Speed-IF Jacket 2

From IFWiki

The forty-third Speed-IF was on April 13, 2003 and organized by Sam Kabo Ashwell. Read the premise for the first Speed-IF Jacket event for more information.

Premise

A few guidelines: fifteen-odd quotes per person is likely to be ridiculously constrictive for a SpeedIF, so feel free to abandon ones you're having difficulty with (a minimum of four or five is advisable, though. And they're so good it seems a shame to waste any). As ever, nobody cares if you take too long, play on Sunday, etc., unless you overrun by a week or so, in which case Gunther will have your head on a pole. Also, it'd be nice if when you write your games, you include the quotes you used somewhere obvious, like right at the start, so that people can go 'aww, he didn't use my quote' and quit in a sulk.

In the unlikely event that anyone manages to use *all* their quotes, I may have to find a prize of some sort. Regardless of whether this was done in time limits. Because, jesus, it's not humanly possible.

Games

Quotes

Mark Musante

  • "I was irked by the self-conscious trendiness of this game, especially the references to eBay and AmIHotOrNot.com" - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "Fantastic, whimsical, childlike... childish, actually, come to think of it." - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "Hilarity permeates this pedantic classic of modern comic book faire. Even the hero gets his due in a rather surprising and surreal manner!" - David Cornelson
  • "Fascinating use of the 'unreliable narrator' technique. At one point, the unreliable narrator was the game itself!" - Peter Berman
  • "With Smullyanesque logic puzzles leading to NPCs stripping, I think that this game may be Andrew Plotkin's pseudonymic foray into softcore AIF." - Tony Delgado
  • "A true spiritual sequel to Stiffy McKane!" - Ricardo Signes
  • "This game was ostensibly targeted at badger enthusiasts who are high on Ecstasy. If this does not fit your description, expect to be disappointed." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "An hilarious piece of work... if you're from the author's family and can understand all the in- Jokes" - Oren Ronen
  • "Quite enjoyable, and cute. There were occassional glaring errors in grammar and spelling * that detracted from the overall playing, but not too much." - Duchess
  • "So, a solid four and a half stars. (I knocked half a star off for the offensive colour schemes.)" - Duncan Cross
  • "The game is subtitled "Some Restricted Interactions", but I think a better headline for this game might be "An Interactive Nihilism" because all player actions in all three stories are ultimately useless and meaningless, and anything that happens is purely arbitrary." - Justin Zamora (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "It's refreshing to finally see a hunger puzzle that neither kills you nor prints a recurring message that you may, in fact, be hungry. Very refreshing indeed." - Jason Love
  • "As a biologist, I feel that any game about canabalism should implement kuru." - John Cater
  • "I loved the sushi bar setting." - Caleb Wilson

Sam Kabo Ashwell

  • "If you're a fan of old-school space opera, I can heartily recommend this game." - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "If I live to be one hundred, I'll still feel squeamish when I see socks." - John Cater
  • "I didn't even notice that every noun was also a verb until my second time through." - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "In another land and in another time, you'll feel the grit and the grime and the explosion of colors in your mind." - David Cornelson
  • "Intriguing: the room descriptions alternate between very long and very short." - Peter Berman
  • "This game features an entire physics engine (or library, I guess) to simulate realistic movement of the flan. Why? Why? Why?" - Tony Delgado
  • "A morality play for our apocalypse-obsessed society!" - Ricardo Signes
  • "Fabulous! An epic journey that takes you from the shores of Hawaii to Mars and beyond" - Oren Ronen
  • "science is overturned in favor of dramatic flair" - G. Kevin Wilson, r.a.i-f post, 20th Apr 1995 (picked by markm)
  • "Did the author make a typo for another word, or did the author make up the word "vots"? I didn't recognize the word, but whatever it means/supposed to be, it wasn't a big deal." - Duchess
  • "This thing plays like An Interactive Suicide Note. I'm surprised it didn't end with '*** I Told U I Was Hardcore ***'." - Duncan Cross
  • "I know some people may have stopped reading when they understood the game required them to type, but the interface is actually quite all right." - Johann Walter (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "Here's yet another game wherein the author is actually an NPC. Hasn't this gotten old yet?" - Jason Love
  • "Not having a dictionary handy, I didn't enjoy this game's overuse of archaic, rarely encountered words." - Caleb Wilson

