IFDB page: The Newcomer
Final placement: 49th place (of 51) in the 2001 Interactive Fiction Competition
This is a joke game, right? Please say it’s a joke game. I mean, just add a few misspellings, subtract the setting, shake well, and you’ve got Comp00ter Game. I’m not kidding. Look, here’s one of the room descriptions: “$$$”. Or how about this dazzling piece of interaction:
>s
You can't, since the iron door is in the way.
>x iron door
You can't see any such thing.
I think that was in Comp00ter Game.
Oh, but the game isn’t unwinnable. As I found out from the newsgroup, there’s a Rybread-style solution available if one performs actions that make pretty much no sense in the context of what story there is.
The sad thing is, I don’t think it’s a joke. Or if it is a joke, it’s subtler and even less funny than Comp00ter Game and Asendent. But if it’s not a joke, how could anybody think this game is ready to be played? No, it has to be a joke. A lame, unfunny joke, but a joke nonetheless. It is a joke. Isn’t it?
Rating: 1.4