Well, jumping on the bandwagon, here's my reviews of the contest entries. They're much shorter than some of the other reviews that have been posted here, but hopefully they will provide some sort of alternate opinion as grist for the mill. Incidentally, re-reading my reviews, I was very glad for the moratorium on contest discussion before the deadline. It's amazing how quickly and easily my opinion could be wavered by a dissenting one. One final disclaimer: kudos to all the authors for your effort! Even if I didn't like your entry, it doesn't mean it wasn't worth it! Keep the IF coming! ----------------------- aayela Aayela, an Interactive Vision by Magnus Olsson (TADS) Release 1.1 / 961015 This was a very nice game. Short on length, long on good ideas, short on puzzles, but long on atmosphere. Although I felt I was whisked off on one of the endings (the 'bad ending') too quickly, and a little extremely, the 'good ending' was great. I enjoyed this game a lot. aayela rating: 8/9 ----------------------- abduct Alien Abduction? An Interactive Fiction Story by Charles Gerlach (TADS) Wow. This is an excellent story, well told, and VERY CREEPY! I almost went insane myself with that constant 'Click'! Yikes! A couple small bugs, but insignificant, and easily correctable. Spooky the whole way through. abduct rating: 10 ----------------------- claw Wearing the Claw, an Interactive Fantasy by Paul O'Brian (Inform) Release 2 / Serial number 961003 Fairly linear, almost-standard quest game, whose best points are the interesting scoring system, and the attempt to integrate the puzzles into the plot. Still, there were some strange puzzles (like type 's' three times before it lets you go that way). It did flow OK, and had an interesting plot twist halfway through. Still, it wasn't all that involving. Some formatting bugs that made some text unreachable. claw rating: 5 ----------------------- dbl Don't Be Late! An Interactive Snippet by Grew Ewing (Alan) 'Snippet' is right! This is an amazingly short game with a moderately frustrating parser. It has one clever gimmick at the end, and some moderately entertaining prose. Overall, not very involving, although almost short enough to compensate--still not very worthwhile. dbl rating: 2 ----------------------- delusns Delusions, an Interactive Self-Discovery (Inform) Release 2 / Serial number 961021 This was a pretty good game. The atmosphere was good, and the unfolding of the story worked well. Unfortunately, many of the puzzles were drastically unfair. 'Examine things in the correct order' does _not_ make for a good puzzle in my book. I feel that a better implementation of this idea to advance the plot was in order. There seemed to be many times when I had the right idea, but had no clue as to the implementation, the GUI computer being a prime example of this. The intrusion of the various "Author's Note:"s were also distracting, and did not really contribute to the story. Perhaps this could have been better implememted in a 'Footnote' type manner. Incidentally, the 'Jeopardy' show was one of the funniest bits of IF that I have seen in a long time. Overall, this was a very good story rendered somewhat impotent by some design flaws. Fortunately, to a great extent, this could be fixed in future releases. delusns rating: 7 ----------------------- fear Fear, an Interactive Nightmare (Inform) Release 1 / Serial number 961012 Interesting premise that almost manages to pull it off. However, the intense atmosphere that was created at the beginning did not carry through the rest of the piece. The endgame almost managed to pull that back together, but overall, the center sections simply were too disparate from each other and from the beginning and end to form a cohesive whole. Still, it was a valiant attempt, and some of the puzzles were clever. The integration of the puzzle sections with the rest of the game was clever, but, unlike 'Curses', a pastiche didn't work as well in this game as it did there. fear rating: 7 ----------------------- first My First Stupid Game, by Dan McPherson (AGT) AGT runtime for DOS included I'll give it this: it has an apt title. It's sheer banality gave it a healthy dose of humor, and, to be fair, it was probably intentional. Still, it was quite juvenile. The best part of the game was the walkthrough provided with it--probably the funniest part. first rating: 3 ----------------------- forms Of Forms Unknown, an Interactive Excursion by Chris Markwyn (Inform) Release 2 / Serial number 961021 If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Andrew Plotkin should feel flattered. A self-acknowledged imitation of 'So Far', it conveys some of the same feeling of the original. At the author's admission, much of the plot was not included due to time constraints, and so what was left was just the puzzles. There weren't that many of those here, either, one I really enjoyed, one bad one, one that had a lot of potential that it didn't quite live up to, and the rest were average to middling. The hints were readily available, though. Overall, I felt that the unimportant details of 'So Far' were imitated more than the ones which made it such a good game. 