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Across the Stars (2007) by Dark Star & Peter Mattsson

As a crewman aboard a galactic transport ship, you wake up in your bunk alone. The crew has mysteriously disappeared, and a large object sits off the port side of the ship. Is it an asteroid? Space pirates? So the adventure begins. Once you fix the problems aboard the ship, you’ll quickly find yourself having to solve other, more involved problems. I’m being deliberately vague because I don’t want to give away the plot, but suffice to say the game does change course nicely part way through, indeed taking you “across the stars”.

The puzzles are mostly of the MacGyver-in-space type (fixing controls, restoring systems, etc). Personally these aren’t my favorite type of puzzles simply because I’m not very good at them – usually I don’t solve them because I have a hard time envisioning the equipment in my head well enough to know how to fix it – but that’s only a personal preference. The puzzles in Across the Stars are all implemented very well. The game also does an excellent job of being suspenseful and dangerous without being excessively cruel to the player. There are many ways to die, but none of them at all unfair. Save early and save often.

Across the Stars also has strong replay value. It’s possible to get to the end with only about half the points scored and none of the major mysteries solved.

Great job!

Ben's rating:

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An Act of Murder (2007) by "Hugh Dunnet"

A mystery in the tradition of classic Infocom games of the past. There were only 5 people in the house when Mr. Frederick Sheppard died. To solve the murder you must determine the alibis of the suspects, their motives for murder, and the murder weapon. And you only have 2 hours before the chief inspector arrives.

I have to admit that mystery IF really isn't my thing, but this game is much more friendly than the Infocom titles. The puzzles are logical, the characters believable enough, the solution(s) well constructed. The game changes each time you play - alibis, motives, murderer, etc. I'm impressed "Hugh" pulled this one off.

I like that your character carries around a notebook and records relevent information as you play the game. I wish that the instructions to the game had more clearly stated that when you speak to inspector Duffy at the end of the game, what you tell him should come directly from the notebook. Also, I had to tell Duffy twice about a certain item in the notebook for him to register it as legitimate evidence. This was because I did something in an order not anticipated by the game.

But these quibbles are minor compared with everything the game does right. This is a superb entry.

Ben's rating:

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Adventure XT (2007) by Dunric

This is the third entry from Dunric that I've played in this comp. This time, no excuses allowed due to being written on an inferior platform (like Vampyre Cross). The good news is that I actually have gold at the start of the game, allowing me to buy a weapon (unlike Ghost of the Fireflies). The game seems to play as it was intended and with no obvious bugs. The bad news is that the game still isn't much fun (at least to me). First of all, it lacks enough detail to create an immersive environment. The combat system is pretty uninteractive. When you just type "kill (something)", the combat begins - and ends. Both you and your opponent trade barbs automatically until one kills the other. Some of the combat messages don't quite make sense either, for example: "you massacred your opponent into small fragments" is written when you've struck a mighty blow, but really a message like that should only appear when you land the killing blow (if at all).

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Beneath: A Transformation (2007) by Graham Lowther

Set in a town named Stregoicavar, Beneath: A Transformation is a horror story with (what seem to me to be) distinctly Lovecraftian overtones. It is supposedly based or inspired by Worms of the Earth by Robert E. Howard. This might be a melding of Worms of the Earth with Lovecraftian themes, or maybe Howard's book just reminds me of Lovecraft. As one might expect from a game of this nature, the story involves ancient evils, unknown races, and many dark places where the outlines of grisly somethings can be glimpsed in the shadows. One may guess from the title that there is a transformation involved somewhere along the line. The fact that the status line reads "A segment of your brain has atrophied" at the beginning of the game may cause one to suspect that this is the player! Well, perhaps :)

I had to resort to the walkthrough not to far into the game, unfortunately. The game suffers from "read the author's mind" syndrome on multiple occasions. I think some of the puzzles I would have gotten if I weren't burnt out on IF games from the past few weeks, but some I would never have gotten. Implemention is below par. Mostly this involves commands not being understood that should be understood and descriptions not clueing the player in to something that should be obvious. (ex. examining a cage should tell you that something is in the cage)

With the walkthrough in hand, the story did draw me in. It achieved a certain poignancy due to its stylishness and successful evocation of horrors lurking within/around/underneith/in the dark/you name it. That doesn't make up for the fact that you'll need the walkthrough to play, but it helps.

