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Number of Ratings: 16
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1-16 of 16 - Kinetic Mouse Car, July 29, 2022
- TheBoxThinker, January 19, 2021
- tekket (Česká Lípa, Czech Republic), December 20, 2020
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2 people found the following review helpful:
An easygoing cyberpunk adventure, December 11, 2020(I beta tested this game)
In my unreliable memory, cyberpunk used to be a pretty common genre for IFComp entries, but it’s become a bit more rare these days – Sense of Harmony included many of the tropes, as did Move On in its implied setting, and I suppose BYOD is all about corporate hacking. Maybe the genre as a whole is less relevant as we’ve all gotten used to the fact that we’re basically swimming in cyberspace 24/7 and corporate-run authoritarian dystopias don’t really land as a scary unknown any more? Regardless of any of that, Shadow Operative is a cyberpunk adventure of the old school, as a rogue hacker with a cyberjack in, and a price on, their head infiltrates a megacorp to exfiltrate hidden data that could bring down the whole company. Story-wise it’s a bit by the numbers, but satisfying puzzles and a slick presentation mean this one definitely scratches the shadowrunning itch.
Starting with that presentation, since it’s the first thing you notice when starting the game, it’s anything but a throwback: while written in Inform and fully playable by the parser alone, there are also a lot of conveniences in various sidebars, including a usable map, hyperlinks for important objects, a clickable list of common verbs (with ENTER CYBERSPACE first on the list, because of course), and a title image and music throughout. I played via typing, but this one should be pretty accessible to those who prefer to click their way through or who are less familiar with parser-only games – and it all really reinforces the mood of the piece, placing you in the shoes of an enhanced operative who can quickly figure out everything that’s going on.
As mentioned, the setting and setup are classic cyberpunk – after a botched job, you’ve got hitmen after you, and while laying low you get sucked into doing one more job for an old friend. The emphasis is clearly on that one more job, though – the price on your head doesn’t really connect to what you’re doing after the first five minutes of the story (and is resolved rather summarily in the conclusion). This maybe reduces the drama somewhat, but does perhaps better fit the mood, which is more easygoing than the typical cyberpunk vibe – it definitely starts out all edgy, but pretty soon your badass operative has crashed into the back of a garbage truck, and it pretty much goes on from there. I don’t think there’s any way to die (though there is a way to make the game unwinnable: (Spoiler - click to show)don’t drink away your upgrade money!>/spoiler>), and instead of a cold, geometric void, cyberspace is presented as rather cheerful medieval or feudal Japanese worlds with anthropomorphized programs. There are also rather a lot of jokes and in-jokes, which I thought mostly landed – I’m not sure the world needed another “the cake is a lie” gag, but I’m always down for an “I’m selling these fine leather jackets” callback.
The action is all about the central job, and it’s well put together and paced. There’s a bit of preliminary work to do to get ready for the heist, then you go through the infiltration and a cyberspace misadventure before having to make your escape. The puzzles are fairly simple but reasonable and satisfying to solve, with the trickiest ones coming in cyberspace. Again, this is presented in somewhat cartoony fashion – defeating the megacorp’s security primarily involves using musical instruments that I guess are really programs to overcome AI ICE that takes the shape of various guard-animals? – but it works well enough and doesn’t require the player to absorb a bunch of technobabble. There is one really good twist, which I mostly saw coming but still landed well.
It’s all solidly implemented, too (the only issue I found is that you can pick up the bamboo tree – bit of an oops but no big deal), and the interface removes any guess the verb issues. Overall Shadow Operative goes down smooth and easy, and provides a good argument for why this old genre has some life in it yet.
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1 people found the following review helpful:
Smoother Than Silicone, December 6, 2020Shadow Operative is a cyberpunk adventure that can be played through a parser or through a sidebar with links: both options are easy to use and work smoothly.
The story here is not groundbreaking, nor is it fully committed to the grit and pessimism of classic cyberpunk. But it’s well-written, offering a good dose of wit and nerdy humor, and enough of its own unique spin on genre tropes to keep things fresh. There are a series of tasks/puzzles to solve, which I found engaging if a bit on the simple side - it felt like infiltrating a corporate office to do leet hacking was a bit easier and more straightforward than it should have been. A more expansive web of problems to solve, I think, would have elevated the game.
In general and especially with regard to the UI (which is built with Vorple), the technical side of Shadow Operative is where the game really shines. Gameplay was impressively smooth and intuitive, and the UI presented a whole lot of options and information in a neat and accessible format. It was both functional and really nice to look at. The credits list quite a few testers, which makes sense: I can easily believe that the author put a great deal of effort into testing and iterating upon the game in order to present us with this very slick, well-oiled piece. Also of note: it has a bangin’ soundtrack.
