Reviews by Joey Jones
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Unfortunately Uncompelling, April 2, 2012You've got to give the author some credit for taking part and producing a game for the amazing Apollo 18 tribute album. Without noble folk stepping forward and taking on responsibilities, all the game slots wouldn't have been taken. He gets an honorary star for that. Unfortunately, Hypnotist of Ladies isn't a very good game. In fact, in terms of implementation or lack thereof, Hypnotist of Ladies reaches almost MST3K-worthy depths.
I quote:(Spoiler - click to show)
>talk to ladies
The ladies beam in heartfelt appreciation and eagerly await your next move....which is to hypnotise them.
[Your score has just gone up by one point.]
>hypnotise ladies
That's not a verb I recognise.
On the bright side, it's not very long, and if you also play every single other Apollo 18 game you'll have a wonderful sense of achievement.
I know, I know, it's serious, April 2, 2012I finished Nautilisia in no time at all really. It's an achingly self-aware little romp through someone's dream world. The puzzles are just simple pacing devices and the story is almost nonexistent, what motivates the player to completion is the quality of the writing, which remains consistently witty throughout, and the extra little 'amusing' things that reward light experimentation.
A Multiverse of Possibility, April 2, 2012The parser is a promise that is often broken. It offers you a chance to try anything. It bristles with possibility. Every game has a relationship with this promise, and most go something like this: You can try anything! Oh great, I'll try '[this]!', That's not a verb I recognise. The path of the text adventurer is one fraught with great disappointment, but also great excitement and glee when one's wishes are understood. And the more our wishes are understood, the more we trust the game and invest in its story.
What's The Blue doesn't have a consistent story, but rather dozens and dozens of different stories. With its breadth it comes a long way to fulfilling the promise of the parser. It isn't as complete as the multi-authored pick up the phone booth and aisle, but given that there is only one of Ruth it is impressive.
Imagistic and imaginative, April 2, 2012Leave Me Alone, like many fingertips games, isn't really a game that is played to be won. I got the 'winning' move on the first playthrough. Rather, it is a game to be explored. In many ways it is similar to What's That Blue Thing Doing Here?, if a little more limited. Each successful response is inventive and paints a vivid moment. It hasn't the breadth of some other one move games, but for what it is, it's good.
A Perfect Logic Puzzle Generator, April 1, 2012Who's Knockin' is a logic puzzle (or set of possible puzzles) with the same form as the (probably apocryphal) Einstein Puzzle, also known as the Zebra Puzzle. It's a fun and challenging puzzle to solve even if you don't have a degree in predicate logic. The trouble is, if you've solved it once, you always know what the answer is. Not so any more!
If Who's Knockin' merely randomised the names of all elements in the puzzle, then you'd always be able to guess the answer just by looking at the form of the clues: if, for instance, the woodworker is always the person that lives in the second house, you could guess it every time just by looking at the clue saying who lives in the second house. What the game engine does is randomly pick one of five possible puzzle structures (all sharing some identically structured clues), and then it randomises the order in which the clues are listed. This essentially means the game can't be 'gamed', you have to figure it out afresh each time.
While it lacks literary qualities and breadth of response, the game more than achieves what it sets out to achieve: a challenging and unique puzzle with every play. And that's not something many games can boast, let alone one move games.
A game with a touch of magic, April 1, 2012Muggle Studies is essentially a treasure hunt game, with a few puzzles and riddles. Fortunately, it is not just a treasure hunt game: the faithful and imaginative rendering of Hogwarts, and the protagonist's personal journey both pull the game up from its less than auspicious structure.
Muggle Studies, like other works of fan fiction, requires some knowledge of the original works to be fully appreciated. Like many people my age, I grew up reading Harry Potter books with each new one being devoured a day or two after release. A lot of my friends were into Harry Potter fan fiction, but it's never been my cup of tea. That said, the exploring of Hogwarts and the discovery of the world of magic is more compelling in interactive fiction. The use of the second person lends immediacy and intimacy with the environs that is lacking in a typical graphical Harry Potter game where you play out someone else's troubles from the distance of a third person perspective.
Though it is written in the second person, you play as a very concrete individual with their own history; and the weaving in of Alice's personal story through reminiscences and flashbacks adds both another layer of mystery to the story and gives greater emotional depth to the exploration and subsequent discoveries of the game.
If you're a fan of the Harry Potter series then playing the game is a must.
The game is a sort of imagist moment. It feels very static, though it does become apparent why. The writing could be a bit sharper: some of the formulations and grammar seemed a little off. While you can examine things, it doesn't give any extra information that isn't already in the room description. The error messages were weird as well, like it would say that objects weren't there when trying to interact with it one way, but those same objects could be examined. I don't expect much, as it's only flash fiction, and it's exactly through such experiments that one's craft improves.
This is a one-verb implemented story. It's only a game insofar as the act of trying to read the book implicates you in your/the protagonist's continued failure to do so. It's a short vignette and just that. Worth playing for the writing and the moment. I'll not rate it, because it's not trying to be a game of the type that receives ratings. Quantitatively, it's poorer than almost all other games I've played, though qualitatively it's richer than many.
A Complete Experience, January 3, 2012I thought I'd give it a little time before I reviewed Six. Enough time to work out whether it really was worth the five stars I initially gave it. And oh how it is worth it! Just thinking about the game physically fills my heart with joy. As in, I experience a genuine biological sensation of warmth just in the recollection of the game. That's how amazing it is.
In Six you play a girl on her sixth birthday playing a tag/hide-and-seek hybrid game in a park. This nice little premise is unpacked into a deeply immerse experience that positively oozes with infectious charm and the joy of play. And like a game in which you play a game should be, it is so fun! And when it ends, you can play it again with different and interesting permutations. Oh, and there's clever use of sound, cute visuals and all round excellent production values.
If I could give Wade Clark a high five through the internet, I would.
Rogue-tastic!, January 3, 2012When I first played this game, I played it six times. That's how hard it is. That's how addictive it is. Kerkerkruip is a rogue-like text adventure, in which you travel about a randomly generated dungeon, killing enemies, picking up equipment, employing tactics and dying. A lot.
The game isn't a perfectly smooth interactive story where you play out complex motivations while unveiling a carefully crafted plot. It's not trying to do that. So of course the writing is sparse, and the synonyms sparser. That's goes with the territory. If I was making the game, I would have added an additional layer of randomisation to the monsters- giving named characters a different name and apparel each time and so on. As it was, there were enough antagonists that the game remained fresh through six play-throughs, and I was pleased that some enemies (like the Reaper) changed their weapons. The real joy of the game is that it's more than a complex dungeon-crawl simulator, it's a puzzle. Figuring out which enemies to fight, how, and in which order are vital to successfully completing the game.
Every time I played Kerkerkruip I discovered something new, died in an interesting way and wanted to go back for more. All in all, a great roguelike! Two thumbs up!
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