Review: Sam and Leo go to the Bodega

Clearly this story is going to be about Leonardo Dicaprio and Sam Rockwell going to a small Spanish grocery store. I think we can all agree on that. (by the way, wouldn't that be amazing if that turned out to be true?) I think I can imagine the conversation going like this:

Leo - Sam, you know I have to say, as great as you were in Moon, I sincerely enjoyed your work in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind most of all.

Sam - Leo, fuck you. Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck you.

Leo - That seems to be what most people say to me...

Aww... poor Leo. Let's see if the actual game equals the hype. Find out after the jump!

Quick Take Review: Another well written but short slice-of-life CYOA. I'm sensing a pattern...

Review - Saving John

Oh boy. I think the real question we're dealing with is what exactly are we saving John from? From his debts to sketchy creditors? Are we saving him from death-demons from the mouth of hell? Are we saving him from his very self??? Yeeah. I'm going to go with that last guess. The title screams intimate personal drama. Perhaps John is suffering from a drug habit. Maybe it's low personal self esteem. Maybe it's the fact that he's made an internal pact to review all of these God damned Interactive Fiction games and he hasn't given himself an out. Who knows? Well... you know who will know? Me! As soon as I finish writing this paragraph and then complete the game and come back and write the review. Which you can then read after the jump. Hooray!

Quick Take Review: A generally well written stream of consciousness CYOA about a man with crippling depression. If that's your slice of pie then have at it!

Review - Solarium

This was one of their promo photos. Cool, no?

Solarium. Takes it's name from Sol, our sun. Reminds me of a play I was almost in this past spring. Tried to squeeze it between a production of Patrick Marber's Closer and Peter Schaffer's Black Comedy, but couldn't do it because tech week would have conflicted with the first week of rehearsals for Black Comedy. It was an original production titled "Solace" produced by the Science Fiction Theater Company of Boston, about a genius wife whose husband, an astronaut, had been lost out in space, and her Orphean (is that a word? From the tale Orpheus and Eurydice?) means to get him back. All in all, I'm glad I didn't do it. Would've stretched me too thin, and the production was a bit lacking, produced at the Factory Theater, here in Boston, a venue which is a bit fringe of the fringe. But it was an intriguing script, capably performed. And especially since I just saw Cuaron's new film Gravity (which is amazing and you should see) I'm in the mood for a good space story, which, let's face it, I'm assuming this is. But I haven't been right once about the titles thus far (though to be fair, I may have been fooling around with Tex Bonaventure). Let's see ladies and gentlemen. Let's see!

Quick Take Review: An exquisitely written post-apocalyptic fantasy that I'm not entirely convinced benefited from being presented as a hyper-text story.

Review - Tex Bonaventure and the Temple

Well, just going on the title alone, I'm going to guess this is pretty clearly about Mr. Bonaventure going to his local synagogue, which is nice because I'd like a game to explore some some religious culture. I grew up Lutheran and all we have is Garrison Keillor and Lutefisk, a sort of lose/lose situation however you look at it. I'm curious what happens at this temple? Do you have to wear a yarmulke? Is there a secret cabinet with the Torah scrolls? Are there going to be people rocking back and forth incanting Hebrew sacred texts? I'm pretty sure whatever it is it's gotta be better than hanging out in the Lutheran church basement drinking coffee with a bunch of bearded men in turtlenecks. Ah... religion. Glad I don't subscribe to that tripe anymore! 

Anyhow, let's get on with this game, shall we? Perhaps we'll get to drink some kosher wine!

Quick Take Review: Awesome game. Old school adventure with a large degree of whimsy. 

Review - The Challenge

The Challenge? Hmm... Do you think it's apt to be challenging? I'd make a crack about hypertext games not being challenging, but man that awesome PDF game sort of took the wind out of my sails when it comes to my unfounded stereotypes. I'm traditionally terrible at guessing things by their titles alone (let's just say I was VERY disappointed by Moby Dick) but let's play that game here. I'm guessing the challenge is going to be a morality tale. Where you're presented with different ethical dilemmas and you have to make tricky choices. Sort of like that other game I played a while back. That's my guess. That or maybe it's going to be a Hunger Games rip off. Or maybe none of the above. If you're curious click on the jump and let's discover it together!