Overall, I’m glad that I played Shadow Operative. The author’s professionalism is abundantly clear in the design of this game, and I have a lot of respect for that.
- Karl Ove Hufthammer (Bergen, Norway), December 4, 2020
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1 people found the following review helpful:
Atmospheric sci-fi thriller, December 1, 2020This sci-fi game is fundamentally a glulx game and you can decide to play the gblorb-file in a normal interpreter. However, if you play the online version, Vorple is applied resulting in a beautiful and practical interface with graphics and music. Especially, the music is quite cool, though after some time you will hear the same tunes again. A drawback about the online version is, that it is sometimes a bit slow. If you think this is a problem, you can play the gblorb-file in an interpreter and the responses will be close to instantaneous.
A bigger problem with Online play is (at least in the time of writing) when you restore a saved game. The longer you get into the game (? - or the more save-files you have?), the longer it takes to restore a game. It seems to grow almost exponentially. On Chrome it took more than 5 minutes and thus I gave up and started to play the Online version through the Windows Edge browser instead. Here the delays were also significant but at least the save-games were restored eventually (perhaps a coincidence?). I understand that the author is looking into this.
The atmosphere is great, the writing is good and so is the puzzles without being extraordinary. There is also a lot of humour here and there, which fits well into the game. I regard the difficulty level as medium since I only needed a single hint. Recommended.
2 of
2 people found the following review helpful:
Moody and streamlined cyberpunk, December 1, 2020When given the choice, I strongly prefer to play IF in a local interpreter rather than a web browser. It’s faster, uses less memory, and I can adjust the fonts to my liking. In the case of Shadow Operative, the author was quite insistent that I play the web version. So I tried it, and I’m glad I did.
Visually, the interface of the web version is really nice. The colours and fonts are somewhat similar to the Alien Night theme at intfiction.org, which, combined with the good looking cover art in the top right corner, sets the mood nicely. For further mood enhancement, there is also music, though it was impractical for me to listen to it while playing. The window is divided into three columns: the leftmost lists accepted verbs and available exits, the right column shows the inventory beneath the cover art, and in the middle we find the command window which works exactly as I’m used to from Lectrote.
Of particular note is that relevant nouns in the output are links. This makes it possible to play the game using only the mouse; I tried it a bit, but for me, typing was faster. The downside to this is that playing it in an interpreter would have been quite a frustrating experience, as most nouns are not links, and therefore not implemented at all. I’m not entirely sure this is the case; I tried a few non-link nouns and they were not recognised. Another consequence of this is that the play experience becomes extremely streamlined, the exploration limited, and the puzzles really easy with such a small noun space. As such, the challenge was next to none and I was able to finish it in less than an hour.
Still, the writing is decent enough to make Shadow Operative engaging for that time. The cyberpunk elements are stereotypical – including VR cyberspace, biohacking, and touches of Japanese culture – as is your eventual mission, but in a rather cute, nostalgic way. There is also a brilliant twist in the story that took me by surprise.
- Spike, November 30, 2020
- Edo, November 8, 2020
- Mr. Patient (Saint Paul, Minn.), November 5, 2020
- jaclynhyde, November 3, 2020
- Zape, October 16, 2020
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3 people found the following review helpful:
A very polished Vorple cyberpunk game, October 14, 2020I beta tested this game.
This is a really technically impressive game that uses Vorple for a cool layout, a single graphic and some fun music.
It’s a cyberpunk world where people jack into cyberspace (presenting Wild West/Fantasy and Ancient Japanese settings in this game). You’re asked to infiltrate a base, but chaos ensues.
The game is exceptionally well-polished, with very few bugs. It’s also fairly linear. Most conversations end up with you saying all available options, and most settings are constrained, with the most freedom being late in the game.
This makes the puzzles simpler, aided by the nice keywords, but comes at the expense of freedom. I’ve realized as I study the comp that players value both polish and freedom, so I’m really interested in seeing where this places!
+Polish: Looks great
+Descriptiveness: I liked quite a bit of the worldbuilding
+Interactivity: I found the puzzles enjoyable
-Emotional impact: I found myself at an emotional distance from this game, and don't know why.
+Would I play it again? I've played this game twice, and enjoyed it both times.
- Marco Innocenti (Florence, Italy), October 5, 2020
- Durafen, October 2, 2020
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