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swordianmaster Oct. 7th, 2018 07:44 pm)
swordianmaster Oct. 7th, 2018 07:44 pm)I'm not as good with descriptions of this as the other friends of mine doing these, so I'm just going to post my notepad notes as I went.
(C) means I chose it. (R) means I got it off Random Shuffle.
Out of 10 points, 5 is an average. A game that does not impress or offend, that is literally middle of the road, gets a 5. A game that rekindles my interest in IF completely and entirely gets a 10. A game that is fundamentally broken, unfun, or offensive gets a 1. It's granular in between that, of course.
(C) ENTRY 01: AILIHPHILIA Fit IF: A *GASP* SAGA (By N.Y. Llewellyn)
oh god before I even start this I know what I'm in for. This is what finally made me bite the bullet and register for this damned thing even though I've left IF behind for a while. This is probably going to hurt.
Yes, this is absolutely a game that is going to murder me with palindromes. This was more or less expected just from the title.
I am in palindrome hell. Luckily it's well-written palindrome hell, with amusing jokes and surprisingly good puns. I will say I'm too tired to really push through all the way, but the game is Merciful on the cruelty scale and the puzzles aren't really... hard, per se? I'm just dumb and had to use the in-game hint feature multiple times.
I literally don't know what to say about it without spoiling things. It's all wordplay and figuring out how to be witty with and about palindromes, how do properly use those spur ups to get in the emo dome, or how to deal with that cross orc blocking the way. It's... yeah, it's shaped like itself. Dood.
RATING: 8
(R) ENTRY 02: DUNGEON DETECTIVE (by Wonaglot, title art by Caitlin Mulvihill)
Or rather, its full name (judging by the game) is Sniff Chewpaw: Dungeon Detective. Already I feel like I'm playing a character in one of Xyzzy's D&D game playthroughs.
This was a short choice-based deal with a heavy D&D flavor about a gnoll detective investigating a break-and-enter case in a dragon's summer workshop. Naturally, given that you are a gnoll and you are working for a dragon, you have to find a pretty specific set of clues - some of them spelled out plainly and others contextual in the pretty heavy purple prose - in order to narrow down exactly what you're looking for.
Chances are, if you think it's important, jot it down somewhere, it probably is.
Took me about 45 minutes to go through, fall down a pit and die (that was absolutely a 'polite' on the scale), get a mid-grade ending, and then go back and get a much better one. Still, not bad, if a little too over-intricate in its descriptions for my tastes.
RATING: 6
(R) ENTRY 03: INTELMISSION (by Martyna "Lisza" Wasiluk)
The first one I'm just sort of ?????? about, though I admit I'm starting to prefer parser games to Twine/link-based games. Shame it seems to be the style going out of vogue. I can't let that drag me down, though.
This one's done in Unity so it's got a bit of polish to it. Unfortunately, that polish comes at a price - the engine is kind of jerky and imprecise; I get the feeling it was designed with a mobile/touchscreen interface in mind so it does poorly with a mouse and desktop.
Regardless, it's purely a dialogue based affair, revolving on two competing rival superspies who have gotten captured and have nothing but each other to pass the time. It's got a lot of character to it, though a fair bit of the writing has a bit of that 'you are talking with someone who thinks James Bond and Edward Cullen are good role models' feel to it which... mmn. I don't know if it was meant to make my skin crawl but it sort of did.
Past that, it was at least compelling. I definitely like dialogue better than narration for these, it seems.
RATING:6 5
(R) ENTRY 04: DREAM PIECES 2 The Lego Box (by Iam Curio)
Surprisingly, this one is marked as "puzzle" and doesn't specify choice-based or parser-based. I'm wondering exactly what's going on here.
Oh. This lets you use parser OR clickthrough that's why.
It's about someone who really wants legos for their birthday so they go to sleep and dream of legos. Except this is interactive fiction, not graphical, so instead you see words like HORSE and DONKEY and break them apart into letter fragments and use the [DO] from Donkey and the [OR] from Horse to make a DOOR and yeah. This is pretty blatant. It's also pretty repetitive. Pull items apart, make exit, make word with which to open exit, pass through exit, repeat.
It's laggy as hell, too - I'm gonna have to download the interpreter and try to run it offline. From what Celine has said, this may be a recurring problem with this particular engine, so I'm not too bothered. Yet.
....you know, thinking about this, isn't LEGO a copyright? Does that violate the rules? I mean, you can just swap it to 'building block' but... mmmn. There was a little creativity in it later on as far as what your forms of exit actually were, but it was just... the same puzzle, multiple times, with a different set of words to break apart. Cute, but insubstantial. A pink rice cake of a game.
RATING: 4
(R) ENTRY 05: LET'S ROB A BANK the choice-based simulator game (by Bethany Nolan)
oh boy it's been a while since i played saints row 3. Let's do this. This, being, uh, rob a banking.
It's nice that they give you teammates like "PRO: Has done this shit for years. CON: is racist". Well. 'Nice', in the sense that the game is very tongue in cheek and also greatly appreciates that fascist bigoted assholes can be criminals too.
Took me three tries before I actually survived, but it's meant to be forced through real quick-like, so it wasn't much of a problem. In fact, that made me go back and dock Intelmission a point, because if it's a game about trying different shit and seeing how things fall, you should make it snappy and as-quick-as-you-read, instead of leaving it with slow introductions and awkward interfaces and forced waiting times.
Unfortunately, this also had its problem of being literal fluff like the above. It's quicker and simpler, though, so even if you feel like you wasted time, you didn't waste as much.
