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Posts tagged ifcomp
IF Review: Aotearoa by Matt Wigdahl
09 months ago
Author’s note: This article originally appeared on March 4, 2011, in The Portal, an online magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy literary reviews.
The winners of the XYZZY awards, the Interactive Fiction community’s answer to the Grammys and Oscars, have been announced. A plethora of science fiction and fantasy titles are among the award recipients, chief among them Matt Wigdahl‘s “Aotearoa“, a speculative fiction piece which also won the Interactive Fiction Competition last year. “Aotearoa” swept the awards, winning in no less than seven of the thirteen categories, including Best Game, Best Setting, Best Puzzles, Best NPCs, Best Individual Puzzle, Best Implementation, and Best Use of Innovation. Clearly, the game has a lot going for it, especially for a work of short IF, though its length teeters on the edge of our definition: It will take average players two hours to complete this game, if not a little more.
“Aotearoa” follows the adventurers of 12-year-old Tim Cooper, a denizen of an alternate Earth where the microcontinent of Zealandia did not sink beneath the ocean. Instead of the New Zealand we know today, the landmass of Aotearoa formed, harboring climate and geographical elements that permitted a few species of dinosaurs to survive the K-T extinction. In the modern era, when we meet Tim, man and beast coincide on the island in relative harmony through the efforts of the joint British/Māori government’s effective conservancy policies. Tim has been selected by the Aotearoa Conservation Service to participate in their Junior Fieldwork Program. While en route to join up with others, Tim and his Māori guide, Eruera, find themselves in the sights of profiteers who, in the tradition of ivory hunters, wish to poach the dinosaurs. The poacher’s destroy Tim’s boat, leaving him and an injured Eruera stranded on a remote beach. It’s up to the player to guide Tim as he seeks to return to civilization.
It’s evident that a great deal of thought and research went into crafting the game’s alternate history. In addition to the information that the player learns within the game itself, Wigdahl includes a number of appendices containing geographical and historical information about our own New Zealand and its “Aotearoa” counterpart. However, it’s not the information alone that earned the game its Best Setting award; it’s the way the setting is realistically brought to life. Wigdahl takes full advantage of his alternate time line, bringing species other than the dinosaurs back from extinction, and creating at least one species that conceivably might-have-been. And it’s the behavior of these imaginative creations that cements us in this new reality and earned the game its Best NPCs award. Showmanship, mating dances, and mimicry abound–in essence, these animals act like we might expect them to act were we to discover them in our own world. These interactions also serve as the key elements to solving many of the game’s puzzles.
As with the physical setting, Wigdahl takes as much care to implement the cultural and spiritual background of the island. Like the New Zealand of our world, Aotearoa is populated by the Polynesian ancestors of the tribal Māori, and thus their heritage suffuses both island and game. The introduction opens with a dream about Māui, the Māori trickster, bringing the island into existence; Eruera, his speech studded with Māori words, assists the player with additional tales; and finally, a glossary of the Māori language is included among the appendices.
Wigdahl’s weaving of these settings, both physical and spiritual, into Tim’s personal journey makes this a solid piece of character-oriented fiction. We first meet Tim as a timid boy, certainly excited to have an opportunity to see dinosaurs, yet feeling alone and afraid in foreign surroundings. He’s not unfamiliar with being alone and afraid–we soon discover he’s an orphan, his parents the victim of a horrible accident. Although Tim’s tragic history doesn’t necessarily serve as the obstacle he must overcome, his lack of family suggests he’s more alone than many people, and establishes his need to connect with someone. It turns out this someone is the human, animal, and spiritual inhabitants of the island with whom Tim collaborates to outwit the poachers.
The bond between a white male and non-white, indigenous natives inevitably brings up comparisons to the ‘White Messiah’ fable, wherein a white man finds spiritual fulfillment among a ‘race’ typically oppressed by white men. This oppression is usually sustained by superior technology, though the ‘natives ‘seem to have a superior sense of how all beings and their surroundings interrelate (another familiar trope, that of the ‘Noble Savage‘). Embraced by the ‘natives’ and exiled by his own kin, the protagonist leads his new brotherhood to victory against his oppressive family. It’s a popular, if controversial staple of science fiction and fantasy. Avatar, Dune, even portions of The Wheel of Time, herald the exploits of the ‘White Messiah.’
