IFRO

When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.
Cliff Fadiman

Login | Register


Username:
Password:

Who is Online

We have 708 registered Members.

There are no Members online.

There are 10 Guests online.

7 Stars IFReview Rating The Meteor, The Stone And A Long Glass Of Sherbet

IFReviewed by Andrew Plotkin on 2006-06-25 07:34 

Game Profile

Author
Graham Nelson

Idiom
English

Authoring System
Inform6

Release Year
1996

IFR Overall Rating
8 Stars IFR Overall Rating
Separator
I was pretty darn pleased with this one. It goes to show that you can be original without being experimental -- and please don't take that as a criticism. I read plenty of non-experimental genre fiction.

Sherbet's setting is particularly clever, a world clearly descended from ancient Quendor, but advanced beyond the age of Magic to a baroque Ruritanian scenario. (This comes across very nicely in your character's reactions to various levels of technology.) The plot brings you into a corner of the old world, though, so it becomes a lot more familiar as you progress. Now that I come to think about it, this is even more clever than it seems; a game written in the style of the Infocom fantasy titles, without either ignoring the issue of the similarity or being explicitly set in that era.

The writing and level of description were fine. The interaction wasn't so good -- a lot of missing synonyms, some of which were confusing in their missingness. (I found myself checking the hints a lot, often to find that I had thought of the correct solution but had been unable to phrase it right. On the plus side, this kind of flaw is easily fixed.) In a few places, though, the required actions were too convoluted for my tastes. And in one spot at the end, I reached a total dead-end because of something I forgot to do earlier; there was no obvious way to tell what I'd forgotten.

The scenario is a little strangely presented, too. Your character has a "secret mission" which you-the-player are not aware of. You have to infer it from hints in the game. It's not hard to figure out, especially by virtue of where the plot takes you. But it's the kind of thing I don't like in a game.

On the whole, though, I liked Sherbet. Engaging plot, a nicely-sketched antagonist. Fun.

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
- 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 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