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Chinese Room (2007) by Harry Giles & Joey Jones

Disclaimer: I did some beta-testing for this game

Chinese Room is a philosophical comedy adventure and puzzlefest which succeeds on almost every level. The story begins when you wake up (after a night of heavy post-semester drinking) in a concrete room with a computer and a stack of cards with unintelligible chinese characters (aside - we don't know anything about the main character, even his/her gender, but one thing we do know is s/he doesn't know chinese). This first puzzle is based on the "chinese room" thought experiment devised by John Searle, which asks the question, 'Can a computer learn language?' After you solve the initial puzzle, you exit the room and find yourself in a land filled with puzzles based mostly on famous philosophical thought experiments or ideas: Plato's Cave, Achilles and the Tortoise, Does a tree make a sound if nobody is there to hear it, the experience machine, etc. While solving these puzzles you get to interact with famous folks like Plato, Aristotle, Sarte, Nietzsche, or Marx. If you've ever stuck, you can "think about" a variety of topics to learn about the background. There is also an in-game hint system involving an "intuition pump", and if all else fails there is a solution posted online (which the authors have threatened to take down after the competition).

Learning about philosophy may not sound all that great, but this game makes it fun. The writing is sharp and clever. The humor is mostly spot on, and when it goes overboard it gleefully and merrily plunges there. Here are some examples from the game:

>x barbershop
The barbershop brandishes its pole like a pubescing boy watching Fatal Attraction, only with more stripes. You glimpse through the window some worrying-looking contrivances that are probably designed to extract teeth, though they may be for something much more sinister. Like blowdrying.

>x tavern
It's a squat thatched building with a low, dark door. A sign jutting out into the street features a bee hive amidst a field of herbs. It's the Bee-ing and Thyme.

Somewhere in the distance you hear the screams of a pun being tortured.

>x socrates
Socrates seems to be drinking a little too much novelty hemlock flavoured liquour, and is a few stages beyond squiffy.

>talk to woman
You stare up at the woman tied to the stake. She is dressed in white, below her torso is wreathed in smoke like some melodramatic rendition of a vengeful god.

[1] Are you alright, love?
[2] You know, smoking is an awful habit.
[3] Is this some sort of new-age skin treatment?

>3
"No," she replies, shaking her head, "it's actually quite a traditional method of treatment. It's good both for the skin and also for confessions. It was once quite popular with Catholics in Spain and has celebrity endorsement from Joan of Arc."

[1] You're taking this all remarkably well.
[2] So, why exactly are you burning away here?
[3] Now that you've tried it, would you recommend it to a friend?

>3
She seems to give the issue some thought. "It certainly has its benefits, but I'm not sure I would have opted for this particular treatment were it offered as optional."

[1] I suppose your skin is good already. It's one of your many qualities...
[2] So, how did this situation come about?

>1
Her face takes on a look that can be found on thumb-twiddlers, hair-fiddlers and feet-shufflers everywhere. "Um . . ." she begins, "I don't so much possess qualities, as act in a wholly consistent manner."

[1] That's nice. So, how did you get here?
[2] On a slightly different note -- why are you burning on this stake?

I didn't have time to take part in the second round of beta-testing, but I did work on the initial round when only about 2/3 of the game was in place to play. I must say I am really impressed on how much more there is to the final version. The authors must have been working like supermen to get it complete for the competition. It's a huge game.

Some problems exist, probably due to lack of time to polish the game off before the competition. It's buggy in a few parts and some of the puzzles seem inadequately cued to me - there is one part where you're supposed to find some plover's eggs - it's simple to go to the location and just pick them out of the nest - but I had no idea there were any birds or a nest there in the first place. Maybe I missed a key description somewhere, but my bias is that I like to know all relevant puzzle elements in a location unless it's part of the puzzle to find them. Ditto for the inkwell puzzle. I never found any game-stoppers, but I read from other reviews that some essential items can be dropped but not picked up, which would mean you'd have to restart if you dropped that item. It doesn't help that when your inventory is full, you automatically put things into your sack (once you find it, anyway). So if you found the item that can't be picked up, it may automatically be put into your sack and therefore unusable - because you would have to take it out of your sack to use it.

I highly recommend this game in its present state, even with a few annoyances. Save often.

Ben's rating:

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Deadline Enchanter (2007) by Anonymous

I almost stopped playing this half way through. The journey that the narrator was taking me on wasn't making any sense. I didn't understand the world or the story, although I was mildly amused by the writing and the absurdity or it all. I persevered. In the end, I understood what the game was about...I think. But I won't give anything away regarding the game's meaning. I think it's always best to discover these things for oneself.

