Reviews by Ghalev
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Janitor to the Great Mordenkai-- umm, Morkenmindan!, April 15, 2008This fantasy title has a simple, janitorial premise: a messy wizard’s tower needs a good cleaning, and you’re just the chap for the job. “Spring Cleaning” is both easy (I, a certified meathead, got a perfect score on my second try), and fun. The imagery is spare but funny, the puzzles easy and few, and the atmosphere well-suited to its apparent design goal: a farewell nod to the late E. Gary Gygax (achieved with a brief sprinkling of references to his work, from bending bars and lifting gates to the infamous random harlot subtable of the old Dungeon Master’s Guide). It’s a cheerful five-minute whirl with a gentle touch of nostalgia.
The game’s disappointments are mostly technical, due to the “Speed IF” nature of the work. Synonyms, in particular, are in thin supply (trying to call your sack a “bag,” or trying to refer to a stack of newspapers as the “papers,” will bump your head against the parser). Similar parsing and phrasing issues were frequent distractions in my otherwise-enjoyable plays through … my hope is that the author will be encouraged enough by the game’s fans (I count myself happily among them) to create a followup release with the necessary spiffs. With a fresh coat of bug-fixes, this is a game I’d happily recommend to my gaming buddies.
Just A Quick Taste, But Very Tasty Indeed, March 30, 2008A friendly micro-game, Earth and Sky is a genial teaser for a superhero tale explored in later installments. This game sets modest goals for itself: introduce characters and long-term motives, then provide a short-term conflict to get the juices flowing. It sets merrily about the task, and the whole thing flows so smoothly that I didn't mind at all that much of the game consisted of following instructions given me by NPCs. Tiptoeing around spoilers, I will say I was fascinated to see how ... amiable the game felt despite the grim dangers implied (and depending on your choices, briefly explored) in the narrative. Given the easy temptations of a more fashionably gritty approach to the genre, this game won an extra measure of my respect for balancing perils and pleasures. In tone, it's more akin to The Incredibles than an issue of a modern comic, and I mean that as warm praise.
I went looking for a bit of fun playing with superheroes in IF, and this game both satisfied my craving and fixed my gaze hungrily on the next installment. Earth and Sky is very brief (less than 30 minutes for some players, I'd expect), and, within its chosen scope, very satisfying.
Zork Lite, October 17, 2007This game - released to promote one of Activision's graphic-adventure Zork titles (Grand Inquisitor), is my favorite thing Activision ever did with the Zork rights: tap two of the Infocom implementers to briefly revisit one of my favorite fantasy worlds.
The game is, in every sense, a kind of Zork Lite ... lighter humor, lighter-weight puzzling, quick and small without being trivial, self-referential without being indulgent. The environment is small but more densely-implemented than in the classic games, and the writing is clever and engaging.
It is, in the end, only a little game ... But as far as I'm concerned, it's the real deal. The last true Zork adventure, and one I'm much more likely to replay than any of the original trilogy.
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