Aisle

by Sam Barlow profile

Slice of life
1999

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Reviews and Ratings

5 star:
(88)
4 star:
(140)
3 star:
(65)
2 star:
(24)
1 star:
(2)
Average Rating:
Number of Ratings: 319
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- quackoquack, June 10, 2020

- Revolution666, June 10, 2020

- Edo, April 30, 2020

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Interesting to Explore, April 11, 2020
by Josef (United States)

As someone who *doesn't* play interactive fiction games, I enjoy this as a way to test out commands. It can be frustrating after a few minutes, but it is pleasant to just see how many endings you can get out of it.

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- Elizabeth DeCoste (Canada), April 4, 2020

- Case, January 26, 2020

- Zape, December 31, 2019

- samtam90, December 30, 2019

- _firexe, December 4, 2019

- Lillianatha, November 15, 2019

- Ry (Philippines), September 30, 2019

- Dawn Sueoka, September 27, 2019

- erzulie, September 24, 2019

- jjsonick, August 17, 2019

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
The beginning of the review. But not the only one..., June 18, 2019

New as I am to interactive fiction, I had not heard of this game until recently, nor had I heard of the concept of its genre - you have only one turn in which to input a command, after which the story resets and you can start over, ad infinitum.

Aisle, which is as of this review a 20 year-old game, is an extraordinary piece of writing, and I can see why it has a special place in the hearts of so many. Although the concept is simple, it is executed so brilliantly and with such depth that each repeated turn reveals another layer, and another, until you have not just one story but many in parallel.

There are breadcrumbs placed throughout leading you to more ideas of what to do next, so it's not really a case of just throwing in random verbs to see what sticks - though you can do that if you want, and I think it'd be just as rewarding. There's also a list of commands available out there for the completionists who want all 183 possible outcomes. The true genius, however, lies in how all of those outcomes are woven together - or not together, as the case may be - and the depth of feeling created from every piece as well as the whole.

After playing this game I am curious to try others like it, but I think I will always remember Aisle, decades late to the party as I was. Five packets of Gnocchi.

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- UmbrellaPie, May 5, 2019

- IanAllenBird, April 30, 2019

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Literally the game that introduced me to gnocchi, so four stars for that!, April 28, 2019
by deathbytroggles (Minneapolis, MN)

Perhaps the first serious game that would automatically end after one move. The premise is quite simple as you play an ordinary man in an ordinary supermarket who has stopped in the pasta aisle next to a woman who is also shopping. There are exactly 136 possible moves you can make that produce 136 separate endings. There is neither a puzzle nor a plot, and one would be hard pressed to say this is even a character study, as some of the endings’ portrayal of your character’s history contradict each other.

I do wish there was something more here to unravel, but as it stands this is quite a pleasant diversion thanks to the imagination and quality writing of Sam Barlow. More importantly, Aisle inspired many future authors in experimenting with the genre, including a few entertaining games that mimic this one.

I still come back and play Aisle about every five years. There's just something about the protagonist's world view that makes me smile.

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- Jan Strach, April 11, 2019

- Steffan LW Sitka (Los Angeles), February 28, 2019

- bradleyswissman (Virginia, US), February 9, 2019

- Stian, January 22, 2019

- seltzer, January 17, 2019

- SchnickelFritz (TX), December 26, 2018

- Zach Shifflett (VA, United States), December 12, 2018


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