The commands to complete the game are given to you *by the narrator* of the story. You follow those commands to complete the story. Other than following the commands presented, there is not much to do except examine your surroundings. I read that some people had trouble completing the game due to confusion over certain necessary commands. I didn't have a problem completing it. The game is not a puzzle and is only challenging in the sense that you are left to interpret the meaning of the game for yourself.

Whether you enjoy this will hinge on two things: First, did you understand the journey the narrator was taking you through? Second, did you think it was worthwhile or pretentious dribble? Personally I found it intriguing, entertaining, and dare I say even touching. The writer is clearly skilled in writing evocative prose.

So now that you've read my vague spoiler-free review, I suggest you go play Deadline Enchanter for yourself if you haven't already.

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Eduard the Seminarist (2007) by Heiko Theißen

The tagline for this game is "An episode from a poet's years as a theological seminarist almost two centuries ago." Being such, I hoped to learn something or experience something interesting in the life of the poet. Unfortunately I learned very little except that Eduard lived in a seminary, guards would not allow him to leave, and he liked to study poetry with his friends.

The goal of this game can only be discovered by finding a particular note at the beginning of the game (The note is under the bed). If you don't find the note you'll be even more lost. Luckily I did find the note, which directed me (Eduard) to meet my friends Wilhelm and Hölderlin at a gazebo. The puzzles involved in escaping the seminary and finding the gazebo are not themselves bad, but the implementation makes the game nearly unplayable without a walkthrough. The room and object descriptions were not detailed enough, one particular object necessary to win was never mentioned, and the game can quickly become unwinnable.

Still, I finished the game with only a little help from the walkthrough. When it was over, I did visit wikipedia to learn who this Eduard the Seminarist was. I'll give the game credit for that. If this game were fleshed out more and the bugs fixed, I can definitely see the potential here. But right now, whatever the author thought was interesting about Eduard didn't transfer to this game.

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Ferrous Ring (2007) by Carma Ferris

One of most interesting submissions this year, Ferrous Ring follows the first-person narrative of Ring (sometimes called Erskine) following a series of cryptic clues through a dystopian future of chaos, disease, racism, and totalitarianism. I found many flaws here, but am willing to forgive this game's shortcomings because of the author's intent to forge his/her own way, both from a technical standpoint and from a narrative standpoint. So, taking a page from the game itself, here is a list of the good and the bad:

The bad:
The game was incredibly linear. Now that fact alone doesn't bother me. There are ways to make a linear game enjoyable and engrossing. But the problem here was that there was very little "significant" interactivity. What I mean by "significant" is that most of what you can perform are things such like going from location to location, talking to people, learning more information, picking up items, reading lots of text, going to another location, etc. If the game were linear in structure but had a much more significant puzzle element, for example, the game would have been more successful.

The good:
I actually enjoyed how I was thrust into the shoes of the protagonist with no background information. It was disconcerting at first, but I quickly came to trust that if I played along, everything would be okay. This is a sign that the author knew (or at least I believed at the time that the author knew) what he/she was doing. Having gained my trust, the game did slowly reveal more information about the world. This slow revelation kept me interested throughout most of the game. And although I was not completely convinced by the time I finished the game, any game that has me thinking about it several hours after I finish has got something to it.

The not good or bad:
Technically, I liked the menu system created for this game. It allows you to either choose objects to interact with from a list on one side of the screen, or type your own commands into the main command prompt. I ended up mixing these two methods up, only occasionally asking for a hint when I didn't know what to do. If future games use this system, I can see a few ways it could be improved. Ideally I should be comfortable using either the menus alone or the command prompt alone, but in several circumstances I switched because: 1) Either I didn't know what command to use from the menu or 2) I didn't feel the menu item would have gotten me the result I was looking for. Click here for an example of what I think is one of the greatest IF menu systems ever devised, and what I think all menu systems should strive for. (That's a screenshot from Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls from Legend Entertainment. A true classic.)

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A Fine Day for Reaping (2007) by James Webb (as Revgiblet)

Here is another superb entry. In this comedy adventure, you play the grim reaper. You are responsible for taking souls of those who refuse to leave, or souls who you need to reap due to administrative errors. You reach the souls by taking your trusty horse, Horse. Then you are supposed to reap them with your scythe.

Easy? Not at all! But loads of fun. This game had me in stitches, literally every 30 seconds. It’s quite funny and well written. The puzzles are excellent. There are multiple ways to reap each soul, and that is half the fun. I haven’t finished the game yet, but from what I read, the ending to the game changes on how you solve the puzzles and manage to reap your victims. The only problems I had involved the parser – for example, the “read” command is not understood and there were a few commands I tried that should have been recognized. Other than that, the game is well implemented.