Quick Take Review: Incomplete Escape-The-Room game. Can literally be played in under three minutes but you could use those minutes in more creative and fulfilling ways like composing dirty limericks or farting.

Review - Threediopolis

Hey gang! Are you ready for some Z-code?? I sure am! Wow. It seems like just a few short years ago nearly ALL of the Comp games were written in Inform. And now here we are. This is the fifth game I've reviewed and not only is it the first Z-code game, it's the first game that will actually involve me typing anything (unless you count me typing my name at the very beginning of Mrs. Tipsy and the Cantaloupe Bungalow). Strange times we live in. Strange times. Oh well, I'm glad that this is going to be the first traditional IF to review as it allowed me to yammer about that in this paragraph as opposed to trying to come up with something to say about the title, because...I mean...yeesh. Look at it. Threediopolis. What does that even mean? Hopefully I'll have cleared some of that up when I come back and review the game. Join me after the jump!

Quick Take Review: Amusing game puzzle game with one big twist. Short, light, and fun.

Review : Trapped in Time

Okay. I'm a sucker for time travel stories. They are possibly my favorite kind of stories. However we also have the only entry entered in the "PDF" category. What the hell does that mean? PDF? Last I checked it was't a computer programming language. It was a easy and routine way to display and print static text. How on earth can this possibly be interactive. I think it is very possible I'm missing something here.

Quick Take Review: Old school Choose Your Own Adventure Story with a really really cool twist.  Highly recommended. Best if left unspoiled.

Full spoilery review after the Jump!

Review - Vulse

Vulse... Hmm... I don't really know what that means. It's possible that my vocabulary is about to be expanded or maybe it's just a made-up name or word. Either way, to say I'm nervous is an understatement. I really don't know if I like these web based hyper text games. Right after I published my last review I noticed that Emily Short had just reviewed the same game. And guess what? She thought it was pretty decent and a good example of the genre. Which then made me feel like a tool. Because, listen guys, who the hell am I to disagree with her, right? So now I'm just looking at this endless expanse of web-based games before me, the collection of which dwarfs the entries written on platforms I'm more used to and am more comfortable with, and I feel like an old man sitting on his porch looking at all of these young whippersnappers with their fancy i-whatsits and google-mabobers and I just want things to back the way they used to be when I understand the way the world worked : "And God created the Parser and Saw That It Was Good. And God Divided the World into the Screen and the Keyboard and There was Darkness and a High Probability of Being Eaten By a Grue."

So maybe I was too harsh on old "Who Among Us". Perhaps it was not the piece itself I was upset by, it was the fact that this "new" (ha!) hypertext format is not something I'm used to and I'm resistant to change. But... hey, it's not like I'm going to STOP being an unpleasant curmudgeon, amirite? So let's check out Vulse and see if I can open my rigid little mind a moment enough to hopefully let something beautiful enter it. Or barring "beautiful" I'd be pretty pleased with "competent" at this point.

Quick Take Review: Expertly written interactive poem. 

Review - Who Among Us

What a title, amirite? Who Among Us hasn't stared forlornly at the blank computer screen waiting for the muses to will a perfect title into our heads and onto the page? Who Among Us hasn't had trepidation over doing another Web based game and hoped against hope that it won't be another hypertext choose your own adventure story? Who Among Us didn't love those books when we were kids, spending hours in the library flipping from one page to the other, trying not to die countless horrible deaths over and over again, and Who Among Us didn't outgrow that phase and start playing Interactive Fiction because of the word "Interactive"? Who Among Us doesn't love a rhetorical a question? Anyway, let's hope my fears will be allayed and this will be awesome. Fingers crossed!!

Quick Take Review: Basically an interactive version of And Then There Were None... or wait, I mean a NON-interactive version.

Review - Mrs. Wobbles and the Tangerine House

Okay, first of all: I think we can all agree this is a pretty amazing title. This is like one of those creative writing exercise prompts. Who is Mrs. Wobbles? Why does she live in a giant tangerine? Why is she constantly sipping gin out of a vitamin water bottle? Is that why she's so wobbly? So many questions!! Also, this is my first web game. Well, to be fair this is my first game in the entire competition. I've got a bunch of unbridled enthusiasm that I'm sure will wear away like a pencil eraser until my spirits has been rubbed to the point of being a black smudged nub of its former self. BUT... until that happens (I'm guessing by game four) let the frivolities begin! Let's DO THIS.