Adam Biltcliffe

  • "In these dark times, this game possesses an unsettling relevance." - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "Sheep's alive! I couldn't close my eyes to this part farmer meets spy, part Arabian thriller." - David Cornelson
  • "This game is about growing up by getting small." - Peter Berman
  • "Formula schmormula!" - Tony Delgado
  • "I actually drew diagrams trying to understand the game. Clearly the ogre and unicorn represent the Adventurer's parents -- but what of the waterfall? Also, in light of the above, I found the lack of an in-game saddle fairly tasteless." - Ricardo Signes
  • "To its eternal credit, and against all initial likelihood, there were no hobbits." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "Regretably, the deus ex machina ending ruined the game for me. I mean, really - a talking trout?" - Oren Ronen
  • "a masterful build-up of setting and mood unparalleled by almost any other game I have ever played." - Emily Short, from a review of "Anchorhead" (picked by markm)
  • "The richness of the details in the room description really helped convey a sense of visual wonder." - Duchess
  • "Oh, hey, I think I saw you the other day over by the machine. Were you the one raging against it?" - Duncan Cross
  • "The only thing I can say about this premise is that, while it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life, it's *realistically* stupid." - Andrew Plotkin (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "The promotional text clearly stated that this game includes a 'functioning toilet.' Personally, I don't think a hole in the floor qualifies; I can see how others might disagree, but I still want my money back." - Jason Love
  • "Vast space armadas, glittering metal zap guns, green alien princesses --- this is what historical fiction is all about." - John Cater
  • "The allusions to Dante's Inferno were a bit too pedantic for my tastes, sorry." - Caleb Wilson

Jason Love

  • "If nothing else, the handling of randomly varying weather and the extent to which it interacts with the environment was impressive" - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "A wacky, fun, irreverant ride with an educated macaw and a possessed lamplighter! Great fun for all ages!" - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "Forged from his own experiences, this tale of blood and adventure lead us on a whirlwind tour of Canada in the twenty-third century." - David Cornelson
  • "The peculiar political scenario in this game boils down to one question: Who do you trust?" - Peter Berman
  • "I never realized a game like this could be implemented in AAS!" - Ricardo Signes
  • "My inventory contained several articles of high-powered weaponry. I could shoot things. This is all a game needs to do to make me happy." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "With this many betatesters listed in the credits, you'd think such an obvious typo in the FIRST ROOM DESCRIPTION could be avoided" - Oren Ronen
  • "your viewpoint keeps wavering back and forth between reality and hallucinations" - G. Kevin Wilson, r.a.i-f post, 9th Apr 1994 (picked by markm)
  • "Based on a fairly well-known story, the game captured the essential events and retain a little of the original wording. A good choice for people seeking an introduction to the tale or for others looking for a refresher." - Duchess
  • "It's _Pick Up The Phone Booth And Die_ on acid. And helium." - Duncan Cross
  • "The warehouse is inexplicably full of people, apparently having some sort of party." - Jessica Knoch (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "From the snowy wastes of Alaska, to the steaming jugnles of Brazil, this game fails to adequately describe every possible location." - John Cater
  • "The "love" scene was a bit over the top, in my opinion." - Caleb Wilson

