Posted 19 November 2001 to rec.games.int-fiction

Introduction

I couldn't quite get to review all of the games in the contest, but I wanted to post my thoughts on the ones I did get to. I'm posting them in the order of how I rated them, highest rating first because those are the ones that I'm more highly motivated to talk about. Heck, I might not even finish writing my reviews about the games that got low numbers from me. I'll generally try to avoid spoilers in my reviews, but sometimes I'll want to include them so I'll try to give a warning ahead of time if that happens. I've got some information in the header of each review that I think deserves a little explaining:

Sexual content & Violence/Abuse: This is a little warning for anyone who might care about how much of this kind of material is in their IF games. I generally give a level from mild to medium to strong and say whether it is depicted, described or implied. And by this I mean:

• Depicted: You see it happening right in front of you, it is happening to you or the game heavily depends on you carrying out this type of action.
• Described: You find out about these kinds of actions in the game secondhand (somebody else tells you, you see it in a newspaper or on television, etc.).
• Implied: You don't see or hear about these kinds of actions explicitly but see evidence that they took place or will soon take place... a smoking gun or a used condom might fall under this category, for instance.

Exploration: I rate this aspect of an IF game from low to medium to high to show how much room there is to wander around inside a game and how much the game rewards poking around to see what's interesting. My favorite IF games tend to be ones with lots of potential for exploration (like A Mind Forever Voyaging), but if the story is good I'll still enjoy a game that keeps me on a rail and won't let me roam around.

Rating: This is the score that I gave this game for the contest. If I'm giving an admittedly biased review of a game I helped to beta-test, then this will be the score I would have rated it if I were allowed to vote for it in the contest.

After that I have a few yes/no questions that tell whether a game follows certain trends that I noticed in this year's competition. Does it involve memory loss? Or time travel? Or switching bodies? Does it demonstrate Adam Cadre's theorem (from the author's notes of Photopia) that abandoned places are popular in IF not only because they come with a haunting feeling built in, but also because they free up the author from coding NPCs? I also noticed a few games that explicitly acknowledged Adam Cadre in their credits and just felt like that would be worth mentioning in the reviews as another trend I noticed. And, just because I felt like it, I took a cue from Emily Short's "Cheese-Friendly Game Directory" and included a blurb in each review that warns any lactose-intolerant players out there about the presence of dairy products in the games I review.

Enough explanations. On with the reviews...

The Tens

Moments Out Of Time by L. Ross Raszewski
Programmed in Inform

Sexual content: Mild descriptions in certain sections
Violence/Abuse: Amount implied, described or depicted ranges from mild to extreme
Exploration: Very high
Rating: 10
Memory loss? No
Time travel? Yes
Switching bodies? No
Test of Cadre's theorem? Yes
Adam Cadre acknowledgement? No
Dairy products? No

Simply put, Moments Out Of Time is the best IF game I have ever played.

Mind you, there's a lot of highly praised IF games out there that I have yet to start or finish playing, so there's still time for me to discover a new "best game ever" somewhere. I rediscovered my love for interactive fiction and started following the IF newsgroups regularly again round about the beginning of this year. Since then I've played a great many games that were highly regarded by the IF community in one way or another. Before then I've played nearly every game that Infocom produced. So now that you know how qualified (or unqualified) I am to make the statement at the beginning of this review, let's talk about why I feel that Moments Out Of Time deserves to rank #1 in my own personal IF Hall Of Fame....

I think the biggest reason why I love this game above all others is that it seems like it was tailor made to give its players the things that I personally love best about IF. You see, I'm an explorer. I love nothing better than to be dropped into a strange new world with lots of interesting stuff to see and do and then be given free rein to roam around and check it all out to the best of my ability. And that's what this game did for me better than any other game ever has before. Even the equipment that was used to get me there had plenty of neat stuff to look at and explore, from the in-game documentation to the mix and match accessories that came with it. I was also impressed with the "auto unlock" feature that minimizes one particularly tedious task that is typically associated with the type of exploration that Moments Out Of Time expects from the player.

In Moments Out Of Time, the player is cast in the role of a time-travelling archaeologist/historian. Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to travel back in time and gather as much information as possible about where you are sent. You are governed by restrictions that are similar to Star Trek's prime directive... observe but don't interfere, and don't allow knowledge about the future or futuristic technology to pollute the past. And this mission gives the player a huge amount of stuff to examine and explore. In a way, this game could be considered a treasure hunt with a very different definition of "treasure" attached to it... and most of those treasures help to tell a story that I found fascinating and absorbing.