'Forms' shows a lot of potential, though. forms rating: 7 ----------------------- intheend In the End, by Joe Mason (Inform) Release 1 / Serial number 961010 Hmmmmm. There were interesting things about this game. There was a lot of one-time text, but it sort of worked. The demands it made on the reader were considerable, but,... I dunno. The inability to 'save' was obnoxious! I doubt that I found everything, but it was gruelling to try. intheend rating: 6 ----------------------- jacl The Curse of Eldor, an Adventure by Stuart Allen (J.A.C.L.) Release 3; J.A.C.L. engine for DOS and Linux included I'm not sure if I should rate this game, since much of it was rendered inaccessable by bugs. The main bug in my system was not being able to 'save' and 'restore'! Or, rather, I could restore, but not to the place I had saved. Instead, it would put me in the room " with every item in the game. (Yes, " was the name of the room, as listed on the status bar.) The game was also slow as blazes, taking at least three minutes to load up on my 386. For the part of the game I was able to play, there were some mildly interesting puzzles. However, the main character had a severe case of kleptomania! You had to steal all sorts of items from people's homes, which seemed a bit odd. It also suffered from the 'defeat the baddie to get the McGuffin' sydrome. I muchly disliked the starvation rule, also. jacl rating: 3 ----------------------- kissing Kissing the Buddha's Feet, an Interactive Cramming (TADS) Version 1.00 Very nicely put-together game. All the puzzles are very logical, and fit in with the story seamlessly. Well-behaved characters that have a wide range of automatic activities, cleverly implemented. Many puzzles involve interaction with characters on a personal level, which was nice. Good range of puzzles in small setting. kissing rating: 9 ----------------------- liquid Punkirita Quest One: Liquid, a Viking's Funeral by Rybread Celsius (Inform) Release 1 / Serial number 960927 Well, this is the second game by the author, and I must say it's a darn sight better than his first. The author has constructed an interesting fantasy world, and it was fun to explore. The final downfall was that there simply wasn't enough to do that advanced the plot, and that the things that _did_ advance the plot were either simplistic or unintuitive (or both!). This definitely showed promise, though, at least as soon as he either learns how to spell, or gets better beta-testers. liquid rating: 3 ----------------------- lists Lists and Lists, an Interactive Tutorial by Andrew Plotkin (Inform) Release 3 / Serial number 960823 Well, this gets the prize for most unique. I wanted to finish this 'game', I really did,...but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. As interesting as the concept was, the motivation just wasn't there. I guess that's where this entry broke down--unless there was external motivation to go through it, it provided none for the player. The analogy would be a game with a bunch of random puzzles strung together with absolutely no plot. The puzzles might be very creative--but without a motivation for the main character, it ultimately fails in the telling. While this would be a good supplement for a Lisp class, it ultimately fails as I-F. lists rating: 4 ----------------------- maiden Maiden of the Moonlight, by Brian P. Dean (TADS) Release 1.1b This is an excellent, intriguing game. The prose is unobtrusive, but evocative, and does an excellent job of showing and not telling. A couple bugs, but nothing blocking gameplay. The genre was an excellent choice, and, in retrospect, it's surprising that no games (to my knowledge) have been set here before. The puzzles flow logically from the story, and are well thought-out. Many puzzles re-use objects, which is also a plus. maiden rating: 10 ----------------------- phlegm Phlegm, an Interactive Interactive by Adjacent Drooler (Inform) Release 1 / Serial number 961014 This was a fun little game, even if I didn't understand the title. Silliness abounds, and is quite humorous. The puzzles aren't exceedingly difficult, and the hints were good enough to me so that I was able to be nudged towards a couple hints without being told straight out. phlegm rating: 8 ----------------------- picket The Land beyond the Picket Fence, by Martin Oehm (stand-alone DOS program) Version 1.0 A nice story. The puzzles are worked in to the story well, and the goal (to get a girl's yo-yo back) is very pleasant. Nice characterization of the protagonist with very few words--it fit nicely. The parser for this game was very well done, and I would be intrigued to find out where it came from. If it was written by the author, I will be that much more impressed. Overall, a good, solid game. picket rating: 7 ----------------------- piece Piece of Mind, an Interactive Short Story by Giles Boutel (Inform) Release 1 / Serial number 961015 Hmmmm. This was an interesting game, with an interesting premise. Most of it was quite humorous, if a little haphazard. I'm not sure if the meta-point of the game was conveyed all that well, or convincingly, in the end-game. Mostly it was just strange. The puzzles were decent, for the most part, and much of it was fun. There was some formatting problems that occurred (presumably) because the author didn't take into consideration different playing window sizes. piece rating: 6 ----------------------- promoted Promoted! By Mike DeSanto (REXX Adventure - OS/2 only) You have to fetch the current beta version of REXX Adventure from Mike's ftp site; it may not be distributed otherwise. This was a silly game that was fun to play. It probably had my favorite level of puzzles in it--none were too illogical (well, okay, _one_ was illogical (the colored tapes) but the rest were great), and it was fun discovering the internal crazed logic of the 'Dilbert'-like corporation. I will say that I found the system (REXX Adventure) very unique, but leaving a bit to be desired, in terms of atmosphere. However, it is probably ideal for puzzle-based games. (For those who don't know, a constant list of objects is