Locked Out by Loner_Games
Platform: ADRIFT 3.9
Blurb: “Today was supposed to be a great day. Until you locked yourself out of your house… “
There are times when I dread games by newcomers to the IF scene. On one hand, it’s nice to see some fresh blood and there’s always the lingering hope that this one might be someone who actually knows how to write, has a decent idea for a game, has tested it thoroughly beforehand, has checked his spelling and grammar, has made a genuine effort to make his debut game the best he possibly can… unfortunately, there are those newcomers who seem to throw together a game in half an hour and upload it the moment it’s done without even testing it first. Which category does this game fall into? Well…
There were problems right from the start which indicates that if the game was tested, it wasn’t very thorough testing. There’s a door but EXAMINE DOOR doesn’t work. You can’t OPEN the door, either, and, best of all, attempts to UNLOCK it result in the game telling you off for not using proper English. Apparently the word UNLOCK isn’t considered good English. There are also some wooden swings here that, likewise, can’t be examined. On the plus side, there’s a wooden box that can be examined. And opened. Inside are some emgerancy supplies and a baseball.
Emgerancy supplies? Yep, that’s what it said on screen. Unfortunately, attempts to take them either by typing the word correctly, incorrectly or just trying to get the supplies doesn’t work.
Italicised text in another location advises me that I can WALK DOWN THE ROAD to a neighbour’s house, but while the text might think this, the game itself has other ideas because the command doesn’t work. DOWN doesn’t work either.
An event seems to trigger in a few locations but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense:
BLUEJAY FLUTTERS IN .
YOU POINT OUT SOMETHING TO TIGER YOU THOUGH WAS A BLUEJAY, BUT IT TURNS OUT IT WAS JUST YOUR EYES PLAYING TRICKS.
Aside from the obvious spelling and grammar errors, who is Tiger? An actual tiger? A pet? A bizarrely named best friend? Whoever he/she is, they’re also invisible because attempts to examine or talk to them don’t work.
Several locations list exits that don’t exist so making your way around is unnecessarily complicated. One location tells me there is lawn to the east and west, but I can only go to the west. Another has a forest to the south but won’t let me enter it.
I wasn’t intending this review to read like a shopping list of the game’s faults, but there are so many things wrong with it, and virtually nothing right, that that’s just what it turned out to be. Total time spent playing was around fifteen minutes (which was pretty much all I could take of the game) and then I was yearning for something else. I know ADRIFT is easy to use, but it’s not easy to write a decent game in… and this game is an excellent example of that.
1 out of 10