AFDFR reminds me of a mix between the LucasArts classic “Day of the Tentacle” and that Showtime show “Dead Like Me.” I would be surprised if the author were not inspired by either of these. But despite any similarities, this game doesn’t feel like a rip-off. They definitely did their own thing.

Ben's rating:

Addendum: I found a few more parser errors and minor inconveniences, but due to the amount of fun I had playing this, I'll keep my rating the same.

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Fox, Fowl, & Feed (2007) by Chris Conroy

This is an IF implementation of the classic logic puzzle - with a few twists. I liked this one. The classic Fox-Fowl-Feed puzzle is nothing new, but this game makes it fun in a few ways. First, the humorous and lighthearted tone. Second, the twists that the author adds to it. It seems the animals have minds of their own, and you'll have to deal with a problem with the grain sack as well! It wasn't perfect - when I first played I didn't realize the duck was doing something on its own, so I thought the game had a bug in it. The next time I tried to do what I did before, I got the correct response from the game indicating what the duck had done. Maybe I missed it the first time. Anyway, this game is a pleasant little excursion.

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Gathered in Darkness (2007) by Dr. Froth

As a history professor invited to an archaeological dig site by a shady research group up to nefarious ends, you find yourself embroiled in a fight for your life. First of all, you've been poisoned and need to find an antidote within 24-36 hours. As you explore the resort/research lab you are imprisoned in (The island resort has been transformed by an evil Dr. Skinn and his cohorts), you find out that the not-so-good doctor has been up to much worse than poisoning an innocent professor. Without going into more detail, this story evolves into one of (like some other games in the comp) ancient evils, lurking horrors, grisly transformations, and other Lovecraftian ickities.

This game is long. At two hours I hadn't finished it, and this entry into the comp is only the first third of the finished game. I admire the author's follow-through (he says the other parts are just about finished) to complete such an extensive piece, and I had fun with this one. Despite the innumerable spelling and grammer problems, I did get the sense that the author knew where he was going. The history of the island, the goals of Dr. Skinn, and your own history are all expounded upon with journal entries, diaries, and museum exhibits in the complex to create a consistent and intriguing world, at least in a pulp-novel kind of way. So the spelling problems didn't bother me. Most of the other problems resulting from a generally unpolished / unedited game didn't bother me either.

A few things did bother me, though. First, this game needs more paragraph breaks. Second, although I didn't mind the spelling mistakes, the text could use major editing to remove extraneous objects or descriptions. Much of the time I spent playing was investigating irrelevant objects, because so many are included in room descriptions. Maybe if the paragraph problem were solved it wouldn't be such a chore to read through the entire paragraph several times to pick out all the objects, but still - do I need to know about the floors, walls, bed, drawers, etc. if they aren't relevent or interesting?

The puzzles are pretty good. They range from mundane find-the-key or the keycode puzzle to puzzles involving grating skin to feed a monster. Puzzles like the latter show that the game is at its best when it is at its grizzliest. This is also evident from the fact that the writing improves from the usual mundane prose when the author is talking about dismembered bodies or hideous beasts, which are thankfully prevalent in this game.

Other than some irritation I had with the room descriptions, this was an enjoyable romp for me.

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Ghost of the Fireflies (2007) by Dunric

You play Camphora, the ghost of a firefly bent on revenge against Suga-wara no Michizane, the god who once rebuked your desire to return to earth (I think). This is an MS-DOS game that combines puzzles, combat, and spells. It is set in some strange version of Japan (“It is said that when Japan was formed, four larvae from the great Firefly King fell upon the ocean, creating the islands that we know today…”). Apparently Jesus of Nazareth is hanging out here as well, as he is just chilling in the forest where you begin your adventure. I also have to say that your dog friend Raiythius has to be one of the most annoying sidekicks in IF history.

There are some serious gameplay issues with this game. First, I don’t have any money and can’t find out how to get any. Therefore, I can’t fight anything because I don’t have a weapon or ingredients for spells (I can’t even defeat Jesus, who really puts up a fight!) Second, though the room descriptions are interesting, my time playing this game consisted mostly of wandering aimlessly in search of something to do. Third, I encountered some bugs involving my somehow carrying several fire breathing ice dragons.