provided, and once you select an object, a list of all possible verbs associated with that object are then provided, all in different windows.) At any rate, this was a fun game. promoted rating: 8 ----------------------- ralph Ralph, an Interactive Sniffing by Miron Schmidt (Inform) Release 2 / Serial number 961005 A very short, enjoyable game. Lighthearted, and fun to play. The puzzles were a bit tough for me, for whatever reason--of course, I probably cheated a bit too quickly. ralph rating: 6 ----------------------- reverb Reverberations, a Hectic Voltairian Adventure by Russell Glasser (Inform) Release 1 / Serial number 961015 This game was a riot. Pretty campy, but doesn't take itself too seriously. Illogical plot twists that are funny all the same. One of the best exchanges, that had me LOL was: Street, by Pizza Parlor You stand in the heart of San Doppleton's main drag, the business district. The street goes east and west. The sidewalk runs by a pizza parlor, with a sewer vent nearby. >enter vent What do you think you are, a Ninja Turtle? >yes Well, I've got news for you, Donatello. The sewer vent it just too small for you to fit inside. Very funny and enjoyable. reverb rating: 9 ----------------------- ripflesh Rippled Flesh, an Interactive Goosing by Rybread Celsius (Inform) Release 1 / Serial number 960914 Juvenile. Illogical. Bizarre. Frustrating. Play this one through with the hint file at hand, if at all. There's some potential here, but, as the author says, this is his first game, and it shows. It would 'prolly' be better to wait to play his next one (although, as of this writing, I haven't played the other one by this author--kind of a frightening prospect) ripflesh rating: 2 ----------------------- sherbet The Meteor, the Stone and a Long Glass of Sherbet: The Interactive Memoirs of a Diplomat, by Angela M. Horns (Inform) Release 1 / Serial number 960928 This was a very fun game, and a 'tribute' to the old Zorks and Enchanters. At first, I wasn't sure about that, since the style seemed to be completely different. I'm sure the game would not have suffered without the old Zork references,...but then again, I'm not sure they needed to be taken out either. It was nice to find places where you _thought_ you knew what was going on, or how a puzzle was going to work, only to find that it was set up differently. There were one or two brilliant puzzles, several good ones, and the rest were decent. This was a fun game to play, with a compelling setting and plot. sherbet rating: 9 ----------------------- smallwld Small World, Interactive Fiction by Andrew D. Pontious (TADS) Release 1.0 This is a light-hearted game, with an interesting setting. Several funny jokes, some clever puzzles, some easy puzzles, and one or two "read the author's mind" puzzles, but the hint system (usually) worked fine. I didn't connect with the protagonist as much as I might have; the characterization that was there was nice, and was mentioned several times, but didn't seem to have much to do with solving the puzzles. The ending 'moral' was a bit stretched for my taste. Still, a good game overall. smallwld rating: 6 ----------------------- stalker The House of the Stalker (gamma 0.9), by Jason Clayton White (Inform) release 1 / Serial number 960930 This game started off promising, but collapsed in the end. There was very nice set-up, some back history of the main character that wasn't strictly relevant to the plot, but was very nice detail, and an okay puzzle or two. Then the stalker showed up and ruined the effect. The fact that he was 'inanimate' and 'static' probably contributed to this. The parser was rude (on purpose, granted) but was still annoying. There were bugs, too, that hindered gameplay. Ultimately, there was a lot of potential here that was unrealized. stalker rating: 5 ----------------------- stargaze Stargazer: Prologue, an Adventure in Outfitting by Jonathan Fry (Inform) Release 1 / Serial number 961015 Something about the opening room in this game made me think, "Oh, no, another hackneyed old quest game." I quickly lost that attitude as I progressed. This game, true, seems to be set in some mideval fantasy land. But hints of detail are given throughout gameplay in a Planetfallesque manner about the history of the planet which is certainly unique and presumably well thought-out. Simple puzzles that flow easily from game-play make this a good introduction to a game I was genuinely disappointed I wasn't going to be able to play when I reached the end. stargaze rating: 9 ----------------------- tapestry Tapestry, an Interactive Destiny by Daniel Ravipinto (Inform) Release 1 / Serial number 961010 Excellent. Very thought-provoking, and although there are many times when it is impossible to do anything constructive, the prose flows fairly well, and interest is kept. The few turns that pass between the other character's monologues are probably for the best, since they allow some experimentation, and examination of the surroundings. All the puzzles flow very naturally from the story, with the possible exception of the moon one. The use of the adaptive hint system here is likewise excellent. tapestry rating: 10 ----------------------- wok Sir Ramic Hobbs and the Oriental Wok, by Gil Williamson (AGT) Version 1.1s; AGT runtime for DOS included This was a very funny game. Slightly campy, but still fun. Some good puzzles, some not-so-good puzzles, and a couple what-was-he-thinking? puzzles. Very good characterization of the protagonist, with a neat 'gimmick' of having an invisible wizard companion berating you the entire time. At little hackneyed, but decent. wok rating: 7