The author lists A Mind Forever Voyaging in the credits as an influence on Moments Out Of Time, and that influence could definitely be felt as I played through this game. I also saw a distinct resemblance to elements of Trinity and LASH in Moments, to enough of a degree that I was very surprised that these games were not also listed as influences. I felt that the elements that I loved in all three of those games combined in Moments in a way that lifted the quality of this game above the rest... even high-quality games from Infocom at its peak like AMFV and Trinity. I think it's that good.

There's plenty of replay value in Moments Out Of Time too. The evaluation at the end of Moments that's described in one of the game's manuals will give you an idea of how much of the game world you didn't get to see as you played. If you're anything like me (and I know I am), that evaluation will get you itching to play this game again (possibly using different accessories than before) just to see what you missed. One of my criteria for judging a game is whether it immerses me enough to make me lose track of time as I play... if the two-hour judging period goes by before I realize it, that game is going to get at least a 7 from me. Moments Out Of Time contained enough fascinating stuff to uncover and explore that it generated that kind of immersion for me all three times that I've played it. That's another reason why I think that this game is really something special.

I've been saddened to see this game deprecated in some newsgroup posts during the judging period because it was written in the .z6 format used by graphics-oriented Infocom games like Zork Zero and Shogun. It hasn't always been clear to me what the objection was to "that .z6 game" with some of the critics. Some may be dreading the idea of looking at the relatively low-res graphics that Infocom's .z6 games are famous for. If so, be advised that Moments Out Of Time contains no pictures whatsoever. The Blorb file included with the game contains sound effects only, and while I thought those sound effects were a nice enhancement to the game they are by no means necessary to play and enjoy it. I don't know what kind of compatibility problems may exist with .z6 files on Macintosh Z-machine interpreters (or other non-Windows platforms), but I do know that WinFrotz will run Moments Out Of Time without sound effects. WinNitfol will run Moments with sound effects, but the instructions provided with both Moments and WinNitfol were very unclear about how to make this happen. I did it by dragging the moments.blb icon on top of the WinNitfol icon. When a window popped up asking for a data file, I double-clicked on the moments.z6 icon and the game was up and running complete with sound effects. FrotzCE also runs Moments Out Of Time quite nicely on my palmtop (without sound support).

This game makes an excellent argument for providing better support for the .z6 format on Z-machine interpreters of all platforms. If you can get your hands on an interpreter that will play this game and you haven't played it yet, I highly recommend that you give it a try. And for anyone who has given Moments Out Of Time low marks for the contest merely because it is in the .z6 format or because it allows the option of using a large Blorb file for sound effects... shame on you. This game deserves far better. Even though this contest release version contained a few frustrating problems with getting the parser to recognize what I wanted to do and a bug that denied access to one section of the game that promised to be particularly interesting, as far as I'm concerned this game deserves nothing less than a 10. And I'll be eagerly awaiting a release that fixes that bug so I can check out even more of this fascinating game.

To sum up: I loved this game to bits. I'd give more details about why, but I'm trying to avoid spoilers and I'm trying to avoid making this review even more long-winded than it already is. This is the only game from this year's contest that has been given a home on my palmtop so I can play and enjoy it wherever I go. I was amazed, I was enthralled, I fell in love. Once again: best IF game ever.

Stiffy Makane: The Undiscovered Country by One of the Bruces (aka Adam Thornton)
Programmed in Glulx

Sexual content: Extreme, explicit and ever-present
Violence/Abuse: Strong depictions in some sections
Exploration: Low
Rating: 10
Memory loss? No
Time travel? No
Switching bodies? No
Test of Cadre's theorem? No
Adam Cadre acknowledgement? Yes
Dairy products? No

I loved this game too. It seemed to try everything the author could think of to offend even those who would normally be the target audience for a game with "adult content" in it. I loved how the game wound up turning the tables not only on the target audience for "adult" IF, but also on the player character by giving Stiffy a dose of his own medicine about halfway through the story.

It also pokes fun at concepts in IF and those who take them far too seriously... I understand that Sins Against Mimesis by the same author does this too, though I have yet to play it. Stiffy Makane: The Undiscovered Country is also freakin' hilarious. I don't want to spoil surprises by going into detail about how and why, so I won't. Familiarity with the original Stiffy Makane game or the MST3K-ified version is helpful, but in my opinion not necessary in order to enjoy the sequel. I think John Waters provided the quote that best sums up how I felt about this game when it was done with me... it made me sick in a wonderful, wonderful way. Go get it and play it while the kids are safely asleep.