To be certain there is a dash of the ‘White Messiah’ fable within “Aotearoa”, enough to warrant comment from several reviewers, one of whom actually downgraded her rating of the game because it shares some elements of the trope. But unlike Avatar and Dune, the ‘White Messiah’ fable isn’t the point of “Aotearoa”, and many crucial elements of the fable are missing: It’s evident that the island and the inhabitants can and will survive without Tim (the poachers are a mere inconvenience, at best), Tim hasn’t been exiled by anyone, and he isn’t on his way to becoming the Māui’s leader. Tim is simply a 12-year-old boy who happens to stumble into an adventure that many 12-year-old boys would appreciate: A chance to explore a fantastical island inhabited by dinosaurs.
IF Review: The Warbler’s Nest by Jason McIntosh
01 year ago
by Michael Hilborn
in Random
Author’s note: This article originally appeared in The Portal, an online magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy literary reviews.
“The Warbler’s Nest” is Jason McIntosh’s entry to the 2010 Interactive Fiction Competition. The game tied for ninth place in the competition, which surprised me, since I felt it was a better piece than several submitted works (at least, the works that I played) which finished ahead of it. Categorized as ‘horror’ and headlined as ‘a dark fairy tale’, the game is difficult to describe as either. To be certain, there are dark elements to the story, and although this tale revolves around an old mythos, the tale itself is far more about reality than about the paranormal. I’m almost inclined to describe “The Warbler’s Nest” as a piece of historical fiction, for the plot centers on the choice that a woman of long, long ago might have to make without having the knowledge that we do today.
The protagonist begins the game in a bed of riverside reeds, not far from her home. Within a few rounds of exploration, it’s clear that something is amiss within her house, something very dreadful indeed, and it’s the player’s task to rectify what’s gone wrong. As is common with IF, the player uncovers how to accomplish this by exploring her surroundings. Brief and frequent flashbacks serve up the backstory, though it’s up to the player to fill in the details. What exactly happened is never said outright, but there are enough hints to spell out the story. More importantly, the backstory firmly forms a foundation for the protagonist’s plight.
What separates this game from other IF is atmosphere, which is conveyed with crisp, tight prose. The despair and uncertainty experienced by the protagonist pervades this story. Are the mushroom rings in your yard an indication of fairy magic, or are they simply a product of nature? At one point in the game, one of two objects that you have dutifully hunted down literally collapses in your hand. Later, a critical decision which would normally be made based on the outcome of possessing both objects must now be made with just the one. Is the one object enough to make a ‘correct’ decision? Only the player can judge.
The game revolves around the Western European mythos of the changeling, a creature of folklore—typically an elf, fairy, troll—that has been secretly swapped with a human child. Physically identical to the child, a changeling can only be identified by aberrant behavior or features, many of which we in the modern day now associate with well-known diseases or disorders. The possibility that this dark magic might be afoot fuels the player’s despair and uncertainty, and it all nicely accumulate in the player’s final, possibly heartrending, decision of the game.
If you haven’t experienced IF, then this game is a great place to start. It has all the elements of good IF scaled into a tidy package. The game world is small, the puzzles intuitive, and its vocabulary relies primarily on a standard set of actions common throughout IF. The prose is tight, elegantly written, and effectively incorporates the changeling mythology and its potentially dark consequences into the player’s endgame. This game demonstrates how IF can bring legends and character to life not only on the printed page, but within the player as well.
IFComp2010 Review: The People’s Glorious Revolutionary Text Adventure Game
01 year ago
At first I thought that my randomly-generated list of games to play was hinting at something. Right after I finished Gigantomania, this list–again, I stress that it was randomly generated–suggested that I play Taylor Vaughan’s The People’s Glorious Revolutionary Text Adventure Game. Here was yet another game centered around communism, albeit the similarities ended there. Unlike Gigantomania, which presents a sobering account Stalinist Russia, Revolution (as I will simply call it lest I waste too much time typing out the title) presents the light-hearted escapades of Karl, a Marxist-wannabe who wishes to turn a capitalist town of Freedonia into a communistic utopia.
As the ridiculously long title implies, silliness is the real name of the game. Appropriately attired in a furry papakha and your “What Would Trotsky Do?” bracelet, you explore the streets of Freedonia, attempting to win the hearts and minds of its citizens. At your disposal are your to-do list (when you find it), a couple of comrades (with names such as Jetski), and a few gadgets, including the Marxist Ventriloquator Mk II, which, when pointed at someone, forces the victim to spout a “glorious Marxist quote” (though it often sounds like something Yahkov Smirnoff might say). All in all, it’s up to you to bring everything together so you can throw one Hell of a Communist party.
