intfiction.org

Ah, to be in the hands of a competent writer! I knew going in that whether I liked the game or not I would find it decently coded and polished. There I was not disappointed. With the story, however...

I got the feeling that the author didn't know what he wanted this game to be. It starts out as an adventure, then gets a little quest-y, goes for an artsy vibe while bringing in some sci-fi, and ends up being just plain weird. While there are some nice images and moments, as a whole it doesn't really all hang together.

In addition to not buying the story, I also found the puzzles unnecessarily hard. As in, I knew what I had to do and yet could not accomplish it. (Like, I thought I had already broken a twig of the branch, but I hadn't. And I was sure what I needed to do with the bone, but didn't come up with the magic rub word. Also, I knew I had to move the snow off the cockpit, but didn't think to just clean it. And in the end I thought I had the gun when I didn't, and couldn't see why I wasn't able to shoot it.) These frustrations could have been helped with some better descriptions and/or some alternate verbage implemented in there.

Some random thoughts as I was playing...
A unicorn dream? Am I a replicant?
Help us nameless IF adventurer. You're our only hope.
Wait a minute, is this just another CAVE game?
The body is me? Hang on, am I Starbuck?
IS the FBI equipping its agents with mind-bending crystals?

I really didn't like that the only way to get the "good" ending was to make what turned out to be wrong choices along the way. Add this to the earlier "it was all a dream" bit and it just felt like the game kept cheating. I don't like being jerked around by a game unless there's a point to it all. Here, there wasn't. Next time I hope Eric Eve uses his powers for good, not evil. (Ok, evil's a strong word. But you know what I mean. Don't waste your talent on half-baked ideas.) (And chill, out, man. Some people can be trusted!)

Begins with an infodump, then a bit in a bar, then a suspenseful bit with your squad, and then it's a race for survival! I think, anyway, as I didn't play much beyond the zombies attacking me.

This is certainly an ambitious game, Episode 1 of who knows how many, but I was let down by all the introductory stuff that didn't seem to matter. Like, I think I was just wasting time at the bar, no? And I wasn't really attached to the squad, but then I got them all killed. And I can't be sure, since I didn't play it through, but the rest of the game seems like a lot of escaping and shooting and so forth, which doesn't really interest me.

(Truth be told, I was more interested in finishing the other two games on my list before the comp time ran out...)

Even if this year's comp wasn't filled with duels and caves and quests and snow, this game would still stand out. The unique premise is this: You're Lottie Plum, a spoiled, unsympathetic Broadway hopeful who's just flubbed an important audition. Your only hope now is to sabotage all the other girls waiting to try out. Mean? Yes. But also pretty entertaining.

My main problem with this game was that it's insanely hard. As in, I never would have finished without the walkthrough. I don't mean in two hours for the comp, I mean ever. Even with mommy's help (cool hint system) and a couple of playthroughs, I was pretty stuck. Maybe I'm thick, but some of the puzzles (like the foam one) seemed a bit out there. And some important objects (like the motet) could definitely have been clued better.

I did love being able to type who or what is whatever, as well what happens when you don't answer y or n to a yes or no question, and the awesome option available on replay after you win. (I was feeling a bit of uncertainty about the final action in the game, but in the context of the ending, I'm ok with it.)

Overall, the game's strong voice/character, custom messages, technical quality, and unique story outweigh the crazy hard puzzles. I hope this game does well. I would help it take down some other games to place higher if I could.

The author of this game says he was inspired by Nightfall, and it definitely shows. But where Nightfall managed to suck me in and creep me out, this game fails. The whole thing just feels a bit off, a tad overdone. The inconsistent tone made me never quite sure if it wanted to be taken seriously or not.

I ran into some errors which did not help my game immersion. One was a runtime problem when trying to look into a cabinet (I hoped there wasn't anything important in there) and another was an issue with conversation topics which led to me having this exchange with my (dying) brother:

"Hey Steve (dying), I really don't have more to say or ask."
"No problem, Jimmy. If you have any more questions, let me know."

Way to break the mood, bug.

While we're on the subject, I wasn't too keen on the conversation system here. I'm not opposed to picking from a list, although it's not my favorite option, but the numbering was annoying. (Here's your topic choices: 2, 5, or 0. Wait, what happened to 1, 3, & 4?) I also didn't like seeing all those things in parenthesis telling me stuff was (empty) (open) (dead) etc. My brother being an in-game tutorial irked me. I didn't like having to repeatedly go out and in and in and out, and the travel just seemed unnecessarily slow. The atmospheric messages never quite worked for me, either, since there weren't enough and they lost impact on repeat usage. And then there were the riddles. Sigh. I guess little puzzles like that work in some games, but man, when it's life or death someone's-trying-to-take-over-the-world time, it's just unrealistic and silly to run into random riddles.

I'm sorry to be so negative on this game, but that was my experience with it. I never quite got it, or got into it. I do appreciate the fact that there are apparently 3 paths through the game. Perhaps I would have enjoyed another one better, although I was doing my best to follow where the clues led. With less bugs, stronger writing and a consistent tone, things could have been better. Instead, this is the way the comp ends for me, not with a bang, but a whimper.