RATING: 5
I've done my part, but I'll probably keep poking around. If I do, and I have notes, you might see them here.
(C) means I chose it. (R) means I got it off Random Shuffle.
Out of 10 points, 5 is an average. A game that does not impress or offend, that is literally middle of the road, gets a 5. A game that rekindles my interest in IF completely and entirely gets a 10. A game that is fundamentally broken, unfun, or offensive gets a 1. It's granular in between that, of course.
(C) ENTRY 01: AILIHPHILIA Fit IF: A *GASP* SAGA (By N.Y. Llewellyn)
oh god before I even start this I know what I'm in for. This is what finally made me bite the bullet and register for this damned thing even though I've left IF behind for a while. This is probably going to hurt.
Yes, this is absolutely a game that is going to murder me with palindromes. This was more or less expected just from the title.
I am in palindrome hell. Luckily it's well-written palindrome hell, with amusing jokes and surprisingly good puns. I will say I'm too tired to really push through all the way, but the game is Merciful on the cruelty scale and the puzzles aren't really... hard, per se? I'm just dumb and had to use the in-game hint feature multiple times.
I literally don't know what to say about it without spoiling things. It's all wordplay and figuring out how to be witty with and about palindromes, how do properly use those spur ups to get in the emo dome, or how to deal with that cross orc blocking the way. It's... yeah, it's shaped like itself. Dood.
RATING: 8
(R) ENTRY 02: DUNGEON DETECTIVE (by Wonaglot, title art by Caitlin Mulvihill)
Or rather, its full name (judging by the game) is Sniff Chewpaw: Dungeon Detective. Already I feel like I'm playing a character in one of Xyzzy's D&D game playthroughs.
This was a short choice-based deal with a heavy D&D flavor about a gnoll detective investigating a break-and-enter case in a dragon's summer workshop. Naturally, given that you are a gnoll and you are working for a dragon, you have to find a pretty specific set of clues - some of them spelled out plainly and others contextual in the pretty heavy purple prose - in order to narrow down exactly what you're looking for.
Chances are, if you think it's important, jot it down somewhere, it probably is.
Took me about 45 minutes to go through, fall down a pit and die (that was absolutely a 'polite' on the scale), get a mid-grade ending, and then go back and get a much better one. Still, not bad, if a little too over-intricate in its descriptions for my tastes.
RATING: 6
(R) ENTRY 03: INTELMISSION (by Martyna "Lisza" Wasiluk)
The first one I'm just sort of ?????? about, though I admit I'm starting to prefer parser games to Twine/link-based games. Shame it seems to be the style going out of vogue. I can't let that drag me down, though.
This one's done in Unity so it's got a bit of polish to it. Unfortunately, that polish comes at a price - the engine is kind of jerky and imprecise; I get the feeling it was designed with a mobile/touchscreen interface in mind so it does poorly with a mouse and desktop.
Regardless, it's purely a dialogue based affair, revolving on two competing rival superspies who have gotten captured and have nothing but each other to pass the time. It's got a lot of character to it, though a fair bit of the writing has a bit of that 'you are talking with someone who thinks James Bond and Edward Cullen are good role models' feel to it which... mmn. I don't know if it was meant to make my skin crawl but it sort of did.
Past that, it was at least compelling. I definitely like dialogue better than narration for these, it seems.
RATING:
(R) ENTRY 04: DREAM PIECES 2 The Lego Box (by Iam Curio)
Surprisingly, this one is marked as "puzzle" and doesn't specify choice-based or parser-based. I'm wondering exactly what's going on here.
Oh. This lets you use parser OR clickthrough that's why.
It's about someone who really wants legos for their birthday so they go to sleep and dream of legos. Except this is interactive fiction, not graphical, so instead you see words like HORSE and DONKEY and break them apart into letter fragments and use the [DO] from Donkey and the [OR] from Horse to make a DOOR and yeah. This is pretty blatant. It's also pretty repetitive. Pull items apart, make exit, make word with which to open exit, pass through exit, repeat.
It's laggy as hell, too - I'm gonna have to download the interpreter and try to run it offline. From what Celine has said, this may be a recurring problem with this particular engine, so I'm not too bothered. Yet.
....you know, thinking about this, isn't LEGO a copyright? Does that violate the rules? I mean, you can just swap it to 'building block' but... mmmn. There was a little creativity in it later on as far as what your forms of exit actually were, but it was just... the same puzzle, multiple times, with a different set of words to break apart. Cute, but insubstantial. A pink rice cake of a game.
RATING: 4
(R) ENTRY 05: LET'S ROB A BANK the choice-based simulator game (by Bethany Nolan)
oh boy it's been a while since i played saints row 3. Let's do this. This, being, uh, rob a banking.
It's nice that they give you teammates like "PRO: Has done this shit for years. CON: is racist". Well. 'Nice', in the sense that the game is very tongue in cheek and also greatly appreciates that fascist bigoted assholes can be criminals too.
Took me three tries before I actually survived, but it's meant to be forced through real quick-like, so it wasn't much of a problem. In fact, that made me go back and dock Intelmission a point, because if it's a game about trying different shit and seeing how things fall, you should make it snappy and as-quick-as-you-read, instead of leaving it with slow introductions and awkward interfaces and forced waiting times.
Unfortunately, this also had its problem of being literal fluff like the above. It's quicker and simpler, though, so even if you feel like you wasted time, you didn't waste as much.
RATING: 5
I've done my part, but I'll probably keep poking around. If I do, and I have notes, you might see them here.
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