These are my IF reviews. I'll post reviews as I write them- not all games will be listed. Just call me choosy. I use a 5 star scale to rate the games. 1 star means very poor, 2 stars means poor, 3 stars means fair, 4 stars means good, and 5 stars means excellent.
Ad Verbum
2000
A quite enjoyable romp of wordplay. Okay, so it's basically a treasure hunt, but it's a creative treasure hunt and that makes all the difference. It pays attention to the little details (I especially enjoyed the plugh response). Some little annoyances I found in this: The dinosaur puzzle (this game used to be for the DinoComp) seems contrived. Perhaps the dinosaur needs a bit more description. The dust casing puzzle doesn't respond correctly to verbs it should respond correctly to. Even taking these into consideration, this is a very unique and enjoyable game.
Enlightenment
1998
Before I played this, I thought one-room games were short, boring, and pointless. Enlightenment changed this preperception. The premise is interesting (I won't give any details- you'll find it out for yourself), and requires a lot of creative manipulation of objects. There is also an abundance of interesting things to do- I especially liked the "objects" and "places" lists- humorous stuff. It even provides a special response to entering a "hidden" object ("You've played this game before, haven't you.") And finding all the footnotes is a great challenge. An enjoyable game.
Guess The Verb!
2000
Although taking the name from a particularly annoying IF occurrence, this game is all but annoying. It centers on an 11-year old boy/girl (you choose at the beginning) at a carnival guess-the-verb booth, headed by a parser of all things. Anyway, if you guess the right verb you get a cheap prize and if you don't guess it you're sent to one of five scenarios.
The writing is humorous, i.e. "You feel a strange attraction pulling you back towards the southwest, as though a ham-handed author were trying to place hints into the room description that the game would progress a lot faster if you went back to the verb guessing booth already." Puzzles are few but enjoyable. Lots of amusing things to do. It's diverse- a bit of parody, fantasy, realistic IF- all of them in different scenarios.
Human Resources Studies
1998
Stretching my definition of what is IF and what is not. Okay, so it's supposed to simulate a job interview. The only puzzle here is figuring out which numbers will take you to the end. Backspace sometimes doesn't work like it should. The "hints" don't even show the choices menu after they've scrolled you down a lot. An interesting try, but falls flat.
On The Farm?
1999
A 'realistic' IF game- about a child who is staying with grandparents on their farm. The catch: You must make the grandparents stop being angry with each other because Grandpa forgot Grandma's birthday.
Premise is good. Puzzles are extremely realistic- in good ways and bad. The grandparents veer a bit on the cliched side- knitting grandmas, you-kids-wear-crazy-things-these-days grandpas. Some grammar and coding errors are present- particularly, the ambiguous-object response lists items you haven't even encountered. The XYZZY response is great, but the hints system isn't the best- it would be better if it updated itself when you solved puzzles.
What IF?
2000
Quite an appropriate title- what IF? This isn't IF. This is a seven-part history report. If you're researching a paper, this is barely passable. If you want to play an IF game, don't even try this.
Back to IF Competition
Back to Textadventureland
Back to the World of Classic Games