IFReviewed by
Andrew Plotkin on 2006-06-25 10:08
Nifty little game. (Okay, very little.) I like the very alien take on familiar story tropes. Good, and well-sustained through the game.
Past-tense IF still isn't my thing -- it reads awkward. I never get used to it.
Heavy use of time limits. Tolerable with equally heavy use of undo/save/restore, but still not comfortable. On the other hand, the mechanism is an integral part of the story idea, and I like that enough that I can't really suggest taking the time limit out. Perhaps make the limits more elastic: your Purpose doesn't keep draining away as you do wrong things, it just gets lower, and then recovers when you back off. (Some of this already exists, but not enough.)
I had trouble in a couple of places, but in retrospect, I shouldn't have. Random experimentation would have worked. It's too early in the Comp to give up easily. :)
I'm not quite sure about the story. It isn't quite well-enough integrated with your actions; the last few major events are "hit a key to continue" alternating with pages of static text. Some interactivity at the end, even a token, would have felt better. Again, I like the underlying ideas enough to forgive the flaws.
