Game Profile

Author Michael Penman Idiom English Authoring System Tads2 Release Year 2003 IFR Overall Rating

I basically like the concept.

I have some quibbles. There are typos and spelling errors. Not all the rooms (that I saw) are equally interesting.

All the same, I like (have always liked) the reification of the symbolic in interactive fiction, and the Tarot is a good, rich source of imagery -- as we see in Curses and at least one previous IF Art Show entry. Some of the imagery was rather neat -- the High Priestess with the star clutched in her hand, for instance.

I think I would have liked this game even better if there had been more: more to do, more to look at, more to ask the characters about. But I realize that a lot goes into implementing the number of card/rooms that (I assume) are covered in this piece. (And no, I did not try playing it over and over to make sure that the deck was fully represented. I saw a fair variation in the four run-throughs I did play, though.)