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The Immortal (2007) by Just Rob

It’s hard to classify this one: Sci/Fi? Fantasy? One of those “It’s all a dream” scenarios? You begin the game standing in a beam of light with only fragments of memories. You’re wearing a spacesuit and carrying a samurai sword. Things get even stranger when you step out of the beam of light into some kind of space station and meet a hobgoblin. I immediately noticed the writing is a little clunky, but could see the potential. For example, the way the author describes thoughts and ideas literally swirling in storm before one of them collides (giving you some of your memories). That was neat. Unfortunately the game quickly became frustrating and cumbersome. It appears not to have been sufficiently edited, tested, or finished, and it shows. I quickly became confused about what was going on in the game, frustrated that the character would seem to remember something but I felt out of the loop, annoyed by bugginess, and thwarted by misunderstood commands. Then there is the fact that you die unfairly over and over (although you are allowed the “undo” command). Interesting start, but I wish the game were finished. Also, the author needs to tether in his ideas to create something a little more cohesive.

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Jealosy Duel X (2007) by Alex Camelio

Here is an amusing Flash game where you play a man trying to get back at his ex by getting more potential dates' phone numbers than her. I was really beginning to enjoy this one. Despite its juvenile nature, it has some clever scenes and funny artwork. The problem is that you can easily get the game into an unwinnable state (scaring girls off, losing your money, being killed by a mugger, etc.). There is no save feature, so I would have to start all over again. The game is entertaining, but not enough to endure that. It's still good for a quick laugh.

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Lord Bellwater's Secret (2007) by Sam Gordon

Your sweetheart Elsie Browning died from a fall from a window at Lord Bellwater's estate shortly after the death of Bellwater himself. Was it an accident or was it murder? You sneak into Bellwater's study to find the truth. All suspicions lead to the elderly Bellwater's son, who is set to inherit everything from his father. Why would he do such a thing, and if it wasn't him, who could have done it?

The competition ended on a high note. This one-room mystery is nearly perfectly executed and eminently enjoyable. I was stumped a few times, but never felt the need to dive into a walkthrough. The puzzles are excellent and logical. The story is engaging. The historical setting is utterly believable. I only encountered one minor bug when I tried to do something with the window while I was in the fireplace. I can't think of anything more to add so I'll cut the review short.

One of the top games in this year's competition. Great stuff!

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The Lost Dimension (2007) by C. Young

You play someone who wakes up alone on a plane in a world with all sorts of strange creatures (aliens, zombies, mules) and has to fight / puzzle their way to the end. You are to gather 5 magnetic stones in order to escape. The game is pretty much a hack-and-slash rpg with a few simple puzzles on a homemade gui that looks like it might fit in on Windows 3.1.

The color scheme is somewhat unattractive and gui in general is poorly implemented, the world and story is ridiculous, yet I kept playing. And when I was killed by a mule I played again. Then I tried to sleep and was killed by a death dog in the ensuing battle, so I played some more. Is there something seriously wrong with me? Is it because I got a perverse satisfaction after throwing a watermelon on a zombie, and then had to fight the zombie now named "watermelon head zombie"? I don't know.

If the game doesn't achieve what the designer(s) dreamed of, that is a game friendly to newcomers, it is still not without merit. I didn't find any bugs, and it did hook me in. That is more than I can say for a few of the other games in the competition.

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A Matter of Importance (2007) by Nestor I. McNaugh

You're about to be expelled from the thieves' guild - unless you can carry out a convincing project. As you head up to your hotel room to retrieve your tools, you realize it's an ambush. It looks like you'll have to pull off a heist without the aid of your usual equipment. So the game begins. The story, though pretty standard on the surface, is developed well. By the end of the game several mysteries will be revealed. The author cleverly includes seemingly innocuous backstory details early in the game that become essential later. And although your PCs backstory is never completely told, the personality of your character and that of several NPCs are also fleshed out nicely.

As I've found common so far in this comp, the execution of the game doesn't quite live up to the ideas. I found the writing somewhat awkward and a little difficult to get through (if the author is not completely fluent in English, I understand and commend the effort). A few puzzles are just too obscure or are not solved by commands that should work. The worst might be the first major puzzle in the game (involving cars and a street). Thankfully, full-fledged hints provide all the help one could need.

There are some saving graces. As mentioned before, the story is well told. The game was light-hearted and funny enough to keep me interested. There are several self-referencial moments which gave me a chuckle; I was not prepared for the game to so brazenly acknowledge that it is, indeed, a computer game. It is also reasonably short. I was able to complete it in about an hour (with the necessary aid of hints).

