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adverbum.z5
Requires a Z-Code interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
adverbum.z5
original competition entry
Requires a Z-Code interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.

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Ad Verbum

by Nick Montfort

Humor, Wordplay
2000

About the Story

"With the cantankerous Wizard of Wordplay evicted from his mansion, the worthless plot can now be redeveloped. The city regulations declare, however, that the rip-down job can't proceed until all the items within had been removed.

As an adventurer hired by the demolitions contractor to kleptomaniacially clear out this mansion, you must engage in wordplay in order to gather all the items inside. It is not necessary to think of puns, cliches, or homonyms, however, as has been the case with previous logological interactive fiction. The puzzles in Ad Verbum are of a different -- and perhaps even unique -- nature." [--blurb from Competition Aught-Zero]


Game Details

Off-Site Reviews

SPAG
[...] The game itself presents the player with a seemingly simple stint: acquire all objects from a house and dump them in the Dumpster. The catch is that the house once belonged to the "cantankerous Wizard of Wordplay", so it's not as simple as going through each room and picking up the objects. You have to obey the rules. For example, in one room, you can only use words that begin with the letter 's', however the only way to leave it is to the north, which is a word you can't use. You also have to be able to pick up objects in those rooms, again only using 's'-words. [...] (Mark J Musante)
See the full review

>VERBOSE -- Paul O'Brian's Interactive Fiction Page

Up until about halfway through Ad Verbum, I found that it was very well prepared to handle anything I threw at it. However, as I moved to other puzzles, it started to reject perfectly valid commands, which caused me to lose faith in the game with distressing speed, despite how impressed I had been with it up until then. After that frustrating period, I turned to the help and didn't try very hard to solve the rest of the puzzles, which is a shame because some of them were really excellent puzzles. The problem is that because Ad Verbum requires such specific input, when it isn't prepared to handle what little input is valid under its rules, it seems much more broken than does a typical IF puzzle when it rejects alternate solutions. I can't say I blame it -- frankly, I'm astonished by how well coded it is already, even despite what it still lacks -- but that didn't make my experience any more fun when the game was rejecting correct answers.
See the full review

Page Update History

v.14: 29-Apr-2009 19:23 - JTN (Current Version) - Edit Page - Normal View
Changed Web site URL
v.13: 05-Feb-2024 13:46 - Cerfeuil
Changed download links
v.12: 24-Jan-2024 23:31 - JTN
Changed author
v.11: 07-May-2022 00:57 - Paul O'Brian
Changed external review links
v.10: 07-May-2022 00:56 - Paul O'Brian
Changed external review links
v.9: 10-Aug-2021 16:10 - kaemi
Changed download links
v.8: 23-Mar-2013 07:30 - Edward Lacey
Changed external review links
  v.7: 29-Apr-2009 19:23 - Dave Chapeskie
Changed download links
v.6: 25-Sep-2008 12:18 - Emily Short
Changed cover art
v.5: 28-Apr-2008 12:47 - Paul O'Brian
Changed external review links
v.4: 27-Feb-2008 22:33 - David Welbourn
Changed description
v.3: 30-Dec-2007 11:58 - Kake
Changed external review links
v.2: 30-Dec-2007 11:58 - Kake
Changed external review links
v.1: 16-Oct-2007 01:50 - IFDB
Created page