John Cater

  • "I like how this game manages to get away with including so many fluffy animals" - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "I was kind of tired when I played it, so the only thing I can remember is how random objects would appear or disappear from my inventory, which was very disorienting, to say the least." - Jason Love
  • "Surely this educational work will put to rest the innumerable misunderstandings thrown about regarding copyright law." - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "Chillingly real: Horrifying teenage encounters with evil neighborhood gang makes for a great work." - David Cornelson
  • "Perhaps the author could have found a better object than a shovel to symbolize old-fashioned chivalry." - Peter Berman
  • "The author of this game should be hanged for treason! Why does he hate America so?" - Tony Delgado
  • "I'll never look at grapefruit the same way, after this game." - Ricardo Signes
  • "If TS Eliot had never read anything but Savoir Faire and T'ai Chi for the Paraplegic, he would have written something like this." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "I knew I was in trouble when I found the ABOUT text was written in verse" - Oren Ronen
  • "I love it as a puzzle, not as a work of fiction, I love it the same way as I love solving an interesting cryptogram" - Eytan Zweig, r.g.if post, 16th Nov 2001 (picked by markm)
  • "I am a big fan of parrots, but I was sad that the game's parrot did not say "Polly want a cracker," or anything about corknuts. Regardless, having a parrot just made my day." - Duchess
  • "The work is occasionally sloppy - two room descriptions ended not merely mid-sentence, but mid-word." - Duncan Cross
  • "With the visuals, audio and story done well, the only thing that could ruin the game would be the interface. Which doesn't." - David Vanneste (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "Pirates and ninjas and aliens, all in one storyline! A must play." - Caleb Wilson

D. Jacob Wildstrom

  • "Well, ok, I'm a sucker for games with robots" - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "Children at play and adults unaware, the hope of all mankind is at stake. Will they do what needs to be done?" - David Cornelson
  • "The first puzzle of this game was so easy you could hardly call it a puzzle. No complaints here!" - Peter Berman
  • "This game made me want to invent several annoying personae and have them tediously argue about the game in a public forum! No it didn't! Haw dare you contradict me! You're fired! You can't fire me! I'm the President of Grabiloovia! Says you!" - Tony Delgado
  • "Would I sound silly if I said that I really learned a lot about the heartbreak of psoriasis from this game?" - Ricardo Signes
  • "I was left questioning my beliefs. True, they were only my beliefs about fudge, but that's still got to count for something." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "Clearly the work of a genius - who else could have brought together two concepts so different from each other so effortlessly?" - Oren Ronen
  • "a game which is either unoriginal or lazily implemented or both" - Aris Katsaris, r.a.i-f post, 30th Jan 2002 (picked by markm)
  • "Although a great game overall, I am a bit ambivalent at the title, "What Dreams are Made Of." Yes, I can sort of see how the title *works*, but it's such a cliche!" - Duchess
  • "And we're supposed to believe a human brain can be entirely stored on a single CD-R? Give me a break." - Duncan Cross
  • "This is arguably the finest bee-simulator in interactive fiction to date..." - Jason Love
  • "Unlike most games, this was dramatically improved when the ending revealed that everything that had transpired was only a dream." - John Cater
  • "The character who responded to all attempts at communication with knock-knock jokes was great." - Caleb Wilson

Peter Berman

  • "Was this supposed to be about a gameshow or a post-apocalyptic dystopia?" - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "the author igrnores traditional conventions.......... the restrictive rules of grammar punctuation and even speeling.......... expression wants to be free" - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "Old ladies unite! This work is a tribute to your detailed and sordid knowledge of the bedroom." - David Cornelson
  • "Never have parser errors been so much fun!" - Tony Delgado
  • "In a style suggestive of a minimalist Bronte or Hardy, the author introduces us to a world gone sane." - Ricardo Signes
  • "I never thought I'd say this, but: this would have worked so much better as AIF." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "This game isn't kidding when it boasts a difficulty level of 11 on a scale of 10" - Oren Ronen
  • "I still have no idea how I actually solved the puzzle, because it was next to impossible to do anything I wanted to do with the different cups of liquids." - Jessica Knoch, from a review of "Dutch Dapper IV" (picked by markm)
  • "It was disconcerting to discover a room, implemented with objects, but having nothing to do with the story. It was as if the author forgot to work the room in to the story." - Duchess
  • "[...] seemed a little pre-occupied with proving it was set in 1991." - Duncan Cross
  • "Somewhere between establishing a successful career as a mildly annoying child star and sacrificing what little dignity he had left to become the poster boy for celebrity has-beens in a third-rate reality program, he found the time to do the voice work for an adventure game." - Kevin Hoelscher (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "While repetition can easily grate if abused, the author manages to keep this game's mantra subtle enough that it never gets irritating. Remember: the key word is 'enigmatically!'" - Jason Love
  • "Sam Kabo Ashwell is both the hero and the villain in this little charade." - John Cater
  • "Nice try at multiple NPCs. Too bad, though, that the author fairly obviously cut-and-pasted the same text for each one, changing only the character names." -- Caleb Wilson

