IFReviewed by
Andrew Plotkin on 2006-06-25 09:28
This interpreter is kind of weak. No command history. It keeps showing abbreviation translations. Em-dashes show up as O with an umlaut. And I can't get at the fonts.
"read paper" produces "You can't read the newspaper!" I take it this is the famous Adrift abstraction failure at work. Oh, and you can examine stuff in the dark (or with your eyes closed).
The first time I died, the game forgot to present me with a "game over" prompt. I just kept playing. Convenient, I guess.
The second time I died, I tried the hint system, but it didn't tell me anything useful -- even though I walked all over the city typing "help". So I went to the walkthrough. (Amusingly, I had to restart the game to figure out how to get the walkthrough, since the usual "about" and "info" commands weren't set up.)
Well, none of the puzzles are solvable, and the plot just throws you from place to place when you guess the right command. But the patter is amusing.
Oh, I see the game isn't solvable with this interpreter. I mean literally not solvable -- I can't enter the letter "c". (The game abandons the text parser completely in the endgame, giving you menus instead. The interpreter gets confused at this.)
