Very Vile Fairy File

by Andrew Schultz (as Billy Boling) profile

Episode 1 of Prime Pro-Rhyme Row
Fantasy , Wordplay
2019

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Reviews and Ratings

5 star:
(4)
4 star:
(5)
3 star:
(2)
2 star:
(1)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Ratings: 12
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1-12 of 12


- DignitySquared, January 3, 2024

- k42write, October 28, 2023

- Zape, October 14, 2023

- Tabitha / alyshkalia, September 24, 2023

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Deal's done, feels fun, December 31, 2022
by Lance Cirone (Backwater, Vermont)

Very Vile Fairy File has you as Kerry Kyle, transported into a strange world consisting of rhyming couplets. The titular Fairy File will repeatedly show up to insult you until you can put a stop to it.

The game revolves around rhymes: you have to turn Soft Sand into a Loft Land, a Coral Cage into a Moral Mage, a Stark Store into a Dark Door or you can Mark More. Seeing how many puns the writing can string together is part of the fun, especially when you run into a dead-end room.

The game encourages guesses, since ones that might not exactly help will still feed your Lurking Lump, allowing you to use a Jerking Jump to bypass puzzles you're stuck on. It's a fun trade-off, but I did find myself devolving into just going down a list of syllables or letters during particularly frustrating areas. You can also use your Leet Learner to get an idea of whether or not you have to subtract or add letters from a term.

There's a good amount of context clues you can work out from examining objects, and only once did it use a word I didn't know. There's also a flat-out hint feature, but most of the time it wasn't that helpful. Either way, there's plenty of anti-frustration features, and multiple areas will always be open at once, so you can just do something else to clear your head until you want to return.

Very Vile Fairy File is strong and funny, and definitely worth a try if it seems interesting to you.

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- kierlani, July 2, 2020

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Terribly tricky, December 27, 2019
by Stian
Related reviews: IFComp 2019

I quickly realised I wasn’t going to get far in Very Vile Fairy File without the walkthrough. Almost all of the interaction in the game consists of coming up with a suitable alliterative rhyme. I can absolutely acclaim an admirable alliteration (with or without a rhyming sensation), but managing this was beyond me. In the required rhymes were old English, American slang and several words I had never heard. For those who feel they are up to a serious rhyming challenge, the game does feature an innovative help system, and for those who don’t, it’s still worth playing through with a walkthrough. Very Vile Fairy File is funny, clever, and well implemented.

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- AKheon (Finland), November 18, 2019

- Karl Ove Hufthammer (Bergen, Norway), November 17, 2019

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
An enjoyable rhyming-based game, November 10, 2019
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 2 hours

Andrew Schultz makes games by taking a wordplay idea and finding as many examples of it as possible, then building a game around that list.

Sometimes, it feels a little forced. Some times, it feels great. This is one of those great times, at least for me.

I'm not coming in looking for a cohesive narrative. I'm coming in to have pure puzzling fun that hurts your brain.

I would rank this game up around with Shuffling Around, one of my favorites, but a little below Threediopolis, my absolute favorite.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Good fun!, October 15, 2019
by IngridWolf
Related reviews: IF Comp 2019

This game is the first parser I’ve ever played, so it felt rather different, but engaging instantly.

You proceed by picking and typing in a rhyme to something on the passage. I’m glad I had a walkthrough, otherwise I’d have found this game extremely difficult to play, considering that English is not my first language. But, having it, I could simply enjoy the smoothly-flowing and humorous narrative.

The multiple locations and characters are depicted with great imagination. The slightly absurd nature of this world, and its reliance on word play, is reminding of Alice in Wonderland.

At times I laughed out loud, but there also was a serious message hidden between the lines that I liked just as much. A top rating well-deserved!

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- jaclynhyde, October 9, 2019


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