Merk's Review: In The Mind Of The Master

Merk · October 13, 2007, 4:26am

The “official” version can be found at my website:
sidneymerk.com/comp07/master.shtml

Game #7: In The Mind Of The Master
By David Whyld
Played On: October 11th (2 hours 25 minutes)
Platform: Adrift (Version 4)

>xyzzy
“Xyzzy,” said the Master.
At once, an item was added to his inventory.

>i
The Master was carrying:
_the Master’s garments {worn}
_a purple pingabalong

>xyzzy
“Xyzzy,” said the Master.
At once, an item was removed from his inventory.

>xyzzy
“Xyzzy,” said the Master.
At once… nothing happened.

I have to wonder if David Whyld does anything other than write Interactive Fiction. It would be an easy notion to dismiss if his games were generic and churned out over the course of an otherwise uneventful weekend, but they’re not. In The Mind Of The Master is another fine example of what David can do with his platform of choice (Adrift), and it’s a worthy addition to his ever-growing list of authored titles.

In The Mind Of The Master begins with a hasty escape. A mystery surrounds the identity of the titular PC, and it’s played up as the main focus of the story. He makes his getaway disguised as one of three characters, as chosen by the player. This hints at who the Master might be. As more than just an amateur impressionist, The Master dons the selected costume and assumes the persona of the chosen character. Stage actor? Professional magician? Criminal fugitive? Discovering the truth is the hook.

The middle parts begin to hint at possibilities that can only be explained by the supernatural or metaphysical. More than once, he is mistaken for someone else. It could be that these people just see through his disguise, but even The Master himself begins to doubt that it’s quite as simple as that. It’s as though he lacks all the facts about his own identity. I was reminded of the scene in Fight Club where “Jack” follows a trail of clues to a bar where his cohort Tyler Durden had been the night before. The bartender is somber and respectful, somehow mistaking Jack for Tyler. Disguise and impersonation just aren’t enough to explain it away.

With that kind of build-up, it’s easy to expect a big payoff at the end. But – and I don’t know quite how to describe this without blatant spoilers – there’s sort of a catch-22. To win, you must take a specific action in the final scene (David even warns of this, in the introductory text). If you haven’t figured out what The Master is capable of, hoping it will be revealed near the ending, then you don’t know what winning action is necessary. So you can’t win. But if you have figured it out, then there is no twist or revelation at all. You must have already known it in order to win. I had to get it from the hints, because I just hadn’t figured it out. It’s hinted near the beginning, but (a) it’s not something every player is guaranteed to see, (b) it’s near hints to many other possibilities as well, which come during that first scene, and (c) is distanced enough from the end that even if you take notice of it, it might not trigger whatever spark of imagination allows a player to extrapolate actions from clues.

I had expected a different construction entirely, that late in the game. Because there are three initial disguises, and because there is some sort of specific action at the end, and because some sort of repetitive, do-over theme was present and foreshadowed, I convinced myself that the trick was to play twice more (once as each of the other two characters). After one time through, it doesn’t feel like a very long game, so this kind of thing made sense. I think you can learn a little more by playing again with different options, but it’s not necessary that you do. All paths lead back to the same scenes. It seems constructed this way not to necessitate re-plays as a means of solving that final puzzle, but simply to give players a wider range of choices and to make re-plays worth the effort.

What I thought was going on – and what would probably make an interesting short game in its own right – was that some import clue from a three-piece puzzle would be identified by playing once as each of the available characters. It would be necessary for the player to combine the one thing learned from each in order to deduce that final action. The order of play wouldn’t matter, and a complete re-start (as opposed to having the game “put” you back at the beginning) wouldn’t hurt things. Once you reached the end for the third time, you would simply know what to do.

Perhaps because it didn’t work that way, or perhaps because there remains a mystery behind The Master’s true identity even at the end, I wasn’t completely satisfied by the story. I really bought into the premise, though, and they say the journey is its own reward. I had fun, even though I wish David hadn’t opted to leave it open for theories. I would have liked to know for sure just what was going on in The Master’s past.

Then, a few things that never made it fully into the game (more detailed notes available at the game’s end explain this) added to the mystery without ever sharing in the conclusion. For instance, the guy who picks up The Master (in the guise of a Gentleman) in a limo was intended to be part of another sub-plot. Who runs the Chamber, and what’s their agenda? Until I read the walkthrough, I hadn’t even realized the Chamber and the Montalban were related (I thought I had been taken elsewhere). This was supposed to be a bigger, more epic game. It’s probably good that the point is explained in the author’s notes, otherwise it would be easy for a player to think he or she simply missed finding those answers during the course of the game.

The story is written in third person past tense. In other words, “you see a tree” is expressed as “he saw a tree.” Maybe it’s to force a disconnection between player and PC. Maybe it’s to support that these are events that have already happened. Or, maybe it’s just to set the game apart from its peers. Whatever the reason, I’m not sure it was necessary. While it affords the author an ability to cast emotions and memories onto the PC which the player may not share, it suffers from a few unintentional lapses into the more traditional present tense.