The Nines

Heroes by Sean Barrett
Programmed in Inform

Sexual content: Mildly implied a few times
Violence/Abuse: Some strong depictions
Exploration: Medium
Rating: 9
Memory loss? No
Time travel? No
Switching bodies? Yes
Test of Cadre's theorem? No
Adam Cadre acknowledgement? No
Dairy products? No

This game describes itself as a role-playing experience, and there is some resemblance between this game and a possible session of Dungeons and Dragons. You're given five characters to choose from: a fighter, a magic-user, a thief, royalty or a dragon. The game warns you not to try the dragon first though, and a first-time player should probably follow that advice. All five characters play in the same game location, though not simultaneously. All five have the same mission... to retrieve the Dragon Gem from a mansion. All five have very different powers within the game, see the world around them in very different ways and can achieve their mission with very different methods.

You can switch to a different character at any time in the game, but any changes that are made to the game world while in one character will not appear in the game world that the other characters inhabit. For example, if you were to burn down that mansion while in the body of the wizard, that building would still be intact if you switch over to a different character. But if you switched back to the wizard, you'd get to see the results of that character's pyromania again.

The different character abilities and points-of-view made this a fascinating game for me and I wanted to keep playing it long after the two-hour judging period was over. I found some bugs while playing the royalty character... some were annoying and some were interesting, but they didn't keep me from completing my mission while playing in that body. Those bugs are really the only reason why I couldn't give this game a 10. Heroes should be very enjoyable for anyone who liked the "medieval fantasy" Infocom games like the Zorks and the Enchanter trilogy.

Film At Eleven by Bowen Greenwood
Programmed in Inform

Sexual content: Strong descriptions and depictions that appear often
Violence/Abuse: Ranges from none to mild descriptions
Exploration: Medium
Rating: 9
Memory loss? No
Time travel? No
Switching bodies? No
Test of Cadre's theorem? No
Adam Cadre acknowledgement? Yes
Dairy products? No

In this game, you play a small town reporter digging up dirt on the mayor who has gotten himself into a very Bill Clinton-ish situation. There's a great sense of humor running all through this game... sometimes it's raunchy, sometimes it's cynically portraying small-town life and the casual corruption that goes with it in this tiny town. And there's a lot of fun stuff to see and do in this game... I couldn't complete my mission when I played, but I was entertained enough by what I could accomplish as I poked around that I didn't care that the final solution eluded me.

The main problem I had with this game at times was of this variety: I play show and tell with what should be a significant object to an NPC, NPC could care less. It happened often enough with significant enough objects that I couldn't rate this game a full 10. But that didn't keep me from having a blast playing this game, so I'll give it a 9 instead.

Jump by Chris Mudd
Programmed in Inform

Sexual content: Strongly implied
Violence/Abuse: Very strongly depicted and implied
Exploration: Very low
Rating: 9
Memory loss? No
Time travel? No
Switching bodies? No
Test of Cadre's theorem? No
Adam Cadre acknowledgement? No
Dairy products? No
This IF piece has a disturbing tale to tell and I thought it was told very well. Looking at many of the other reviews of Jump, I get the feeling I may be alone in this opinion... so be it. There were a few times where I felt the game was responding inappropriately to what I had typed, and I didn't like having to find out about the "talk to *" conversational interface just as I was trying to direct the flow of conversation with "ask" and "tell". I also didn't like suddenly getting that cheesy Van Halen song with the same title stuck in my head. But otherwise this story did just what it looked like it was trying to do... reach into my gut and give it a good, hard twist. I think that one reason this story worked for me was the severe narrowing of options for the player... in this case, I thought that it helped me to feel how trapped the main character must have felt.

Best Of Three by Emily Short
Programmed in Glulx

Sexual content: Mildly implied
Violence/Abuse: Mild depiction
Exploration: Low
Rating: 9
Memory loss? No
Time travel? No
Switching bodies? No
Test of Cadre's theorem? No
Adam Cadre acknowledgement? No
Dairy products? Yes (cappuccino)

Emily Short pushes the boundaries of character interaction again with her depiction of a conversation with a long-lost high school acquaintance in a coffee shop. You are presented with a menu of conversation options, one that you can change by changing the topic if you like. Or you could ignore the menu and wait for further conversation from the NPC. Thinking about various topics tells the player about certain things, people and events and how the main character feels about them.