Duchess

  • "I get the feeling the author was under the impression that it's still obligatory for an IF game to include a maze, and was trying to get out of it in a creative, if bizarre, fashion." - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "It's very deep, much like the pits of hell. Half of the metaphors make no sense, and the other half are shallow and pedantic." - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "This rather mundane pseudo-play will make your heart stop, then race to a tremendous culmination of foam and punk rock." - David Cornelson
  • "My first reaction to the 'priceless jade idol' was: How cliche can you get?" - Peter Berman
  • "One would think that having a mime as a PC would obviate the need for a conversation library. One would be wrong." - Tony Delgado
  • "If a game is going to do this much preaching, it could at least spell "Budah" and "enlitenment" right." - Ricardo Signes
  • "This game would be unwinnable if not for the constant Kafka references. I'm not sure if this is a bug or not." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "Instant- Death rooms have never been more appropriate" - Oren Ronen
  • "Since I'm personally more attracted to Rococo-type effects than stuffy Victoriana, the appeal struck me more immediately." - Sam Kabo Ashwell, from a review of "Savoir-Faire" (picked by markm)
  • "I am still dumbfounded over the three inventory objects I started with, which appeared to have no use and did not seem to fit in with the rest of the game at all." - Duncan Cross
  • "It's the ABC Movie of the Week, in IF form." - 28 IF (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "The literary device of allusion can be quite powerful when used properly, but this author's insistence on alluding to fictional and non-existing works only serves to perplex." - Jason Love
  • "If I were filing this for baf, I'd put it in both the "Travel" and the "Crap" categories." - John Cater
  • "A nice mix of low-brow action and high-brow philosophical musing." - Caleb Wilson

Oren Ronen

  • "I never totally worked out exactly why the PC and most of the objects in this game shoot lightning at random, but it was funny" - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "I wouldn't have thought that this novel even COULD be redone as a work of IF." - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "Love entangles in this erotic swathe of swollen narrative and thin plot. But mirrors are everywhere and so are THEY!" - David Cornelson
  • "That one lengthy cut-scene was very jarring." - Peter Berman
  • "The XYZZY front-runner for Best Semi-Sentient Plantlife in an Alien Setting!" - Tony Delgado
  • "The interaction between the player and the parser was wonderfully Socratic at times." - Ricardo Signes
  • "For the love of Allah: more nebulous tragedy and less cheese." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "Its shortcomings are only particularly noticeable when you see how much better it could have been." - Jonathan Rosebaugh, from a review of "The Light: Shelby's Addendum" (picked by markm)
  • "This is a must play for someone planning to get married soon. Or maybe not. It will be a great gift to that engaged couple you know!" - Duchess
  • "Personally I enjoyed the daring use of onomatopoeia, though I dare say others will find it grating." - Duncan Cross
  • "I counted two dead wives, a dead aunt and an unconfirmed dead father, and three awakened horrors, one of whom probably doesn't count because he's a PC and the most horrific thing about him is his prose." - Sam Kabo Ashwell (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "I appreciate the author's decision to move on from the played-out trope of 'guess the verb' to the much more intriguing 'guess the adverb.'" - Jason Love
  • "I still don't understand the fixation with lemons." - John Cater
  • "Hmm, one of those games where everything cool happens "off stage" and only comes to the player second hand. Too bad." - Caleb Wilson