The writing has a few other minor problems (misspellings, odd and obvious typos, etc.) in a few random spots. I noticed very minor bugs and implementation issues too, but nothing substantial enough to dwell upon. It really moves along at a nice pace overall, avoiding many of the parsing and implementation problems that are the bane of other Adrift games.

Part of this is certainly the author’s skill with so many games under his belt, but on reflection, it’s more than that. At times, the story felt as though it was on rails. It usually wasn’t (at least, not to the degree one might expect from the term “on rails”), but almost any stray action will redirect the player back, making it clear that this other location or this specific distraction doesn’t merit further attention. Beyond that, the text is written in a way that somehow provides vivid enough mental images without offering an abundance of “stuff” to interact with. So, there’s less for the author to have to implement, and less for the player to concern himself or herself with.

The puzzles are pretty light fare, except for one particular sticking point outside the Montalban (in disguise as a thief), and of course at the very end. Most of the puzzles are probably just plot-pacing devices. The more difficult sequences to manage – conversations – are done through multiple-choice dialogue menus.

In The Mind Of The Master is a pretty strong entry. Its weakest point, however, is that it poses too many questions that remain unanswered and left up to the player’s imagination at the end. In a story-centric game, I think players deserve a little more. Unless it’s the lead-in for a sequel, it should probably be a lot more. Otherwise, the entire premise – the driving question that propels a player to take such interest in discovering an answer – seems like an unfulfilled promise.

At two hours, I rated the game a “X”. That’s also the score I’ve kept for the review, although it gets an unfortunate “minus” for building a mystery that isn’t quite resolved. It could use a little more polish, but it’s still a deserving and recommendable entry.

she_s_long_gone · October 13, 2007, 12:09pm

Too many unanswered questions? That’s what sequels be for!

Merk · October 13, 2007, 1:38pm

Yeah, true. It’s just that this didn’t seem like a game that’s setting itself up for a sequel. I’ve ended some (most?) of my games with unanswered questions (there’s even a cliffhanger (among other unanswered questions) at the end of Trading Punches that really won’t be answered until the 3rd or 4th game in what’s intended to be a five-game series), but I don’t think in those cases I built the game’s premise around those unanswered questions.

Think about it this way. If a game centers around the question “why did the sky turn green?” then it’s fair to expect an answer to that at the end, even if lesser questions encountered along the way (like “why did Jill run from the cat?”) aren’t answered. It’s very possible that others aren’t bothered by this the way I am. I’ve been looking for other reviews to find out.

I’ve been trying to think if other games I’ve played do the same thing, and I think there are some. Among my own, I’m not sure. Trading Punches doesn’t really ask a central question. It’s just part of an eventual epic where those answers aren’t central to the introductory story. In Distress, I’m asking “will the PC survive to be rescued?” and that’s pretty much answered. In Swordsman, there might be a mystery around the swordsman’s identity and past (although it’s not played up as a central focus), but even so, that’s answered at the end.

What ITMOTM does, I think, is ask the question “who is The Master?” but instead answer the lesser question “what’s so special about The Master?” It’s better than nothing, but you may have gathered from my review that you sort of have to know (or have figured out) that answer before you can get to the winning ending.

It doesn’t destroy the fun, but players will probably have to use the walkthrough to deduce the final move. I still found it very enjoyable and rated it highly. It’s not a 10, because I always look for that one “wow” game (although I’d go for more if more wowed me in that way). It’s not a 9, because I’m looking for a higher polish in a game, and something that “feels” smooth the whole way through. This one is pretty good, but there are enough minor issues in the writing (see emshort’s review for a good example) that they stick out and break the “mood” at times.

I think that’s what trips up most IF authors – myself included. It’s easy to dismiss problems in the writing – if you’re the author – because you feel the game stands on the strength of its story and the atmosphere it presents (this is true in another of the games I’ve reviewed so far as well, where it’s doubly important to maintain that mood). But if a player keeps tripping over sentences, it’s a problem. I rely on spell checking quite a bit (which is why you’ll find misspellings and typos in my forum and newsgroup posts so easily – they’re entirely raw), but I can still recognize misspellings in some words. Comma splices tend to jump out at me. Words missing in sentences or replaced with the wrong words (a problem I really have in my own frenzied typing) make it hard to remain immersed in the story without being drawn back into the writing itself.

Anyway, David could polish this game up, maybe even extend it with the parts he had to skip or remove, perhaps revise the ending and work on keeping players from misunderstanding the structure of the game somehow (thinking you are supposed to play multiple times might just have been my own bad assumption), and it would be an even better game. It’s good. I liked it. I recommend it. But I do think the complaints I have with it are valid ones.

emshort1 · October 13, 2007, 2:48pm

It’s not just the technical aspects of the writing that bothered me (though from time to time they did). I also look for a kind of poise or confidence that tells me that the author knows exactly what he wants to achieve with his prose: what mood he’s trying to evoke, where he wants to direct the player’s attention, what he’s setting up as important questions or themes. If that confidence is present, I find I can forgive a lot of other flaws, because (as a player) I feel secure that the author knows what he’s doing, that I’m not wasting my time, and that the story is going somewhere. Several of my favorite games this competition had various implementation or design problems, but did have this confidence, and that was made them stand out.

