Comp96, >INVENTORY, Page 3

Delusions by C.E. Forman as Anonymous [Comp96]

IFDB page: Delusions
Final placement: 3rd place (of 26) in the 1996 Interactive Fiction Competition

Incredible game. Basically excellent in every respect — brilliant idea, (almost) flawlessly executed, great plot, well-thought-out puzzles. Just a gem in every respect. The only drawback (and I admit this is a quibble) is that the author’s notes tend to get a little irritating. The overall level of quality is stunningly high (though a bit depressing — after playing Delusions, I became certain that my entry was not going to win the competition.) The game was so good that it almost made me wonder if the anonymous author was a former Infocom implementor in disguise. I’m looking forward with great eagerness to completing the game (which I wasn’t able to get through in two hours)!

Prose: Infocom-level prose — not at classic literature level but more than sufficient to get one’s heart racing and chills mounting. The descriptions of virtual reality entrances and exits skirted the edge of histrionics but always came down on the right side. And the level of detail was a terrific kick — I especially loved the futuristic game of Jeopardy!.

Difficulty: I didn’t find the game terribly difficult, but found myself checking the hints quite a bit simply because I wanted to see as much of the game as I could in the two hours allotted. The excitement of seeing the second act unravel left me with little patience for struggling with puzzles. If I had not been in a time limit situation, I’m sure this would not have been true.

Technical (coding): One of the best coding jobs I’ve ever seen. The shifting responses to “examine” and the number of objects and possible combinations of those objects gave the world a stunningly rich level of verisimilitude.

Technical (writing): Basically flawless. I didn’t find one single grammar or spelling error.

Plot: First-rate. Extremely clever ideas masterfully revealed. The idea of Satan as a virus, the world as a VR construct, and God as a blind, black, bitter woman may be a little skewed theologically, but it made for totally engrossing IF. I look forward to the endgame with great anticipation.

Puzzles: I found Delusions to have exactly the right kind of puzzles for my taste in IF. Nothing arbitrary, nothing typical, and absolutely consistent with the described world and the advancing plot. The game proves that story-oriented IF does not have to be a cakewalk.

OVERALL — A 9.8

Don’t Be Late by Greg Ewing [Comp96]

IFDB page: Don’t Be Late
Final placement: 22nd place (of 26) in the 1996 Interactive Fiction Competition

Very simple game — the first I’ve ever played in ALAN, so I’m not sure how much technical stuff to attribute to the language and how much to the author. Consequently, I’ll attribute all of it to the author. Starting in “your house” with “your computer” on the table strongly reminiscent of Bureaucracy, but not as interesting. Some really grievous parser omissions (I don’t know the word “get”?) Circular structure a fun gimmick, but only for a few minutes. No real puzzles to speak of, nor much of an atmosphere. In fact, there’s really not too much to do besides wrestle with the parser.

Prose: Serviceable, but nothing more. There was so little of it, it’s really hard to judge. Very little description, very few objects. A pretty sparse world. The prose that was there did its job, but nothing more.

Difficulty: Apart from parser struggles, extremely easy. The only thing resembling a “puzzle” would be incredibly easy if it wasn’t for trying to figure out the correct syntax.

Technical (coding): As mentioned, the parser was quite weak. Some extremely standard IF words not implemented. I just about quit when I realized it didn’t know the word “get.”

Technical (writing): What little prose there was showed no significant grammar or spelling errors.

Plot: This was probably the most interesting feature of the game, and it wasn’t really all that interesting. It involves an Escherian reflection — the object of the game is to play the game, and you can apparently play the “game-within-a-game” until you get really tired of it. This will probably happen pretty quickly.

Puzzles: None to speak of. With a quality parser, this game would probably have taken a good 10 minutes to solve.

OVERALL — a 4.8

Alien Abduction? by Charles Gerlach [Comp96]

IFDB page: Alien Abduction?
Final placement: 9th place (of 26) in the 1996 Interactive Fiction Competition

Really provocative premise. Loved the Twilight Zone feel of things, and finding out more about character’s (and character’s father’s) past worked quite effectively. On the downside, some fairly significant omissions (including an axe but not implementing “chop” or “cut”, making a puzzle where a significant portion keeps responding “that’s not important” [this is the spring arm on the contraption & the axe], having the laughable response “It’s not effective to attack with the axe.”)

Prose: Generally effective, and sometimes quite chilling. A bit of awkwardness shows through at times, but never enough to jar.

