IFReviewed by
Andrew Plotkin on 2006-06-25 10:14
The "winnable" command is nice, but its value is somewhat reduced by the off-hand note that it's sometimes wrong!
Clean implementation; no loose ends (as it were). Easy to tell what's important.
>search bin
It would just be easier to look in the bin.
(It would be even easier to just tell me what's in the freakin' bin. Sigh.)
The "hint" command, from quite early in the game, defaults to "There are no more hints, but the end is near!" when there's no immediate puzzle to be solved. This ruined my sense of pacing; I was repeatedly annoyed when yet more of the game kept turning up.
The final puzzle is strictly timed, and the zero-time "review" command doesn't actually help much. I spent many more turns examining things, and fussing with the easily-confused seatbelts, than I did looking around. Since I was already annoyed, I played this from the walkthrough.
However, overall it was a good solid story. I solved most of it myself; aside from the final puzzle, the barn was the only area that might have been too complicated. (The solution in the walkthrough was, but there's actually a slightly easier way.)