For that matter, I’ve played some Whyld games that did strike me this way. Silly as it was, “Paint!!!” (which I reviewed relatively positively) seemed to me to know exactly where it was going and why. “In the Mind of the Master” did not. Descriptions sometimes ran too long, were too vague, and did not convey a strong sense of attitude or direction. Dialogue dragged or contained errors, as though the author did not quite know what the point of the scene was before he started writing it. That sort of thing.

Merk · October 13, 2007, 3:03pm

I know what mean. It can make the difference between thinking “whatever problems there may be, the author is still in control” and “uh oh, this author is just winging it as he goes along – can I really trust what’s going on here?”

I had more of a sense for the former than the latter here, but it sounds like you didn’t. Maybe it’s because he ended up cutting things out or skipping things that had originally been intended. There are different “notes” available at the end that talk about the design and these exclusions, but you’d have to get the winning command to reach that point.

A clip from that text:

David_Whyld2 · October 13, 2007, 8:44pm

Thanks for that very nice review. I’d love to comment on some of the points you raised… but I’d better wait another month till the comp’s over with.

Merk · October 13, 2007, 8:50pm

You can always email me in private, or post a PM here.

David_Whyld2 · November 18, 2007, 10:00am

emshort:

It’s not just the technical aspects of the writing that bothered me (though from time to time they did). I also look for a kind of poise or confidence that tells me that the author knows exactly what he wants to achieve with his prose: what mood he’s trying to evoke, where he wants to direct the player’s attention, what he’s setting up as important questions or themes. If that confidence is present, I find I can forgive a lot of other flaws, because (as a player) I feel secure that the author knows what he’s doing, that I’m not wasting my time, and that the story is going somewhere. Several of my favorite games this competition had various implementation or design problems, but did have this confidence, and that was made them stand out.

For that matter, I’ve played some Whyld games that did strike me this way. Silly as it was, “Paint!!!” (which I reviewed relatively positively) seemed to me to know exactly where it was going and why. “In the Mind of the Master” did not. Descriptions sometimes ran too long, were too vague, and did not convey a strong sense of attitude or direction. Dialogue dragged or contained errors, as though the author did not quite know what the point of the scene was before he started writing it. That sort of thing.

I felt quite confident when I wrote the game, or seem to remember I did, but maybe the fact that when I started writing the game I didn’t have any clear idea of how it was going to end spoilt things. To begin with, all I had in terms of the game’s general outline was the main character being hunted by agents of the Cardinal and having to effect a disguise in order to elude them. Most of the game was written as I was writing it, not planned out beforehand which is really what I should have done, so maybe that’s why it comes across as less confident-sounding.

drfroth · November 19, 2007, 6:19pm

I really enjoyed this game (though I really like games like this). But the last move was very, very hard for me to figure out. The mystery of the Master and his back story I thought were best left out. Sometimes things are more interesting when you are not entirely sure of anything except what is going on in the moment.

Anyway, I do agree that the last puzzle was wickedly evil.

David_Whyld2 · November 19, 2007, 7:09pm

The last puzzle seems to be the one place where everyone has problems. When I wrote it, I thought that it was quite a logical thing but my testers disagreed. So much so that I ended up putting extra hints in to try and clue people in to what needed doing, but even then I think I left it way too vague. So far I don’t think I’ve found a single person who actually managed to solve it without the hints, which probably tells me I really should have listened to my testers when they said it needed cluing a lot better.

Oh well. Back to the drawing board I guess.

ralphmerridew · November 19, 2007, 7:22pm

I had taken the clues over the game to mean that over time, the Master takes on the full identity of the person, 1) it was a passive ability, 2) the Master wasn’t totally conscious of it, and 3) it still required wearing the target’s clothes.

Merk · November 19, 2007, 11:33pm

The only clue I’m aware of is near the beginning, in a book that you can overlook (a book which, in fact, I overlooked). Or else I saw it but paid it no mind. There was something about being able to completely “become” another person, right? Were there other clues later on?

Emerald · November 20, 2007, 12:38am

The problems with the book as a clue are

a) There’s no reason from the description of the books to think that any of them of worth reading right now.
b) The game is telling you to hurry up and get out, not mess around poking at stuff.

It might work better if the book were lying around loose, not just one of many. Even better if the book were lying open, so that just examining it lets you read the passage the Master highlighted. I suppose that would look like egregious exposition, though.

As to winning the game, I’d discovered the command you need quite early on (even though I didn’t read the book), but since it never did anything interesting I’d forgotten about it by the time I got to the end. However, the reply it gives if you try to use it ahead of time does clue you fairly heavily that you’ll need to use it later on, so I should have remembered.

Kell-Teng · January 19, 2008, 10:28pm

Questions, agh! >_<

Once again I have to agree with the majority of what’s been stated. The last puzzle is /glare-worthy trying to figure out (though really pretty spiffy once you do), and for the life of me, maybe I just fail at life and text adventures, but I couldn’t seem to get to the Cardinal’s home without losing my initial disguise, which annoyed.

On a slightly related note, I found the second-best ‘winning’ ending to be very satisfying…though of course, questions questions questions!