Quick take: Very cute hypertext game that is unabashedly written for readers who still own their first set of teeth.

Full review after the jump!

Once More Into the Breach

Attention IF Authors: This is the scary mime that's about to review your work.

Oh man, guys. Oh. man. It's been a long time. Too long. How have you been? Husband and kids fine? Hmm? Oh good. Okay, stop talking.

I think it's been roughly two to three YEARS since I last played IF. I have missed it. But, you know, not enough to actually get myself caught up. Long story short, two years ago I left the barren wastelands of Wyoming for the barren wastelands of Boston. I kid. I love it here. Been doing an awful lot of theater. This is a picture of my getting into makeup for the last show I did, a ribald production of The Libertine by Steven Jeffreys. I present it here to show you that though time has passed, I still have no sense of dignity.

Anyway, I've been bouncing from show to show to show (as is my wont) and now I've got a TEENY break between now and my next show and I noticed it's October. You can tell it's an old fashioned New England autumn because the temperature's dipped into the 70s. (thanks Climate Change!) And do you know what October means??? That's right! The annual IF Comp! So here's the plan: I'm going to start playing and reviewing the games (in the good old reverse alphabetical order) and posting those reviews on this blog until I play through them all, or more likely get distracted by the middle of the month and abandon this blog for another half decade. Either way: EVERYONE WINS!

So, stay tuned for reviews! The only thing I'll have to say is that you step away from the comp for a couple of years and you come back to find out that everyone's been writing "Web" based games. How has this happened? What do Web based game even mean? This is a brave new world we're living in. At least there are a bunch of Glulx entries. And there's even someone who's still writing TADs games! Aww...

Mite – A review

Believe it or not this is a stuffed dust mite.

Next on the docket, we have “mite”, and “might” I say I am a “mite” intrigued by the title. Are we playing a tiny spider? Is this in reference to size (a nice contrast to the other size related title “gigantomania” (which I haven’t played yet)? I don’t know. What I do know is that it takes a certain amount of confidence to give your story such a simple and homophonic name.

Note: Please remember I spoil things in my reviews. Mostly everything. That’s just the kind of guy I am: a big stinkin’ spoiler. Consider yourself warned.

Final Verdict: Beautifully told though trifling game that becomes somewhat marred by an off putting conclusion.

Ninja’s Fate – A Review

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and guess we’re going to be a ninja in this one. Call it a premonition, call E.S.P. Maybe I picked up powers of “concentration” from the previous game (god, I hope not. I could live a nice long happy life without those kind of visions, thank-you-very-much). I just hope there’s not much combat. I’m not much of a combat-game kinda guy. I like to consider myself a pacifist. Most other people like to consider me a namby-pants sissy boy.

Anyway, on to “Ninja’s Fate”!

Note: There will always be spoilers in my always too wordy reviews. Please don’t read until you’ve finished the game. Thank you.

Final Verdict: A tribute game that is incomprehensible unless you’re very familiar with the games of the late Paul Panks(which I am not, by the way).

One Eye Open – A Review

Here's another thing with only one eye.

Another glulx game, eh? Well, the last one was pretty awesome so here’s hoping this one is too! It’s called “One Eye Open”. Hmmm… What are some things that have only one eye? Let’s see, there’s telescopes, victims of botched Lasik surgery, and pirates… Oh wait, no. Not another pirate game!! For the love of Graham Nelson, not another pirate game!

Don’t worry folks. It’s a Glulx game. It’s gotta be good, right?

Note: If you like having your game ruined for you via copious spoilers, I’d recommend reading the entire review. Or you could play the game first, like a sensible person.

Final verdict: Wow. Okay, so… I’m sorry about the pirate crack before. This is a really good game. Twisted, disturbing, and deeply uncomfortable but also really really good.

Oxygen – A review

At long last, I’m reviewing the first of many (nice!) Glulx games! Glulx games and Z-code games are actually pretty similar beasts, considering they both compile the same programming code. But Glulx has multi-media capacity and also allows for much larger (memory-wise) games than Z-code interpreters do. The larger the code, the more work one can (sometimes falsely) assume the writer put into the game. That or they have pictures and sounds! Either way, I’m looking forward to some good Glulxy action!