Best of Three looks just as skillfully planned and programmed as most of us (including me) have come to expect from Emily Short. I wasn't too enthused with a big portion of the subject matter of the conversation that this game revolves around, which is probably the main reason why I couldn't give this game a 10 rating. But that subject matter could easily be interesting to somebody else... just not my cup of tea, I think.

Triune by Papillon
Programmed in TADS

Sexual content: Implied and described with medium strength
Violence/Abuse: Strong depictions and descriptions
Exploration: Medium high
Rating: 9
Memory loss? No
Time travel? Maybe
Switching bodies? No
Test of Cadre's theorem? No
Adam Cadre acknowledgement? No
Dairy products? No

This game has much to say between the lines about fantasy vs. reality, especially as it relates to "dreams come true" and "storybook endings". Even if you don't reach the "final ending" in this game, or even any ending at all, the last thing you read on the screen before leaving the game and going on with your life might just give you something to think about. Well written and well worth playing.

Beta-tester's review: Vicious Cycles

Vicious Cycles by Simon Mark
Programmed in Inform

Sexual content: Mildly implied or described
Violence/Abuse: Strongly and frequently portrayed, described or implied
Exploration: Medium low
Rating: 9 (my biased opinion, and not included in my contest vote)
Memory loss? Yes
Time travel? Yes
Switching bodies? Yes
Test of Cadre's theorem? No
Adam Cadre acknowledgement? No
Dairy products? No

I was very interested to see how/if the events of September 11th would affect people's response to this game. Judging from the reviews I've seen and the overall placement of this game against the other entries, I'd say that it hasn't created the backlash against this game that I thought I might see.

Let's get this beta-tester's biased opinion out of the way right away... I'm proud of how this game turned out. To me, it's a moving dark sci-fi story that explores in more than one way the dangers of technological solutions. There are some typos in this story that I wish I could have caught before the game was released for the contest, but I didn't see major typos when I played through the contest release version. I've seen reviews that mentioned other bugs that I really wish I could have caught... sorry about that, Simon. Personally I think the structure of this game and the hints provided inside it make Vicious Cycles fairly easy to solve without referring to the hint file, but that may also be beta-tester bias talking again. But if you do need the hint file, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with how well it replicates the classic Infocom Invisiclue format.

There's something that I thought was interesting about this game that I haven't seen anyone else mention yet. I'll need some spoiler space before I can talk about it, though...

[Spoilers for Spider and Web (including the ending), and the ending of Vicious Cycles ahead.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think that Vicious Cycles and Spider and Web have an awful lot in common. Note that I am not claiming that Vicious Cycles deserves a place in the IF hall of fame alongside Andrew Plotkin's masterpiece. But consider the similarities...

Both drop you into a dangerous situation where you know very little of what is going on.

Both contain "interruptions" to the main story when you make mistakes, and those interruptions fill in memory gaps and provide backstory.

Both loop you back through sections of the story in a Groundhog Day-ish way until you figure out what you need to do to solve the puzzle.

And both give you a choice at the end of the game about what to do about a powerful piece of sci-fi technology that the game revolves around.

I think that last item deserves a bit of explanation. In Vicious Cycles, you don't have to go back in time and prevent the time machine from ever being invented. If you think that it is worth sacrificing the lives of your friends to give Microcorp a fighting chance at bringing a time machine into the world, then you can refuse to do what Ethan tells you to do and not re-enter the time machine. On the other hand, I think that most people would not choose that heartless option and would decide instead to attempt to save Ethan and Sara when in that situation. Either way, the final ending is left murky, which is another similarity to Spider and Web that I see. It seems to me that when the PC (Dr. Enright) allowed him/herself to be the guinea pig for this time-travel experiment, he/she was (I'm cringing as I'm typing this) doomed from the start. Whether Dr. Enright stays in the research lab at the end or goes back in time to eliminate the machine that made his/her time-shunt possible, the impression I get is that the PC will not survive the experiment. The only choice remaining is who or what Dr. Enright would rather die trying to save. And neither the player nor the PC will ever know what the final results of his/her actions are, just as in Spider and Web.

Those are my thoughts on this aspect of Vicious Cycles... I'd be very interested to hear what others think of all this.