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In the Mind of the Master (2007) by David Whyld

You are "The Master", a mysterious figure being hunted down by unknown forces. You must don a disguise and escape, quickly. There are three choices: Police Officer, Gentleman, and Postal Worker. Depending on your choice, the game will adapt to your new identity (you seem to literally become the disguise you choose...) This is an interesting idea, and the author does build a nicely structured game around it. Despite assuming a new identity, the overall plot of the game remains the same. There are just different ways of reaching the end and different ways of learning about your situation. At the end of the game (assuming you completed the game successfully), the mystery surrounding your identity and why you are being hunted is explained. This is the strongest part of the game. Clearly, the author had a good idea and ran with it.

I found a few issues in the execution of the author's good ideas, however. Most could have been solved by more diligent testing. For example, some of the writing was a little clunky and some of the puzzles were not as intuitive as the author had intended. There are also a few minor, non-game ending bugs. I think the major problem I had was that I didn't "get" the final solution on my own, and had to discover it through the in-game hints. Normally this wouldn't spoil a game too much, but this game was different. Not discovering the solution to the final puzzle for myself, the puzzle upon which the crux of the entire game rested, was a little bit of a bummer. No denying it was my fault for cheating, but I wonder if the author could better engineer the game to nudge the player into discovering the answer for themselves?

Still, I liked this game and am certainly going to try some of David Whyld's other games.

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Lost Pig (2007) by "Grunk"

You are Grunk, orc who lost pig. Grunk must find pig or master be mad. Grunk and pig accidentally fall into hole and find themselves in Gnome's lair. Grunk must solve puzzles and catch pig.

But seriously, this turns out to be a lot of fun. With the exception of a few inconsequential bugs, this game is very well implemented. Most commands are understood with no problem. The interactivity is tremendous. As Grunk, you can garner unique (and typically very funny) responses from doing things such as oinking at the pig to tasting yourself to asking the gnome (once you find him) about a huge variety of topics. Also, you might want to try lighting various items on fire once you've discovered fire. Pyromania can be fun :). (Save your game first, because the Gnome might not be happy in the end if you try to burn his place down...) The character of the pig comes to life as well. Check out its reactions to your various actions when you are in the same room as the pig. Great attention to detail here.

What else can one say? Hints are well-implemented, and you can get help in a few different ways. The most obvious is from the menu. The menu hints start with a gentle nudge before giving a puzzle away. However, the menu hints don't give away every puzzle (thankfully). If you want more help, you'll have to ask the gnome. The game has a high replayability factor as well, since you'll probably want to go play again if you don't make the full score. It's only the second game I've played of the comp so far, but I'm sure this will at least make my top 10.

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My Mind's Mishmash (2007) by Robert Street

The premise is that you're stuck in a simulated game world and you've got to reach the end of the game to get out. Interestingly enough, this game world seems itself to be part of a network on which you have an avatar. Apparently in this world, people spend much or most of their time online (like the real world, I suppose). Your problem is that you haven't backed up all the work you've done the past few days and will lose your homework if you die in the game. The fellow who chased you into the game and forced you to shut the entry node, memoryblam, is after you - but traveling backwards from the end of the game (level 5, late in the war) to the beginning (level 1). You'll have to deal with him when you two cross paths.

The game itself is a simulation of the entire war between humans and aliens, where only one side can survive. Is this a reflection of your reality or just a game? I'm not sure. Although I tend to think it isn't your reality, I could be wrong.

So far, so good. The concept is very cool. How does the game play? Many of the puzzles involve dodging people in the game world with the help of a cap that makes you invisible but unable to interact with objects. You move around from room to room (and occasionally level to level) of quite a large map, stealing keycards, manipulating equipment, and otherwise being clever & stealthy. The action intensifies as the levels increase, and you'll have to deal with robots that the game has generated to root you out. The game is long, very long, with some really tricky but logical puzzles. It's definitely not beatable in 2 hours without a walkthrough. However I can see the appeal of a game like this if you're willing to invest enough energy into it.

Problems? Not too many to speak of. I think the descriptions could be worded clearer. A few times some vital information was hidden in the middle of a paragraph and I missed it. I had lots of trouble with the very beginning of the game because I didn't really understand what the cold suits were. I figured I was in one, but was confused by some descriptions of items in the cold suits and some cold suits behind me. Was I supposed to manipulate the other suits? Was I supposed to order the people in the other suits around? Was I supposed to get some items from the other suits? In the end the solution was logical and simple, but it could have been worded better.

Enough complaining. This is a good game.

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My Name is Jack Mills (2007) by Juhana Leinonen

This is the story: Professor Humphrey asks for your help regarding a precious roman coin, stolen by an evil art tycoon. Your character's backstory is never fleshed out - for some reason I thought I was a student when I first began playing, but i guess that's silly. You're a private detective with one objective: retrieve that coin.