So get those lungs ready and join me for a big heaping breathful of “Oxygen”.

Note: My reviews give away everything that can be given away. Endings, solutions to puzzles, etc. If you have any plans on possibly playing this game at some point in the future, do that first before reading further.

Final Verdict: …And we’re back. A game that balances puzzles, story, and cool mechanics in a sinfully playable package brings us back to quality games I can whole-heartedly recommend.

Full review after the jump:

Pen and Paint – A review

On to the next entry in the IF Comp! This one’s called “Pen and Paint”. Hmm… Are we an artist? Are we a writer? Perhaps we’re locked in a room with a set of water colors and big tub of Indian Ink. Obviously the correct solution is to embrace the sweet kiss of death by downing the entire contents of the tub. Why more escape the room games don’t take the easy way out is beyond me.

Note: A reminder. The review will contain spoilers. Please play the game before you read further.

Final Verdict: Game starts off wonderfully but then gets mired in unpleasantly tough puzzles.

Full review after the jump:

A Quiet Evening At Home – A Review

Well, frankly after reviewing four games, I’m placing my bets that we’re already past the slump. Actually the first two games were pretty good! And after the last debacle, I predict smooth sailing from here on out. So what’s up for today? Why it’s “A Quiet Evening At Home” by… well… I don’t know. Someone! But I like the title. It sort of reminds me of the title of this blog. I like Quiet Evenings At Home. Put on a bit of music. Snuggle up with a good book or a puzzle. Eat your own weight in cheese and crackers, am I right ladies?

Or maybe that’s just me.

Note: Be warned that the following review will be spoiler-ific. Proceed with caution.

Final Verdict: If you’ve always wanted to play a game where you were forced to do tedious house-hold chores by yourself, then this is the game for you!

R – A Review

That’s right folks. Your eyes do not deceive you. The game I’m reviewing next consists of one letter: namely the letter R. I guess letters of the alphabet moonlight for IF titles when they’re not off sponsoring episodes of Sesame Street. Who knew?

What more: this is the only game of the competition using a home-brew interpreter, meaning it’s not written in one of the major IF languages. As someone who’s played through quite a few previous comps, this is usually a very poor sign. But here’s to optimism. Here’s to the hope that the letter R can break out of the mold. Fingers crossed everyone!

Note: As always the full review will have spoilers and eyes are like children: they shouldn’t be spoiled. So proceed only after playing the game.

Final Verdict: So much for crossed fingers.

Full review after the jump:

The People’s Glorious Revolutionary Text Adventure Game – A Review

So… what’d ya think about that title, eh? Quite a mouthful. Either this game is an earnest piece of Marxist propaganda or it’s a scathing satire from the Tea Party crowd. Or maybe it’ll just be a fun adventure game. Here’s hoping for the later!

Note: As always, the full review will be replete with spoilers. I’d advise against reading it until after you’ve played the game.

Final Verdict: Haltingly amusing. The game is under the impression it’s much funnier than it actually is.

Full review after the jump:

Rogue of the Multiverse - A Review

Oh my. This is a little sad isn't it? Back in the day half the Comp entries would be in Z-code and the other half would be written in TADS, but this year there's only one entry, which is a tad (no pun intended) disappointing considering how much work has been done to create that vibrant and highly useful programming language. A lot of great things have been written with TADS and I hope that this downturn is only a minor hiccup in the history of Interactive Fiction. Though it could have been worse. We didn't see ANY ADRIFT entries this year. I can't say I'll be missing those awkwardly programmed games (no fault to the authors, the ADRIFT system itself seems unwieldy).

Anyway, our second game in the 2010 IF Competition is entitled "Rogue of the Multiverse". Hmm... sounds like Sarah Palin meets Fringe. Let's hope it reminds me a bit more of the later...

Note: As always, my reviews are filled with all sorts of spoilery goodness. I'd advise you not to reed it until AFTER you've read the game.

Final Verdict: Weird and goofy game with clever gameplay. I recommend.

Promised spoilery goodness after the jump: