IFReviewed by
Andrew Plotkin on 2006-06-25 10:26
Too big, too messy, too random.
As I write this, I've been playing for an hour. I have 65 points out of 300, I've visited about thirty wildly different and unrelated rooms, and I've given up. I tried to start playing from the walkthrough, and I quickly got stuck in a small area because I left an important item in another room. (There is, by the way, an inventory limit.)
Why have I given up? The "thirty wildly different and unrelated rooms" is a hint. So are the half-dozen characters in each room, who perform a half-dozen random meaningless actions every turn, making it almost impossible to find the results of your commands on the screen.
On top of all of that, lots of Acmi Dam Stoopid Spelling.
I weary of it. Too much information, none of it interesting. I have no reason to keep playing.
(Footnote: I guess I should compare this with the previous game I played -- it's interesting that this IFComp has fanfic of both the original Z-machine series and the original TADS series. So, um...
...well, in this game the writing is merely unexciting, rather than bad. Sigh.)