At its core, “Revolution” is traditional IF: Explore the map, solve the puzzles, and win the game. The map divides the city into four quadrants, each easily remembered and navigable. The puzzles are fun, if not particularly challenging, and several left me with smile (in particular, the solution for getting the vodka still makes me chuckle). Should you get stuck on a puzzle, you can either consult the hints or take advantage of an in-game gadget designed specifically so you can “cheat” yourself out of solving one puzzle. And depending on how you go about your quest, you may find yourself at more than one ending.
Alas, the ending I received suggested I could have done something more, that somewhere out there was a “better” ending. Upon researching other player experiences, I discovered that I had, indeed, botched my “happily ever after” by resorting to capitalism. To be fair, the game hinted that purchasing something with the almighty dollar might lead to some severe consequences, but in my defense, I also learned that at that point, I simply had no choice. There is one object in the game that if accidentally discarded, forces you to resort to capitalism. And I had used that item to solve another puzzle in the game. This represents a major fault in the game’s implementation and breaks a general rule-of-thumb in good IF: Unless the player is heavily warned in advance, discarding or using an item should not break a major win-condition. At the very least, alternatives must be presented so the game can still be satisfactorily won.
Aside from this issue, Revolution offers your average capitalist like me a solid game of good fun and laughs.
IFComp 2010 Review: Gigantomania
01 year ago
I appreciate historical fiction, so I was pleasantly surprised after I started playing Gigantomania, a piece set in Stalinist Russia, written by Michelle Tirto and programmed by Mike Ciul. Divided into four acts, the game has you jump up the food chain of the Stalinist caste system, following the exploits of a lowly peasant worker, a patriotic industrial laborer, a dutiful government bureaucrat, and finally the thoughts of the grand master himself. Unfortunately, it’s a technical decision in this fourth and final act that unhinges what is otherwise a very solid game.
I am no scholar of Russian history, so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the game’s portrayal of this time period. Suffice to say, the overall experience fits with my personal impression of the time, and since the game appears to have been inspired by a history class, I can only assume the game’s setting is not just the product of the author’s imagination.
The opening sequence is brutal, and sets the tone for a dark exploration of the period. As you migrate from one social class to another, the game underscores the unsavory elements of life that are common to each. As a peasant, do you choose to steal your neighbor’s most valuable possession to bribe the local Collector into letting you give away less of your precious grain? As the laborer, how much are you willing to sacrifice in order to leap ahead of everyone else in the bread line? And as the bureaucrat, what name do you give the local officials in order to not to implicate yourself in the latest scandal?
“Hitler is excruciatingly sensitive with that black comb on his face, and I have him to thank for those Polish officers.” –the mind of Stalin, as portrayed in Gigantomania
Uncommon to interactive fiction, the authors take the approach of telling the tale from the first-person perspective. This approach sometimes doesn’t work in IF, but within Gigantomania, the format helps convey the narrative. Each character is effectively shown to have his own motivations, his own trials to face. The prose also successfully immersed me in the day-to-day activities of each personality: I felt the grunge of a daily harvest, the grind of the iron and steel works, the urgency to conceal contraband items, the lunacy of a leader.
As for the gameplay, there is little to do in terms of puzzles. The narrative progresses through either (1) a series of well-defined, if sometimes repetitive, tasks; or (2) a nodal conversation system. As mentioned before, you are offered choices, but their impacts are localized to that particular act of the game. Thus, although your decisions are important to understanding the mindset of the characters, they are little more than window-dressing. They offer no ramifications to the overall conclusion of the game.
The downside to Gigantomania is the implementation of the fourth and final act, which you complete by electing one stream of conscious over another via the conversational menu system. Not a bad concept at all, and it was quite effective at first. Unfortunately, I ran into something that looked like this:
Yet, Hitler doesn't really need Poland - it was a just plaything, a dollhouse for him. Whereas we need access to sea that isn't ice for nine months of the year. 1) Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. <Nbd7> 2) What would be the point? <Nbd7>
I wasn’t certain what to make of the “Nbd7″ tags. When I selected option 1, I was presented with another option that consisted solely of one of these tags:
>> 1 <e4>
My additional interaction went like this:
1) <dxe4> >> 1 <Nxe4> 1) <Qc7> >> 1 <Nc3>
What to make of it, except to think that I had uncovered a bug where perhaps the internal tags that marked points in the conversation were accidentally being revealed. Fortunately, text eventually returned, interspersed with these odd tags. I was able to complete the game, but the appearance of these oddities took me out of the immersion, and I noted them as a really, horribly huge bug that prevented me from enjoying the game’s climax.
