IFReviewed by
Paul OBrian on 2006-07-19 08:32
It's the little things in life that help me keep my sense of irony. Like this: right after I finish a game that pays tribute to
Graham Nelson, I get this game, which is apparently a tribute to
Rybread Celsius. A
tribute to Rybread Celsius. The world never ceases to baffle me. As I've written before about Rybread, he seems to have a devoted cult of followers, but I'll never be one of them. I guess I'm just old fashioned enough to like my games with error-free prose and code, and I also sort of like them to, y'know, make some kind of sense. Asendent is, if anything, actually worse than anything Rybread ever produced. Certainly the spelling is worse, especially compared to the later Rybread (see
L.U.D.I.T.E.) The code is also quite horribly buggy, though it thankfully leaves the debug verbs available, so players can be sure they're not missing anything.
As with Comp00ter Game, Asendent looks like it might have some point to make, but just like Comp00ter Game, that point was lost on me. To me, it just seemed like a really horrible game. What's the point of producing such a thing, especially on purpose? The intro seems to suggest it's hallucinatory, and Rybread games certainly are that, though they don't tend to trumpet the fact themselves. But it's not the terrible spelling that makes them hallucinatory. It's the imagery. Asendent can't compare to a real Rybread game when it comes to startling images, and its imitation seems pale indeed. The purpose of its imitation is a mystery. A tribute to Rybread Celsius. People are so odd.
Asendent took me about 10 minutes, at the end of which I shook my head and got ready for the next entry. Hey, just like a real Rybread game!
