IFReviewed by Andrew Plotkin on 2006-06-25 10:04
Oh, I am made happy. Happiness is occurring to me. Do you want to know why? Because after reading the opening text and looking around the initial room, the first substantive command I typed was "Gordon, fuck off". And you know what the game responded? It said "In this story, to talk to somebody, use 'talk to'."
No, that's not what makes me happy. What makes me happy is that I then typed "talk to Gordon", and it gave me a list of six choices, and in the middle of the list of choices I read "(3) 'Gordon, fuck off.'"
This, oh my children, is what it's like for characters to come alive.
The author says (in the "about" text) that this is "not really a straight story". In this regard, the author is smoking crack. Nor is it non-interactive fiction, although I'm sure some people will think that. The conversation system is used for one effect, and that effect is not the same as having no conversation system at all.
This is tough to talk about without spoilers. Well, I guess I don't need to talk about it any more. This is the first Comp00 game I've played that made me totally happy, and I've only got, hmm, less than a dozen left. It bodes well.
