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7 Stars IFReview Rating Informatory

IFReviewed by Andrew Plotkin on 2006-06-25 08:54 

Game Profile

Author
William J. Shlaer

Idiom
English

Authoring System
Inform6

Release Year
1998

IFR Overall Rating
7 Stars IFR Overall Rating
Separator
This is really, really strange. (He said.)

I think it's an absurdist look at the world of IF authorship. The theme is "Learning Inform". As such, it's full of references to Graham Nelson, earlier Inform games, Infocom, the Inform Designer's Manual, my "Lists and Lists", and so on. The author does a good job of slipping in sly digs. Maybe the barbs about Inform design cut a little too deep... well, who am I to say. :)

There isn't really a coherent thread to this game, but this is more than compensated for by the crazy ideas the author has thrown in. Let me be clear: the hint system is the best hint system ever. My head hasn't hurt this much since I played the old Apple 2 game "The Prisoner". No, this isn't as good as that. "The Prisoner" kept the lunacy up much longer. But this thing rings the bell but good a couple of times. For a start, it comes close to being the Quine Sentence of Inform. If you don't know what I mean, just try it.

No story -- sure, it's all scenery and metatextual gags -- but so what? I liked it.

Andrew Plotkin Profile

IFReviewer Rating
9 Stars IFReviewer Overall Rating

Name Andrew Plotkin
Gender Male

Also IFReviewed by

Paul OBrian

This IFReviewer IFReviews

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- All Roads
- All Things Devours
- an apple from nowhere
- Arrival, or Attack of the B-Movie Cliches
- Asendent
- At Wit's End
- Aunt Nancy's House
- Babel
- Bane of the Builders
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- Best of Three
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- Breaking the Code
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- Color and Number
- Coming Home
- Comp00ter Game
- Constraints
- Death to my Enemies
- Delusions
- Desert Heat: A Romance Of Sorts
- Dinner with Andre
- Downtown Tokyo, Present Day
- E-Mailbox
- Earth and Sky 1
- Earth and Sky 2: Another Earth, Another Sky
- Earth And Sky 3: Luminous Horizon
- Elements
- Enlightenment
- Enlisted
- Erehwon
- Eric's Gift
- Evacuate
- Exhibition
- Fear
- Fifteen
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- For a Change
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- Glowgrass
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- Guess the Verb!
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- Hell: A Comedy of Errors
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