I enjoyed this one, but with the reservation that the game feels like a piece of scrumptious T-bone steak that doesn't have enough meat on it. The steak itself is really good, I just wanted more. It could have been longer, yes, but to me the game felt like it needed to be fleshed out from the inside first rather than just lengthened (though making it longer would be welcome, as it's a pretty short game). Part of it was the lack of backstory: who am I and who is the professor? Part of it was that there wasn't enough writing there to develop quite the right atmosphere for a pulp detective story. Then again, the lean descriptions and lack of textdumps have advantages too of making the game faster and less cumbersome to play.

Other than that I can't find much wrong with this. The story was fun, and I liked the branching plot. The game was good enough that I was eager to play again and try it a different way. I did have some guess-the-verb problems in one of the branches as well as what may be a bug in the auction house of the game. Despite waiting and waiting, the mask never went up for auction like it should have. Things like desks and antique forks and dolls kept repeatedly being auctioned. Maybe it was because I entered the auction and came back? I'm not sure. Anyway, because you can always take an alternate route these issues weren't as big a problem as they may have been in a more linear game.

In summation: I liked My Name is Jack Mills and look forward to playing more games from this author in the future.

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Orevore Courier (2007) by Brian Rapp

Trapped in your security station aboard the "Orevore Courier", it's up to you to finagle the controls and save the ship. You've got to deal with zombies AND pirates AND the Orevore you're carrying on-board. See the cover art for what I am guessing is the author's vision of the Orevore. The Orevore is explained thusly in the game:

"The orevore is so remarkable an animal as to strain credulity. It's a 100-pound gelatinous lump with a convoluted surface, very much resembling a grotesquely oversized cerebrum. It eats almost anything, including solid rock, and it excretes chemically-pure nodules of any element it ingests with an atomic number greater than 77. For this reason it is the most prized possession of every mining colony that can manage to acquire one..."

I love the zaniness of it all. It's what kept me going when I got frustrated and wanted to smash my computer because I kept having to restart. The game is pretty merciless, but somehow less intimidating to me than a game like, say, Infocom's Suspended.

Your controls consist of: buttons that change what room of the ship you're viewing, buttons to lock and unlock doors, copy/play/transmit to record or play the last few seconds of what was just on the monitor screen, thermastat dials, a food dispenser, a self destruct button, and an okay button to respond to the computer. The set-up is great, but I strugged at the beginning because I didn't understand some of the buttons. I think the game should have started off with an explanation of the buttons, or perhaps included a feelie that helped with explanations besides the (still helpful) diagram of the control console that comes with the game. Not that the buttons are very difficult - it's just that (for example) while I was heroically trying to save my shipmates, fight zombies and pirates, and keep containment on the ship, I forget to "x transmit button" and understand a key detail.

Other than that, I can't really find any flaws here. And this seems to be one of those lucky few games that have you saying to yourself "D'oh! That puzzle makes sense now. Why didn't I think of that first off?" when you discover the solution. Like the game or not, it delivers on its promise of zany, cruel, puzzling fun.

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Packrat (2007) by Bill Powell

The introduction is the best of the competition so far:

They call you Packrat, but in truth, you're an adventurer with a discerning eye. After all, who're they sending to wake the Princess? Many's the prince who didn't even try to penetrate the cursed brambles about the castle, and though the thorns finally parted for some royal pup from a faraway land, no one's heard a thing since.

Worse, it's just come out that the King had time before going unconscious to take out a hefty royal loan, and it's had twenty years to accrue in default. The rumor is that the repo giants are on their way. If someone doesn't wake up the Princess and the rest of the royals pronto, the whole kingdom might come under new management. Who better to send on a dangerous mission to a sleeping castle full of unguarded loot than ...

Packrat
An adventurer with a discerning eye.

The story is praiseworthy (I really liked the ending) and the writing is clever. Unfortunately the implementation makes the game nearly unplayable without a walkthrough: Nouns needing synonyms, inadequate descriptions, and bugs . I won't go through the problems in detail, but one of the things that disappointed me the most was that the ideas behind the puzzles were really great, but due to coding and to inadequate cueing, many solutions were impossible to discover (assuming we knew about the puzzle to begin with). For example: One puzzle involves a chest and a moat. The first problem with this puzzle is that I never knew I could pick up the chest in the first place (isn't a chest a little heavy to be heaving around?) The second problem is that I was never made aware that this was a puzzle in the first place. It could be that I missed some key descriptive bit somewhere, but I doubt it. Regardless, problems like crop up throughout the game. It seems not have been adequately beta-tested. Perhaps there was not enough time before the competition?

