The scene-setting prologue. Freebird Games' work continues to be gorgeous.
Oct. 7th, 2018
The scene-setting prologue. Freebird Games' work continues to be gorgeous.
Setting up and splitting up.
A little tour couldn't hurt.
COMPLETE: Re: Dragon
Oct. 7th, 2018 08:27 pmIFComp time continues.
As I said earlier, my only experience with IFComp prior to this was when![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
xyzzysqrl pointed me to the entries on last year's ballot, and I picked the first one whose premise caught my eye. That happened to be The Dragon Will Tell Your Future Now by Newsreparter, because it was about a dragon who will tell your future now, and the banner prominently featured a dragon, presumably one who will tell your future now.
That game ended up being completely unwinnable. You couldn't lose, either, but the game simply could not be completed; every possible interaction (it was short enough that I actually brute forced it to confirm this) led to a softlock wherein the dragon announces he will see you now and invites you inside, says "come in!" when you slam on the door, etc., but there is no actual way to get past the door. It was... frustrating.
Re: Dragon by Jack Welch is a sort-of sequel of sorts, that seeks to address the whole dragon kerfuffle. It takes place half in an email interface (which was very cleverly put together; the UI really sold it) in which you are an IFComp representative receiving a long chain of legal threats from the counsel of the American Association of Professional Draconian Oracles, specifically Lord Venkath of the Ninth Plate, Guildmaster of Holsberg. The other half is framed as you scrying on Lord Venkath back through time, and is thus a more traditional CYOA text adventure that is essentially last year's game from the dragon's perspective.
This was cute. The high fantasy nonsense writing (go reread Venkath's full name and title again, and bear in mind pretty much all the text sounds like that) fits well and is entertaining. I love the email interface. The puzzles... well, there literally weren't any. For a game submitted to an Interactive Fiction competition, it's surprisingly non-interactive. Instead, everything you do seems to strongly railroad you toward the conclusion.
Still, I don't mind. As a revisiting of last year's game, just the fact that it has a conclusion is really all I needed. I greatly enjoyed this.
As I said earlier, my only experience with IFComp prior to this was when
xyzzysqrl pointed me to the entries on last year's ballot, and I picked the first one whose premise caught my eye. That happened to be The Dragon Will Tell Your Future Now by Newsreparter, because it was about a dragon who will tell your future now, and the banner prominently featured a dragon, presumably one who will tell your future now.That game ended up being completely unwinnable. You couldn't lose, either, but the game simply could not be completed; every possible interaction (it was short enough that I actually brute forced it to confirm this) led to a softlock wherein the dragon announces he will see you now and invites you inside, says "come in!" when you slam on the door, etc., but there is no actual way to get past the door. It was... frustrating.
Re: Dragon by Jack Welch is a sort-of sequel of sorts, that seeks to address the whole dragon kerfuffle. It takes place half in an email interface (which was very cleverly put together; the UI really sold it) in which you are an IFComp representative receiving a long chain of legal threats from the counsel of the American Association of Professional Draconian Oracles, specifically Lord Venkath of the Ninth Plate, Guildmaster of Holsberg. The other half is framed as you scrying on Lord Venkath back through time, and is thus a more traditional CYOA text adventure that is essentially last year's game from the dragon's perspective.
This was cute. The high fantasy nonsense writing (go reread Venkath's full name and title again, and bear in mind pretty much all the text sounds like that) fits well and is entertaining. I love the email interface. The puzzles... well, there literally weren't any. For a game submitted to an Interactive Fiction competition, it's surprisingly non-interactive. Instead, everything you do seems to strongly railroad you toward the conclusion.
Still, I don't mind. As a revisiting of last year's game, just the fact that it has a conclusion is really all I needed. I greatly enjoyed this.