Difficulty: Except for one major “guess the verb” puzzle (the springarm), this was pretty straightforward. The most difficult part for me (aside from the springarm) was figuring out to get a “real” axe first.

Technical (coding): Some errors including no response to putting things in cylinder, TADS errors on taking shapes. Much was anticipated, but some significant things were not. Could use another round of beta testing.

Technical (writing): Virtually no spelling or grammar errors jumped out. Well-proofed work.

Plot: Outstanding. With the exception of a somewhat disappointing ending (though justifiable — I just crave closure), AA gave a hint of how truly chilling suspense-oriented IF can be. The premise, the way information was slowly released, the drama & emotional intensity were really all quite strong. This was definitely the most enjoyable aspect of the game.

Puzzles: One or two quite clever (the duck), most well-oriented to moving the plot along. The “aliens testing your mental capacity” was an excellent pretense for puzzles. Hints were generally quite well-done, and with the exception of the springarm thing, puzzles were overall pretty good.

OVERALL — a 7.8

Aayela by Magnus Olsson [Comp96]

IFDB page: Aayela
Final placement: 10th place (of 26) in the 1996 Interactive Fiction Competition

This review was written more as a series of notes than an actual review. It wasn’t until later in the process of playing the competition entries that I arrived at the style of reviewing each game in detail. My apologies to Magnus for providing such an incomplete evaluation. My main memory of Aayela was that crawling in dark is an interesting device which could make for an intense episode in a longer game (and, in fact, already has in the case of So Far.) As the bulk of this game, it made for an interesting experiment.

Prose: Often good, sometimes a bit over the top. Crawling in the dark hearing ethereal chords is unfortunately a bit reminiscent of So Far. Especially unfortunate if the design of Aayela preceded So Far.

Difficulty: Quite easy actually. An enjoyable vignette.

Technical (coding): Enjoyed being able to feel and smell. Most commands were anticipated quite well. One or two TADS error instances.

Technical (writing): One or two rather glaring mistakes (“an insisten breeze”). On the whole quite proficient.

Plot: Very simple, but serves its purpose.

Puzzles: Again quite simple, but vividly rendered.

OVERALL — a 7.5

About my 1996 IF Competition reviews

The 1995 IF Competition knocked me out. That year, the comp was split (for the first and only time) into two divisions: Inform and TADS. Both of the winning games were fantastic, and the “finishable in two hours” rule broke them out of the Infocom mold that had thus far dictated almost all amateur IF.

The Infocom canon still dominated my own mindset and outlook on IF at that time. I’ll break out phrases like “Infocom-level prose”, and reference various Infocom games to provide a frame of reference for my views on the comp games. 1996 was also the year that Activision released Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom, a CD-ROM collection of every Infocom game plus the top 6 games from the 1995 IF Competition. The fact that those amateur games could get the “official” Infocom imprimatur took my breath away. I wanted in, badly.

In 1996, I submitted my own game to the comp, Wearing The Claw. I also decided I’d play and submit scores for every game that had been entered. I did so, running through the games in alphabetical order by filename, which worked out to almost alphabetical order by game, but not quite. So that I could decide what scores to give, I took notes during gameplay, tracking how well the game measured up in categories like prose, puzzles, plot, technical achievement, and so forth.

Having seen reviews posted for the 1995 games, and hoping for a lot of feedback on my own work, I decided quickly to turn my notes into “reviews”, but as the scare quotes should tell you, they’re not exactly worthy of the name, especially the early ones. Even through the process of writing about the games, I was learning how I wanted to write about the games, which was sadly a little inequitable for the games that fell in the early part of the alphabet, and especially for the one that started with “Aa”. Sentence fragments abound, and much of what I wrote was more for myself than anyone else.

By the time I got to the final game, Tapestry, which was brilliant and ended up taking second place, I’d developed a more coherent approach. That approach would also change over the years, but at least it didn’t shortchange Daniel Ravipinto the way that it had Magnus Olsson, author of Aayela. That said, I’ve cleaned up these reviews a little, at least standardizing the punctuation and capitalization.

For the 1996 comp game reviews, I’ll provide the following:

IFDB page
Final comp placement
Intro sentences
Assessments of the following attributes:
- Prose
- Difficulty
- Technical achievement, split into writing and coding subcategories
- Plot
- Puzzles
Overall score

I originally posted my reviews for the 1996 IF Competition games on December 3, 1996.