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7 Stars IFReview Rating Masquerade

IFReviewed by Andrew Plotkin on 2006-06-25 10:13 

Game Profile

Author
Kathleen M. Fischer

Idiom
English

Authoring System
Inform6 and Inform6

Release Year
2000

IFR Overall Rating
7 Stars IFR Overall Rating
Separator
Basically all in the right place, but still vaguely unsatisfying. I had trouble getting into the story; I felt like I missed all the introductions. In fact, I think I did miss most of the introductions, by not using "examine" on enough the characters in my first run-through. This left me flailing around, trying to guess the relationship between any given pair of people (including the protagonist). (Also including some pairs of people who turned out to be the same person. The masquerade didn't help.)

After I finished, I ran through the game again. I was able to follow the story that time, but it still felt much too compressed to be a plausible romance.

In fact, although it's an unfortunate comparison, I felt this game had the same basic problem as 1-2-3: I saw characters relating to each other, but I never felt they were behaving like real people. Well, that's not totally true. The minor character relationships made sense -- just not, you know, the main one.

I liked the wide and subtle range of variant endings (although I certainly never saw them all).

Andrew Plotkin Profile

IFReviewer Rating
9 Stars IFReviewer Overall Rating

Name Andrew Plotkin
Gender Male

Also IFReviewed by

Paul OBrian

This IFReviewer IFReviews

- 1-2-3...
- A Crimson Spring
- A Day for Soft Food
- A Day In The Life Of A Superhero
- 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
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- Letters from Home
- Life on Beal Street
- Lightiania
- Little Blue Men
- Lomalow
- Lurk. Unite. Die. Invent. Think. Expire.
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- Maiden of the Moonlight
- 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
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- Sins Against Mimesis
- Six Stories
- Small World
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- Splashdown
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- Square Circle
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- Stick It to the Man
- Stiffy Makane: The Undiscovered Country
- Sting Of The Wasp
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- Stupid Kittens
- Sun and Moon
- Sunset Over Savannah
- Sylenius Mysterium
- Symetry
- Tapestry
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- The Best Man
- The Big Mama
- The Big Scoop
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- The City
- The Clock
- The Cruise
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- The Edifice
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- The Gostak
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- The Great Xavio
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- 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
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- The Plant
- The Realm
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- The Temple
- The Trip
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- Threading the Labyrinth
- Till Death Makes a Monk-Fish Out of Me!
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