I learned later from another reviewer that these tags actually represent the moves of a chess game in which the character is supposedly immersed. This knowledge would have added a whole new layer to the fourth act, but, unfortunately, the implementation leaves those of us not familiar with the game’s dialect in the dark. Since at least two players did not pick up on the symbolism, I can only assume that there were other players confused by these tags as well. It’s a bit sad, for this particular design decision ruins what is otherwise a very solid game. Should the authors chose to update their game, I strongly suggest they reconsider how they implement their closing act.
IFComp 2010 Review: The 12:54 to Asgard
01 year ago
Rarely does a game sweep me off my feet, carry me giggling and squealing over verdant meadows, only to dump me off a cliff into a pool of sharks. That’s how I felt after attempting to play J. Robinson Wheeler’s The 12:54 to Asgard. Inspired by the themes of Speed-IF U, this work of IF offers a great deal of promise in its first part, only to falter and eventually collapse in its second part. Indeed, the two parts of the game are so far off in terms of polish and implementation that I wonder if two different authors had their hands in this.
Enter the life of a disgruntled maintenance man who has been called into work during the middle of a torrential thunderstorm. Within a few turns after entering your workplace–a TV studio shut down for the night–it’s clear that your goal is to fix the leak in the roof. A meter in the status bar, which starts at “foul”, measures your mood as you progress through your main task and a few other chores you might discover along the way.
The depiction of Studio A’s innards, of its catwalks and closets, drew me into the game’s world. I truly felt like I was in the bowels of a television studio that had been hastily abandoned for the night. The placement of a bucket and sponge, the mangling of the maintenance closet, and the carelessly taped piece of cardboard to the roof clearly suggested someone had attempted to remedy the leak, but clearly I was left to clean up everyone’s mess. Couple this with the mood meter and the protagonist’s grouchy voice, and you have an excellent beginning to a game.
“Cripes, that one was close. Did a cow just explode? ” –The 12:54 to Asgard
Unfortunately, what happens after you fix the leak is what sends the game into its literal death spiral. Task complete (?), you plummet into the second part of the game, a journey into the afterlife where neither your environment nor goals have the cohesiveness they did in life. Perhaps that’s the point, but unfortunately, the actual technical implementation of this portion of the game is so shoddy that the afterlife seems more like an afterthought.
After a quick ride with Death across the River Styx, the first technical problem manifests as a young girl:
>say hello (to Polly) "Hello, Polly," you say. The girl runs over to you and shakes your hand. "Nice to meet you," she says. "I'm Polly."
Note that I didn’t know the name of the little girl at the time, but the game seems to assume that I do. Yet I don’t think I’m supposed to know her name, otherwise why would she run over to me and introduce herself?
Polly also remains mostly unresponsive to inquiries, not an uncommon occurrence in IF, but demoralizing nonetheless. After following her to a series of gem-encrusted turnstiles, I was met with my second technical challenge: How to enter the devices after receiving the appropriate token. Various commands failed to work, including:
>go through turnstile (the turnstiles) They're not something you can enter.
At last I opted to “follow polly”, which brought me to another devastating bug:
Inside the farmhouse Evening supper is being prepared in the kitchen. A fire glows in the front fireplace. Polly is here. >x fireplace You can't see any such thing.
Polly also remained unresponsive and after awhile, I exited the farmhouse. Thinking I could reenter, I tried to do so, only to find I had been locked out. Unable to get back in the place I had just left, I vigorously knocked on the door. Someone who was not Polly shooed me away. It was here that I theorized I had accidentally stumbled into a room I was never meant to enter: It was simply a “holding” room within the game.
Exploring the area around the cottage left me directionless in terms of where to go and what to do. At some point, I found myself back at the turnstiles. I repeated the “follow Polly” command and the cycle restarted. Sadly, I was so far-off track from the game’s path that even consulting the walkthrough didn’t give me any guidance. I gave up on my adventure, never getting a chance to catch the train the title promised. And I was left with many questions about my initial experience: For example, if the focus of the game is on the afterlife, then why did I spend so much time trying to fix a leak in my actual life? And what was the point of the mood meter, which abruptly disappears when I die? In other words, why not simply start me off in the afterlife?
Based on the author’s credentials, there’s an excellent chance that finishing the game would have answered my questions, but the buggy technical implementations and lack of guidance or goals in the afterlife prevented me from getting that far. A shame, really. A little more polish and attention to the afterlife would have made my journey in The 12:54 to Asgard a much more fulfilling and a lot less of a train wreck.