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frenfive.zip
Windows Application (Compressed with ZIP. Free Unzip tools are available for most systems at www.info-zip.org.)
frenfive.gam
Requires a TADS interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
frenfive.sit.hqx
Mac OS Application (Compressed with StuffIt, encoded in BinHex format. Free StuffIt Expanders are available for most systems at www.stuffit.com.)
frenfive.gam
original competition entry
Requires a TADS interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
frenfive.sol
Walkthrough
Walkthrough and maps
by David Welbourn

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The Frenetic Five vs. Sturm und Drang

by Neil deMause

Episode 1 of Frenetic Five
Satire, Superhero
1997

(based on 11 ratings)
2 reviews

About the Story

In this game about under-powered superheroes, you play as Improv, leader of the Frenetic Five. You use common objects in surprisingly useful ways. Bob, your contact at Supertemps, hires your team for a new job: defeat the melodramatic supervillains Sturm und Drang who have holed up in the abandoned flange mill at the waterfront.


Game Details


Awards

Winner, Best NPCs; Nominee - Improv, Best Individual PC - 1997 XYZZY Awards

13th Place - 3rd Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (1997)

Editorial Reviews

Baf's Guide


A humorous superhero story, patterned after the likes of The Tick. Your intrepid team and their unlikely powers are up against a German film-director-turned-supervillain. But before they even can begin, they face challenges like finding the keys to their house and figuring out which bus to take. Very funny, but poorly designed; puzzles late in the game depend on having collected random detritus in the beginning, with the result that you'll probably have to page through some longwinded oratory multiple times.

-- Carl Muckenhoupt

>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

The Frenetic Five has an excellent premise and, on the level of prose, an excellent execution. However, interface design and implementation are too important to be treated the way this game treats them, and it suffers for it. I'm still waiting for the game that does superheroes just right.
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SynTax
The non-event locations made for a gappy plot structure with sporadic bursts of activity. I don't know if these were designed as red herrings, padding or just vehicles for a gag, but they certainly succeeded in slowing me down as I was convinced I was missing something.
See the full review

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Member Reviews

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Number of Reviews: 2
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Great Premise, Terrific Writing, Poor Execution, March 16, 2009

I was a big fan of "The Tick" back when the animated series was on. One of my favorite jokes from the series was the hapless group of pseudo-superheroes known as the Civic-Minded Five, whose absurdly ineffective "powers" consisted of things like having four legs or being able to deliver static electricity shocks. Neil deMause may or may not have been familiar with the Civic-Minded Five, but it seems likely that he was, as the characters in this game are clearly cast from the same mold.

You are Improv, leader of the Frenetic Five, a group of part-time superheroes in between gigs. Your superpower is coming up with MacGyver-like plans, which is no doubt the result of long hours of radiation received while watching the show on TV. You are trying to do just that, as a matter of fact, when your team's junior member, Newsboy, arrives to announce that evil is afoot... and it's up to you to stop it!

I must congratulate Mr. deMause for his writing talents. The story unfolds and the personalities of your teammates emerge in a convincingly lifelike way through various timed scenes. The jokes come fast and often, and several had me laughing outright. Everywhere the author paid care and attention, the payoff for the player is delightful.

Unfortunately, the care and attention the author paid seems to be wildly uneven. High expectations set by the opening scenes rapidly dwindled once I left the apartment, and by the time I reached the ostensible goal of the evil villains' hideout, the game world had lost its fizz and gone flat. I ran out of patience and resorted to a walkthrough, which left me totally bewildered as to how anyone could realistically have completed the game without it.

It's possible that I just missed an awful lot, that I couldn't tune into the author's wavelength and just didn't interact the right way. However, it seems far more likely that this work is simply unfinished as a result of of trying to get it out the door in time for that year's IF Comp, where it placed 13th. It's really a shame, since the story's universe held a lot of promise and left me hungry for more, despite the relatively unenjoyable time I had trying to reach the end. The good news is that there are two additional Frenetic Five titles out there that I have not yet played, and which I hope earn higher scores.

The coding quality is competent. What works, works well, and I encountered no notable bugs. It's obvious that Mr. deMause has it in him to produce some truly top-notch interactive fiction -- even half-baked, The Frenetic Five vs. Sturm und Drang did take the "Best NPC" Xyzzy Award for 1997, which is no small achievement. I look forward to playing more from this author.

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A goofy, mid-length superhero game with clever writing and odd puzzles, February 3, 2016

This is one of the most well-known examples of a superhero game, due to the fact that there were 3 of these games in a series (the same is true of the slightly-better-known Earth and Sky series).

You are part of a team of 5 mismatched superheros with odd powers (like one knowing the definition of every word in every language). You have to stop two villains named Sturm and Drang.

About a third of the game is getting out of your apartment, a third is getting to the villains, and a third is the climax. Each ability is used once, although I'm still not sure what the main character's ability is.

The puzzles are just an odd mismatch, and not really coherent. It's probably better to use a walkthrough and see the whole thing.

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The Frenetic Five vs. Sturm und Drang on IFDB

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