Earl Grey

From IFWiki

Fantasy
Fantasy
Surreal
Surreal
Crazy quilt
Crazy quilt
Green IF comp ribbon.png
IF Comp 2009
5th of 24
One trophy.png
XYZZY Awards 2009
Best Puzzles
Earl Grey
Author(s) Rob Dubbin and Allison Parrish
Publisher(s) n/a
Release date(s) 01-Oct-2009
Authoring system Inform 6
Platform(s) Glulx
Language(s) English
License(s) Freeware
Multimedia
Color effects none
Graphics none
Sound/Music none
Ratings
Cruelty scale Merciful

How It Begins

You have arrived at a secret garden for the biggest tea party of the year. Under the canopy, you can see an exquisite porcelain tea service and a monk named Eaves. You can also see the flowers and fragrant plants of the garden, and a cobblestone roadway to the town below.

You should talk to Eaves and thank him for inviting you. It's going to be a lovely day!

Notable Features

  • Wordplay. The main gimmick is that the player has the ability to KNOCK a letter out of a word. The knocked letter, which is held in a runebag, may then be CAST back into that word or possibly another word.
  • The game begins with a tutorial style of play, so the player becomes familiar with how the wordplay works.
  • An internal monologue pane at the bottom of the screen, below the prompt, lets the player see what the player character is thinking as events occur.
  • Several standard commands have been disabled, possibly to minimize the amount of text that can potentially be altered by the wordplay commands.
  • Conversation uses the TALK TO model rather than ASK-TELL or menus.
  • The game cannot be put into an unwinnable situation. If the player character dies or something essential is lost, the game will either automatically reset the game world back a bit so the tragedy did not occur, or restore essential items so that the player may try a different strategy.

Versions

Release 1

Links

General info

Reviews

Spoilers