.
Cute idea, obtuse puzzles, April 15, 2010While I really enjoyed the concept (I love any game where you get to be an animal), and found the implementation solid (esp. of Christopher Robin, who is adorable), the puzzles were, for me, really obtuse. I ran to the walkthrough and still had no idea what would have led me to take that set of winning actions.
(Also, between this and "A Day for Soft Food"--what's with hostile NPC owners and animals?)
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