Christopher Shelton

  • "Someone needs to explain this to me ... was it really inconsistent or was the player supposed to have multiple personalities?" - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "Not since _Christminister_ has a work been as stuffily British." - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "Sleeping through the climax is generally not good, but this rather lengthy tome made it entirely worth it." - David Cornelson
  • "Never before have I seen such grave moral significance attached to pieces of fake fruit." - Peter Berman
  • "If this is, as the ABOUT text claims, a simulation of the author's life, I'm surprised he didn't committed suicide years ago." - Tony Delgado
  • "The careful reserve of Orson Scott Card and the in-your-face attitude of Graham Nelson combine splendidly, producing a stylistic roller-coaster." - Ricardo Signes
  • "The author appeared to have read all the quotes and then expended monumental effort in directly contradicting them." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "Clowns are not funny! They are scary! Why put a clown in a game?" - Duchess
  • "Unfortuantely, one of the early puzzles requires a working knowledge of French" - Oren Ronen
  • "It's a neat gimmick. But is it more than a gimmick? I'm not sure" - Iain Merrick, r.g.if post, 28th Jan 2000
  • "A slightly disappointing finale to the popular trilogy." - Duncan Cross
  • "Unhappily for you, a freak accident separates you from your precious scripts and, after a brief period of unconciousness, you find yourself desperately searching the entire studio lot for any trace of them." - David Welbourn (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "I appreciated the notion that it was technically possible to win without speaking with any of the NPCs, especially once I realized what bad conversationalists they were." - Jason Love
  • "If the gameplay had been any more fluid, it would have been underwater. Mmmm, porpoise." - Rusty Jack
  • "I hate clowns. So, not surprisingly, I loved this game!" - Caleb Wilson

Ricardo Signes

  • "I love the way the NPCs relentlessly criticise everything the player does" - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "The throbbing is unmistakable!" - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "It will make you run right out and steal little packets of ketchup and do crazy things." - David Cornelson
  • "This game leaps forward in time to show the player the effects of a key early decision. My reaction was a Keanu-like 'whoa.'" - Peter Berman
  • "I HATE THIS GAME SO MUCH! IT GAVE ME SARS!" - Tony Delgado
  • "In most games, instant death puzzles are a flaw. This game cries out for an instant death puzzle to put it out of its misery." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "This would have fared much better as a simple arcade game than fully fledged Interactive Fiction" - Oren Ronen
  • "Stuff gets really wonky if you want to have a beach or something" - Dan Shiovitz, r.a.i-f post, 14th Jul 1998 (picked by markm)
  • "The author gave a fresh perspective to normal day-to- Day objects; how they could be used, what they really are. It made me look around my surroundings a bit more carefully." - Duchess
  • "The game appeared mostly vertical - i.e., almost all room-to-room movement was via up and down, with little use of the compass directions." - Duncan Cross
  • "Your job is to bring a machine to life which a disappeared genius has built." - Bernhard (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "Something else I found rather irksome was the misleading title. Nothing about it suggested 'the history of timepieces' to me, yet I felt that was clearly what I found myself playing: clocks lurk in every single room and frequently feature entirely too prominently in the narrative." - Jason Love
  • "Arr! Shiver me timbers, but this be the most blood-curdlin' tale of the high seas I ever do want to play." - Rusty Jack

