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1 Star IFReview Rating A Day In The Life Of A Superhero

IFReviewed by Andrew Plotkin on 2006-06-25 09:28 

Game Profile

Author
David Whyld

Idiom
English

Authoring System
Adrift

Release Year
2004

IFR Overall Rating
4 Stars IFR Overall Rating
Separator
This interpreter is kind of weak. No command history. It keeps showing abbreviation translations. Em-dashes show up as O with an umlaut. And I can't get at the fonts.

"read paper" produces "You can't read the newspaper!" I take it this is the famous Adrift abstraction failure at work. Oh, and you can examine stuff in the dark (or with your eyes closed).

The first time I died, the game forgot to present me with a "game over" prompt. I just kept playing. Convenient, I guess.

The second time I died, I tried the hint system, but it didn't tell me anything useful -- even though I walked all over the city typing "help". So I went to the walkthrough. (Amusingly, I had to restart the game to figure out how to get the walkthrough, since the usual "about" and "info" commands weren't set up.)

Well, none of the puzzles are solvable, and the plot just throws you from place to place when you guess the right command. But the patter is amusing.

Oh, I see the game isn't solvable with this interpreter. I mean literally not solvable -- I can't enter the letter "c". (The game abandons the text parser completely in the endgame, giving you menus instead. The interpreter gets confused at this.)

Andrew Plotkin Profile

IFReviewer Rating
9 Stars IFReviewer Overall Rating

Name Andrew Plotkin
Gender Male

This IFReviewer IFReviews

- 1-2-3...
- A Crimson Spring
- A Day for Soft Food
- A Good Breakfast
- A Light's Tale
- A Moment of Hope
- A New Day
- A Night Guest
- Aayela
- Acid Whiplash
- Ad Verbum
- Aftermath
- Alien Abduction?
- 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
- Beat the Devil
- Bellclap
- Best of Three
- Blink
- Bliss
- Blue Chairs
- Blue Sky
- Breaking the Code
- Calliope
- Carma
- CASK
- Castle Amnos
- Castlemaze
- Cattus Atrox
- Chaos
- Chicks Dig Jerks
- Chronicle Play Torn
- coffee quest II
- 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
- Fine Tuned
- For a Change
- Fort Aegea
- Four in One
- Four Seconds
- Friday Afternoon
- Fusillade
- Glowgrass
- Goose, Egg, Badger
- Got ID?
- Grayscale
- Guard Duty
- Guess the Verb!
- Halothane
- Happy Ever After
- Hell: A Comedy of Errors
- Human Resources Stories
- I Must Play
- Identity
- Identity Thief
- In the End
- In the Spotlight
- Informatory
- Jacks or Better to Murder, Aces to Win
- Janitor
- Jarod's Journey
- Journey from an Islet
- Jump
- Kaged
- King Arthur's Night Out
- Kissing the Buddha's Feet
- Koan
- Kurusu City
- Letters from Home
- Life on Beal Street
- Lightiania
- Little Blue Men
- Lomalow
- Lurk. Unite. Die. Invent. Think. Expire.
- Magocracy
- Maiden of the Moonlight
- Masquerade
- Metamorphoses
- Mingsheng
- Moonbase
- Mother Loose
- Murder At The Aero Club
- Muse: An Autumn Romance
- Music Education
- My Angel
- MythTale
- Nevermore
- Of Forms Unknown
- On the Farm
- Only After Dark
- Order
- Outsided
- Pass the Banana
- Phlegm
- Photopia
- Phred Phontious and the Quest for Pizza
- Piece of Mind
- Planet of the Infinite Minds
- Poor Zefron's Almanac
- Prized Possession
- Prodly the Puffin
- PTBAD 3
- Punk Points
- Punkirita Quest 1: Liquid
- Purple
- Ralph
- Rameses
- Ramon and Jonathan
- Redeye
- Remembrance
- Research Dig
- Return to Zork: Another Story
- Reverberations
- Rippled Flesh
- Ritual of Purification
- Ruined Robots
- Scary House Amulet!
- Schroedinger's Cat
- Screen
- She's Got a Thing for a Spring
- Silicon Castles
- Sins Against Mimesis
- Six Stories
- Small World
- Spacestation
- Splashdown
- Spodgeville Murphy and the Jewelled Eye of Wossname
- Square Circle
- Stack Overflow
- Stargazer: An Adventure In Outfitting
- Stick It to the Man
- Stiffy Makane: The Undiscovered Country
- Sting Of The Wasp
- Stone Cell
- Strangers in the Night
- Stupid Kittens
- Sun and Moon
- Sunset Over Savannah
- Sylenius Mysterium
- Symetry
- Tapestry
- Temple of the Orc Mage
- The Best Man
- The Big Mama
- The Big Scoop
- The Case of Samuel Gregor
- The City
- The Clock
- The Cruise
- The Djinni Chronicles
- The Edifice
- The End Means Escape
- The Evil Sorcerer
- The Frenetic Five vs. Sturm und Drang
- The Gostak
- The Granite Book
- The Great Xavio
- The HeBGB Horror!
- The Lost Spellmaker
- The Masque of the Last Faeries
- The Meteor, The Stone And A Long Glass Of Sherbet
- The Moonlit Tower
- The Newcomer
- The Obscene Quest of Dr. Aardvarkbarf
- The Orion Agenda
- The Pickpocket
- The Plant
- The Realm
- The Tempest
- The Temple
- The Trip
- The Water Bird
- Thorfinn's Realm
- Threading the Labyrinth
- Till Death Makes a Monk-Fish Out of Me!
- Tookie's Song
- Trading Punches
- Transfer
- Trapped in a One-Room Dilly
- Travels in the Land of Erden
- Typo
- Unnkulia X: Escape of the Sacrificed
- Vicious Cycles
- VirtuaTech
- Volcano Isle
- Wearing the Claw
- What-IF?
- When Help Collides
- Where Evil Dwells
- Who Created That Monster?
- Winter Wonderland
- Withdrawal Symptoms
- Yes, Another Game With A Dragon!
- You Are Here
- Zero One
- Zero Sum Game