Game Playing and World Building

IntroComp 2012 voting runs through Weds 15 Aug 2012.  "voting deadline [extended] until August 25th."

Let this post be seen as a 'intent to play through' placeholder.

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6 Entries in 2012 

The Bafflingly Casual Adventures of No One of Significant Import, by Robb Kinnison (Quest)
Belief, by Justin de Vesine (.gblorb)
Compliance, by Christopher Conley  (.gblorb) 
GENESIS, by ML  (.gblorb) 
Resonance, by Nereida Scales (ChoiceScript*)
Wasteland, by Taylor Melton  (ChoiceScript*)

*ChoiceScript unpublished games, that is, games run from folders or drives, do not work in Chrome.

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From the site...
Vote based on "How much do I want to play more of this entry?"
"...when voters vote, they'll be asked to not only vote with a rating reflecting how much they'd like to see the author finish the entry, they'll also be asked (but not required) to enter anonymous text with (at least) one positive thought and one constructive criticism on each game."

When I post reviews, this information will not go up.  Rather, in response to my ongoing attempt to simplify review ratings (versus giving readers all the categories I sift through to try to make consistent decisions) I will be trying a new, three tier system.  

It's the end of term, but there's only four Spring Thing games!

The Egg and the Newbie, by Robert DeFord (Glulx)
The Rocket Man from the Sea, by Janos Honkonen (Z-code)
Sleuth, by Scott Greig (Quest)
The White Bull, by Jim Aikin (TADS 3)

'Ted Paladin and the Case of the Abandoned House' is the sole Alan game in the comp, written by Anssi Räisänen.

Letter Grade: I (Incomplete/introcompy)

( Details: )

38 games this year.
Played list links to reviews. Please assume all reviews contain some spoilers, but fear not! It turns out spoilers rarely detract from your enjoyment.

Played:
Playing Games
Ted Paladin And The Case Of The Abandoned House

Unviewed:
Vestiges
The Hours
Cursed
The Ship of Whimsy
Taco Fiction
Awake the Mighty Dread
Andromeda Awakening
Keepsake
The Life (and Deaths) of Doctor M
Emily Boegheim's "It"
PataNoir
Fog Convict
Tenth Plague
Cana According To Micah
Calm
Operation Extraction
Death of Schlig
Sentencing Mr Liddell
Escape From Santaland
Dead Hotel
The Binary
Beet the Devil
Return to Camelot
Fan Interference
The Myothian Falcon
Kerkerkruip
How Suzy Got Her Powers
The Guardian
Last Day of Summer
Cold Iron
Professor Frank
Luster
The Elfen Maiden
Blind
Six
The Play


Games excepted from play/voting:
none right now

Stalling for Time is a z-code game by Dominic Delabruere entered into IntroComp 2011.

I'm not entirely sure what genre this is, which is fine. You're a guy in his 20s - so far unnecessarily gendered, IMO, but that's sort of an 'advanced complaint' - going across the country to pick up your Uncle Ted from grad school. I tried restarting to see the grey-box intro text again, and Frotz isn't letting that happen for some reason, so I can't entirely say.

There's some of that sullen college philosophy in it, which, like horror and humor, needs to be handled carefully to avoid being trite or cliched. I do like how it starts with an action that I've already done; that's a nice way of dropping me in the middle. The kid's depressed, so he doesn't remember. Some people might think that's weak, but I suspect those people haven't ever really been depressed. So there's a point.

Conversation is handled OK, although I felt a bit rushed, as it let me choose one response before the NPC moved it along to the next set. This can be good or bad; it's better than making me go through all the options, which seems a bit popular in the ChoiceScript games, but in a first play-through in particular, I may want to try out a few questions, to get an idea of the scene or the potentials, without having to UNDO or restart.

I did hit an error when I attempted to 'talk to Kenji.' I also feel a bit awkward about Kenji - he bows, he 'humbly sits' - and so far I don't see him as a person. He's JAPANESE_GUY and we're going to use Japanese words. Why does Uncle Ted want us to give him a ride? How does he know him? Obviously, this could be expanded, but I feel a little wary right now. (I also felt awkward telling my uncle I wouldn't give him a ride in a second short play-through, but that's the kind of player I am.) I think the writing's generally good, so it's too bad the NPCs seem a bit flat.

Based on the inclusion of implemented texts discovered at one point, I am a little leery that this may turn out to be a religious game of self-discovery; I don't enjoy 'games' that I feel are pushing me to a particular agenda. However, I cannot make that judgement right now, given that this is an intro. Actually, I went back into the game to see if it let me swear, given that the term 'pisser' is used at one point. It does, so maybe the inclusion is just flavor - in which case, it's well done.

Do I want to see more? Sure, although I'm a little cautious.