Tony Delgado

  • "Another machinery puzzle? There's a reason I never finished _So Far_" - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "Features several dozen wizards, 200 puzzles, and a television set you can watch!" - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "Careless monitors regress into faceless mimes of action and respite. I still don't get this story, but I remember it well." - David Cornelson
  • "The PC loses something important, but gains something even more important -- and then loses that too. Poor PC." - Peter Berman
  • "Here's another example that no matter how polished the prose, a game can be ruined by a few drastic bugs." - Ricardo Signes
  • "Say what you like about this piece: the author's response to >WORSHIP HYRAX made me want to marry him." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "I thoroughly enjoyed the numerous allusions to previous speedIF games that portrays them in a darker, more disturbing light" - Oren Ronen
  • "if it had been in the competition, you wouldn't have been allowed to play it" - Adam Cadre, r.g.if post (taken completely out of context), 26th Nov 1999
  • "It is a rare story that contains layers of meaning, from the literal, allegorical, to moral. It is even rarer when a game achieves multiple layers. Bravo." - Duchess
  • "The game makes occasional reference to the feelies - mostly hats - which it would seem were not included in my review copy." - Duncan Cross
  • "The other thing that's rather good about it is that it's huge, very little actually happens, and it's not dull, but rather engaging." - Jon Ingold (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "Having two seperate sets of nail trimmers seemed a bit superfluous. I mean, why make disambiguation problems for yourself when only one is necessary?" - Jason Love
  • "Luckily for the author, Infocom isn't around anymore, and Activision doesn't launch lawsuits over IF." - John Cater
  • "It confused me how you needed to >SWIM where there was no water. How was I supposed to be able to figure that out?" - Caleb Wilson

Duncan Cross

  • "The title of this game is surely a euphemism for _something_." - James Walmsey
  • "This is, perhaps, the most elegant example out there of the best way NOT to implement a compassless game." - D. Jacob Wildstrom
  • "This game has more implemented verbs than a mangy dog has fleas (though most of them are as useful to the player as the fleas are to the dog)." - Tony Delgado
  • "I wish the acrostics had been more clearly pointed out. When I got to the Final Riddle, I realized I must have missed several Mystic Words. The author managed to imbue the urban factory setting with a real sense of romance and mystery. I felt genuine hope for the characters.' - Ricardo Signes
  • "Basing an entire game around an ambiguous song lyric is just asking for trouble." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "Since the game seems to focus on the heroine coming to terms with her father's death, the car-chase sequence seemed a little out of place" - Oren Ronen
  • "it's not a huge mass of anything" - Paul O'Brian, r.g.if post, 16th Apr 1999 (picked by markm)
  • "The author had the exact same number of objects implemented in each room. While that is interesting, doesn't that stifle the imagination a bit? Some rooms could (and should have) had more objects in it than others." - Duchess
  • "As first I thought this was a weakness in the game but I now think it is due to the nature of the characters, they are simple so they the games are simple." - Heidi Fournier (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "I have one complaint--if you go to the trouble to implement all sorts of nifty electronic tools and toys, could you perhaps consider also implementing BATTERIES? Apparently that would be too much to ask." - Jason Love
  • "If I enjoyed games inspired by the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, I'd never need play another game again." - John Cater
  • "I give this game a score of 9.5 / 10 durians, for including so many different kinds of exotic fruit." - Exotic Fruit Lover's Magazine. (Caleb Wilson)
  • "Fantastic window on the life of a small boy with the ability to touch people in a way they never thought possible. Quite endearing." - David Cornelson

David Cornelson

  • "I thought the writing was a little overblown -- and at one point near the end it features what has to be the longest single sentence I've ever seen in an IF game." - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "I started out disliking the PC, but then I grew more sympathetic as I found out what it's really like to *be* that character." - Peter Berman
  • "If the cooking simulation had been any less implemented, I'd have been forced to just do >OPEN JAR. EAT PEANUT BUTTER. Just like I do in real life." - Martha Stuart
  • "Despite the widespread deconstruction of Zorkesque adventures in which the story is retold from the eyes of a character other than the adventurer, very little attention has been paid, thus far, to the point of view of the sword glowing blue." - Tony Delgado
  • "When I started in a maze, I quit. Once I forced myself to try it again, though, I realized that [the author] had really produced a novel solution to that old problem." - Ricardo Signes
  • "You get the impression that not only is this text riddled with unfunny injokes, but also that these are injokes only understood by the author and his imaginary friends." - Sam Kabo Ashwell
  • "A wonderful - if controversial - adaptation of the famous Grimm Brothers fairy tale" - Oren Ronen
  • "Although the room descriptions were flowery and descriptive, it was disappointing that the same level of care and attention was not given to the objects. Overall, still enjoyable." - Duchess
  • "There is conspiracy, disguise, revelation, a blatant pass from a serving wench, all crammed into a couple of moves, before I have had a chance to really get my bearings." - Emily Short (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "I'm definitely not looking forward to the sequel--one game revolving around the exploits of "Smelly Pete" is one game too many." - Jason Love
  • "I liked how each location was written in a totally different style. Very refreshing!" - Caleb Wilson