If it was fully functional and all the kinks worked out, I can see it being a top-10 contender, at least. I urge the author to revise this game, because I think it has the potential to be great.

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Press [Escape] to Save (2007) by Mark Jones

The tagline of this game ("not even that command works") seems to be a not so subtle reference to the fact that it is under-implemented. The author writes in the "about" section of the game: "This is my first IF game. It's sort of like an experiment. I'm just trying to get a feel for game creating. You'll probably see better games in the future..." Which is true. The writing needs to be edited and revised, objects and commands should be implemented, characters should be better elaborated, etc. But rather than lambast the various details of this game, I'll stick to the positives.

I see high potential for an author like Mark Jones. This game is bursting with energy and full of imaginitive ideas. I wonder what went through his mind when he was coming up with this. "Well let's see, you're in prison but are saved by a figure from another dimension. Then you and the other prisoner travel through 4D space with the figure. The figure tells you that you have to go plug the pool of excessive knowledge which this figure has greedily drank. He wants you to shut off the flow of the water so that he doesn't drink any more, because it's so addictive and it will kill him..." It's weird but oddly fascinating. I think it's possible to write IF with a story similar to this, but difficult. There are so many questions that the author would have to answer to allow a player like me to suspend disbelief. Why did this figure choose me and my prison mate to do this task? Wouldn't he be able to predict that the water would be too tempting for either or both of us? Who created this surreal world? What logic governs the world, besides something that came from a stream of consiousness brainstorming session by a IF author? What is the lead character's backstory? Why was I wrongly imprisoned?

My suggestion for the author is to concentrate on something a little smaller for his next project, and try to dig deeper. Think of characters and backstories. Ground some of these fantastic ideas with just a little bit of reality. If you're going to create a surreal world, first establish the rules of the world. As the player, I need to know why things are the way they are. I need to know that there is a logic (even if an absurd logic) that governs. Then I can feel confident that the author is not just making it up as they go along.

Personally I wouldn't release an experiment like this to a public competition. Many reviewers will slam this one. But at least the author will get some useful feedback. Hopefully his next game will be more focused and better implemented. This goes to all of the other highly imaginitive / poorly executed games in this year's competition as well.

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Reconciling Mother (2007) by Plone Glenn

You play an apparently secret agent sent to find out what happened to other agents who have disappeared on a routine mission. It turns out that their disappearances involve some sort of Lovecraftian horror. I didn't get a chance to solve the mystery, but I did wander through innumerable locations, picking up many bizarre objects including a dozen or so runes, bodily organs, etc. Also, along the way I found several log entries from a previous agent. There are some really interesting possibilities here, but I quickly became frustrated by the endless wandering. There are way too many rooms, way too many items, and not enough detail as to what is really going on. There are some characters but interaction is pretty minimal. At one point I saw a dragon in a cave. It didn't seem to do anything, but I didn't want to stick around so I walked to the opposite room. The dragon didn't seem to mind. There is a nice in-game hint system, but I became frustrated with that because I couldn't reach a certain location that it said I could somehow reach.

However...

I did enjoy the bizarre nature of this game. At one point I ended up on a Ganymede observation post. At another point I was in a nurses station which was (for some reason) at the bottom of a cave. Then there is the airship which is suspiciously set to take me to locations I need to go.

Occasionally you will come across a randomly hilarious paragraph such as this:

"You insert the red disk into the slot and the round screen comes to life. It shows you a movie about a young boy and a ferret who discover each other. Both are recent orphans who now must face life without parents but at least they have each other. This movie is about them, the adults don't even have speaking roles in the film. The boy and the ferret go adventuring in the woods where they discover an abandoned missile silo. There is a light hearted scene between the ferret and a mongoose. Deep in the silo, the boy discovers that his parents used to work here when they were young. The documentation reveals that the parents where actually Soviet era spies for Russia. The boy comes across another document that is essentially orders to assassinate them. Just when the boy realizes who must be the owner of these documents, a Russian man shows up and captures the boy. The man reveals that he murdered the boy's parents. He ties the boy up and goes to the surface so that he can radio his superiors for further orders. While he is gone, the ferret gnaws through the boys ropes and they flee. Here is the action scene where the Russian spy is chasing the boy and ferret throughout the silo..." (it goes on)

That alone gets it brownie points.

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