I keep finding various names for authors for several the games: the voting page, the distro, the game itself. I'm really not sure anymore. You know what? If you're the author and you read this or any review, just comment on your entry and tell me what name you're going to use.

Comments are screened because I'm letting non-DW=members comment and that means I get spammers.

Gargoyle is a ChoiceScript game submitted to IntroComp 2011.

My first assessment is that the 'skills-building' part of CO games is tricky. I think it's more immersive if it's subtle.

The theme is a somewhat generic fantasy - why am I a gargoyle? I'm not feeling anything different - just a combination of a human magical student and a dragon. And dragons are pretty well-done in ChoiceScript right now.

Tone shifts, in part because I wanted to go in one direction and it was only partially implemented. As a result, the choices I made were not ones that made sense for the character at that time. I think in a fully-formed CO game, they then wouldn't appear. For example, extremely militaristic choices shouldn't appear if I've been pushing my character to be bookish.

In conclusion, I'm not really impressed by the implementation or the originality. Of the two games written by this author, I think Exile has more potential.

Bender is a z-code game by Colleen Boye.

The game starts with some extra stuff going on at the top - a map! A map that laggily changes as you move! And no instructions on how to use it.

The mini-map works OK - a bit slow, but interesting - and wasn't credited? correctly in the about (the line reads 'The minimap is ). Help isn't implemented, and those really should be in a game with unique commands.

Eventually, though, I see what's happening here - there's some interesting ideas, although I'm pretty bored of the '-bending' thing that's in these days. I guess it's some anime thing. I don't really know. Without knowing more, I think it's tricky - there's a few directions the world-building part of this mechanic can go, and it could be seen as homage or rip-off or boring, and that's something that would be discovered only in a fuller game, if the world-building does get fleshed out.

Puzzle-wise, the intro puzzle did have me restart several times; it became obvious, eventually, that there was really only one right way to do the puzzle because of the time-limit imposed by the NPC's actions. That being said, given a little more lead, it's a good short intro to the mechanics, one that should happen after 'TYPE 'ABOUT' FOR SPECIAL COMMANDS IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST TIME PLAYING.'

Other than that, some general stuff - the POV switch is not delineated and confused me when I got out of a car that wasn't the one I had just gotten into. The narrator at one point checks her GPS but I can't look at it.

So in the end I think I'd like to see more of it, but I'm wary that something like this might be plagued with the trickiness of balancing gameplay and puzzle mechanics with plot.

'Of Pots and Mushrooms' is a ChoiceScript game by 'Devi and Maya'.

I'm going to be honest - this is big, there may be some shred of a plot underneath it, but it feels like walking into a big, crowded and cluttered dorm room.

It's happened to everyone who lived on campus, especially a large one. Someone has notes, or a lamp you're buying, or found the sweatshirt you left in the lecture hall, and you're very briefly in a dorm room that isn't familiar, and it's a goddamn mess. There's more there than needs to be and someone's in the corner laughing madly at Adventure Time or whatever the kids watch these days when they feel like being amateur herbalists and you just want to do what you have to and get out; you don't feel threatened, but goddamn it's annoying, especially that kid who has the most annoying laugh ever devised.

The game kind of feels like that to me. Especially the laughing. Oh, and the casual homophobia. That's really pointless.

Final Assessment: I'd probably not play this if it was completed.

'Choice of the Petal Throne' is a ChoiceScript game, written by Danielle Goudeau.
It is inspired by M.A.R. Barker's 'Tekumel' world, which I think makes it a little harder for me to give this an end-rating.

This is what I know: I can tell there's a rich world building behind here, but it's not written by the game's author. That's okay. You can have fan-created works that really work in the setting, are of the setting of a world, or you can have fan-created works that could be ported practically anywhere. The latter are much weaker. As I don't have any grounding in the Tekumel background, I'm taking it for granted that it feels pretty well ingrained without being too overwhelming for someone unfamiliar. (It does remind me of Richardo Pinto's series, which I happen to be rereading now, with a notable amount of non-Euro background to the mythology and world.)

I feel like there's a lot going on here, and what this part of the game played at was all the stuff that in completed ChoiceScript games is 'character building'. It helps define how well you'll do later on, what choices will be available, etc. I feel good about this, though. Maybe using someone else's setting means the author gets to focus more on action and doing stuff and not having to be bogged down with much world-creation.

Final assessment: Yes, I think I would like to play a full-sized game of this. In fact, I played through a few times to see what differences might appear already. Do I think it might be a ginormous game? Yes. No problem. I'm still waiting for some of the official 'Choice Of...' games to be complete, and I think they're fun romps.

Plus, I don't have to draw maps. Huzzah.

Chunky Blues, subtitle: A Triumph of the Human Spirit, is a Glulxe game written by Scott Hammack and Jessamin Yu.
( Review Inside... )