Roger Carbol

  • "If you doubt the author's satirical chops, you haven't seen the '1337' room." - Tony Delgado
  • "OMG teh monsters are to hard!!!1!" - Pat Vickers
  • ">NORTH takes you to the South Pole. 'Nuff said." - Peter Berman
  • "If only the author had spend half as much time implementing the hangliding puzzle as he did the "> XYZZY" response!" - Ricardo Signes
  • "If you love TV shows such as Pokemon or Teletubbies, you'll love this!" - Oren Ronen
  • "I liked the random words in a non-English language scattered throughout. They did not take away from the story, and added a nice flavor." - Duchess
  • "It takes a brave author to include randomized endings. I guess that makes this author pretty brave, then." - Jason Love
  • "If I hadn't read the walkthrough, I'd never have realized that the solution to the Radical Al puzzle was "WEAR TIN FOIL"." - ES
  • "Sincere attempt to ridicule Scientology and succeeds fantastically without - wait, who is that at the door? Wait, you can't come in here!" - David Cornelson
  • "Easter Eggs! Easter Eggs! Easter Eggs!" - Tony Delgado

Caleb Wilson

  • "For a game which was 'months in the making', it's somehow sad that the central idea was obviously lifted from the conversation about making toast which took place on the MUD this morning." - Adam Biltcliffe
  • " I thought the concept of releasing a sequel to a game that we haven't seen the first one of, was, interesting. It gives the author leeway to make some assumptions, but it does makes for some guesswork on the part of the player." - Duchess
  • "Many stories rely on the "fish out of water" scenario to great effect--however, they don't usually go so far as to actually implement the removal of fish from water. This game goes the extra mile, and for that, I applaud it." - Jason Love
  • "The NPCs were wonderful, but my favorite was the disembodied head of MJR." - John Cater
  • "Mercurial morass of musical metaphors make for a mundane military drama set in Munich. Mostly mundane that is, until the Mexican March!" - David Cornelson
  • "But finishing the game requires some very, very unusual actions." - Gadget (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • "Would I sound silly if I said that I really learned a lot about the heartbreak of rejection from this game?" - Ricardo Signes
  • "Bonus points to the author for requiring the player to carry out one simple action multiple times -- and giving a different response each time." - Peter Berman
  • "This game is a serviceable, if prelimnary, attempt to embed the themes and innovations of Antonin Artaud's 'Theatre of Cruelty' into Interactive Fiction." - Tony Delgado

Sean Barrett

  • "To be honest, I can't remember ever seeing another super-hero type game!" - Ricardo Signes
  • Above all, you must have the toleration for lots and lots of reading. - Evan Dickens (chosen by Roger Carbol)
  • Each NPC in the game had names beginning with different letters. And the letters were in alphabetical order in the order that we met them. That was cool. The first NPC's name began with 'A', the second with 'B' and so forth. Nice trick. - Duchess
  • "I liked how you could burn down the whole house for a dark alternative ending." - Caleb Wilson
  • "Although I was left disoriented when the game unexpectedly changed my character's gender without telling me, the game was generally without fault. I had fun." - Jason Love
  • "This may be ostensibly about Norse mythology, but it seems the author got too wrapped up in writing about his/her experience of high school." - Adam Biltcliffe
  • "If Stephen King ever deigns to leave his Dark Tower and survey the world of IF with his jaundiced eye, this game's author will be the first casualty of his massive copyright-infringment lawsuits." - Tony Delgado
  • "At one point, someone will *have* to write a game that involves better-researched Qur'anic profanity than this, if only to make a point." - Sam Kabo Ashwell


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