Ratings and Reviews by osfameron
View this member's profile
A classic of Story IF, July 1, 2018This was my favourite game of IFComp 2004, and I always felt that "it wuz robbed" with its (admittedly pretty creditable) 2nd place: it had the most 9s and 10s of any of the games, by some distance, but also divided opinion.
Essentially it's Story IF, and many people much preferred the (incomprehensible to me) All Things Devours which took 3rd place. In any case, it's no surprise that Klimas went on to invent the Twine system for hyperfiction. But how does Blue Chairs -- a parser game, implemented in Inform rather than hypertext -- stack up, more than a decade later?
The implementation is pretty strong. Most of the things you want to do have well-written responses that push the game forward, and the scenes that span multiple turns are well handled. I did find myself jumping to the hints more often than perhaps I should for a story-centric game, perhaps a more modern version of this would hint things better, or have alternative solutions presented automatically?
(On a side note, it says something about these times that the desert scene made me oddly nostalgic.)
I don't know if Klimas found Parser IF limiting, or just harder to write (this was Inform 6, written in an OO-style, as it predated Inform 7's rule-based, "natural language" style.)
In any case, Blue Chairs is a classic of Story IF. It has its flaws, but it's well worth a read.
May not suit all types of players, June 30, 2018If you're a fan of puzzle IF, then the other reviews pretty much cover it - you'll probably enjoy this, and don't let anyone (least of all me) tell you otherwise!
But I found I didn't - I'm not a beginner exactly, but I mostly skew towards Story IF. Plotkin's writing is crisp, and some of the scenery is certainly compelling. But I found myself getting bogged down in mapping (all the non-cardinal directions like NW) and the puzzles. There's a hint system, but it rather primly stops before giving an unblocking suggestion too often.
After resorting to a walkthrough about (Spoiler - click to show)the order of masks at the mirror, my reaction was a slightly irritable "Huh? How was I supposed to figure that out?" But that's ok, this just isn't for me.
Clearly lots of people love these puzzles, but if you're not one of them, please don't despair: there are other styles of story to explore.
1-2 of 2