IFcomp08 part 2

• The Missing Piece
• Channel Surfing
• Trein
• Opening Night
• Magic

Keep reading...

The Missing Piece
I didn't rate this because I didn't want to play it for reasons unrelated to quality. It could be a perfectly good game for all I know, but I don't want to listen to music while playing IF. I also don't want to use a mouse or have pop-up windows.

Channel Surfing (5)
The start of the second sentence of the intro, "You open our eyes", intrigued me. I was wondering if it was some interesting thing to do with the player character and the actual player being combined. Unfortunately, it was just a typo.

I'm already hitting unimplemented things and a guess-the-verb problem. And now a guess-the-noun problem. The scene description doesn't change, even after someone leaves. And another game-stopping guess-the-verb problem This game had beta testers; did they really all psychically guess the right verbs?

The story was too didactic for me. If it was meant to be satire, it needs to be a lot subtler. On top of that, the puzzles weren't very challenging. I mainly just walked through the options as presented to me. The author admits that it's too easy and short for non-newbies, but I don't think that's a good choice for a competition entry.

Trein (5)
Implementation problems. I was definitely spoiled with Violet. Instead of just saying I can't do the obvious action, it would help if the game prevented me in such a way that hinted at what my real objective is. Or just have the puzzles be clued better to begin with.

Ooh, a guess-the-preposition problem. Haven't seen one of those before. I'm using the walkthrough to get around the numerous guess-the-verb problems, though.

Wait, what? I didn't do what I was supposed to do and yet somehow I win? That's kind of a letdown. There are better endings available, but still, if there are no consequences, why should I be invested in achieving the goals of the game? Also, "you can see ... An Evidence" ? That is the most egregious piece of telling, not showing, I think I've seen so far. Put some effort in, next time.

It wasn't as bad as I think I've made it sound here. I did get to two different endings without much help and I was interested enough in getting to the end to play it the second time.

Opening Night (6)
I wasn't expecting much from the opening, just a few puzzles to solve to get backstage. Then it got weird. I didn't get all the puzzles without hints, but that was mainly due to not expecting locations to change between visits, rather than them being challenging. I liked the story and the unexpected turn it took, but I think it could've been better done.

Magic (6)
This game was frustrating because I wanted to like it, and yet I couldn't figure out the main puzzles without help because they weren't at all intuitive or clued well enough. I got stuck at the end for a bit, having done everything mentioned in the hints. It wasn't entirely clear to me what the main objective of the game was. It should really be obvious what I was trying to achieve all that time. Instead of having a goal, though, I just did whatever I could with the objects I came across. I think hints that aren't dependent on location would help with knowing what the overall objective is. I could have maybe figured out more of the puzzles if the trick were reciprocal, too, or worded to make the directionality clearer. Still, I enjoyed it before the frustration kicked in. It has the potential to be a good game.