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Showing All | Show by Page >INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction The Arrival is the first HTML-TADS game I've ever played, certainly the first competition game ever to include pictures and sound. I was quite curious as to how these elements would be handled, and maybe even a little apprehensive. I wasn't sure that a lone hobbyist could create visual and musical elements that wouldn't detract from a game more than they added to it. But Arrival dispelled those fears, handling both pictures and sound brilliantly...
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2 people found the following review helpful:
 A Zany Alien Encounter!, December 29, 2021by feamir This story brings to mind the Calvin and Hobbes comics and the Adventures of Spaceman Spiff! Arrival is a short game jam-packed with jokes and references. The prose is light and funny, and the puzzles are just difficult enough to make you pause for thought. All of the attention to detail, from descriptions of objects to the invalid-command dialogue, kept me giggling in delight. 10/10 would play again! :D Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Remove vote | Add a comment
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2 people found the following review helpful:
Pulp sci-fi, October 29, 2021by G. Faregan The premise is that you are a child helping the suspiciously friendly aliens that landed in your backyard. The puzzles are classic text adventure, ie irritating. But I'm a sucker for pulp sci-fi. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Remove vote | Add a comment
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2 people found the following review helpful:
Like Roald Dahl with crayon illustrations; an alien game, February 4, 2016by MathBrush This shortish HTML TADS game was the first to use that platform, incorporating images into the text. The images are crayon drawings and playdough photographs. These worked in HTML TADS on my Windows machine, but something was wrong with the text formatting and status line, and the game crashed. I finished on Gargoyle with no images. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Remove vote | Add a comment
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6 people found the following review helpful:
Lots of Tongue-in-Cheek Fun, March 2, 2013Granade has put together a wonderful pastiche that crosses elements of an Ed Wood film and a young boy's English class writing assignment. Two ridiculous aliens (made of modeling clay in the game's illustrations) land their spaceship (two pie plates taped together) in your backyard. They decide that you, an eight-year-old child, are Earth's ambassador. From there, you explore a crudely (but appealingly) crayon-illustrated world in your attempts to thwart their invasion while seeming to meet their demands. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Remove vote | Add a comment
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14 people found the following review helpful:
A Good Sci-Fi Game, December 6, 2008by tadsPro (Oklahoma) It was the first game i liked. The starting of the game is good where you play a role a 8 year old boy. You are an ordinary boy and you happen to see aliens at your backyard. Great thought and design. Good puzzles and i liked the interaction between the player and the aliens. Overall: A great game that keeps you busy. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Remove vote | Add a comment
Baf's GuideYou're an 8-year-old who's just noticed that aliens have landed in your backyard. The first game to use the features offered by HTML-TADS, Arrival does so in B-movie style, as suggested by the title: the pictures and sounds strive for silliness rather than realism. The pictures are drawings that appear to be those of an 8-year-old, and the sounds are effects that you might hear in an Ed Wood movie--and the whole thing is immensely funny. The game is arguably even better, however; some of the puzzles are difficult, but not unfairly so, and there are plenty of Easter eggs that play on your parents' refusal to notice the aliens or their ship. The aliens themselves are a scream, and you can access their web page while on the ship, which is just as funny. Worth playing with or without the HTML features (they're built into the game file in the latest release). -- Duncan Stevens
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