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Game Reviews Y

These reviews are in alphabetical order according to the name of the game reviewed. The index also has a few extra features. First and foremost of these is the instant gratification feature. If you see the SPAG button:

Then you can click on it to retrieve the file from ftp.ifarchive.org, or to go to that file's directory on the archive (in the case of competition games).

The email addresses used are those submitted with the review, so naturally some of them may be out of date. All email addresses are spamblocked -- replace the name of our magazine with the traditional 'at' sign.

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    Table of Contents

    YAGWAD

    You Are Here

    YAGWAD

    From: Suzanne Britton <tril SP@G igs.net>

    Review appeared in SPAG #23 -- December 29, 2000

    TITLE: YAGWAD (Yes, Another Game With A Dragon)

    AUTHOR: "Digby McWiggle" aka John Kean

    E-MAIL: digby_mcwiggle SP@G hotmail.com

    DATE: 2000

    PARSER: Inform standard

    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters

    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (IF Archive)

    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/yagwad.z5

    VERSION: Release 1

    An utterly conventional and thoroughly delightful adventure game. I was

    in a lousy mood when I started playing--I left the computer with a big

    smile on my face. That is the highest praise I can give.

    Let's back up. YAGWAD is, as advertised, a game about a dragon. You're

    an unlikely hero hoping to rescue the princess from the nefarious beast

    and win the king's favor. So why did I love it, when so many games of

    this sort merit only a yawn and a shrug?

    There are quite a few reasons. First and foremost, YAGWAD is the

    funniest game I've played this year. From the rousing prologue (and

    responses to "score" and "fullscore" therein), to the delightful ascii

    art animation in the title, to the encyclopedia salesman (insert Monty

    Python clip), to the friendly teeth, the troll, the answering machine,

    the monks....well, I could go on all day. Suffice to say, YAGWAD kept me

    grinning ear to ear from beginning to end. The humor is dead on,

    comparable to Steve Meretzky's and often better.

    Programming is very solid. I ran into a few relatively harmless bugs,

    and that's it (notable: I can read the diary without picking it up). The

    writing is not the lush, purple prose of much story-based IF (don't get

    me wrong--I like well-done purple prose!), but it is comfortable to

    read, grammatical, and often funny. The room descriptions, in

    particular, have an economy of expression reminiscent of Infocom. Few of

    them span more than five lines, yet they lay out scenery and evoke a

    mood with ease:

       The forest stops short of this slope of mountainside, where a

       crumbling monastery stands with forlorn dignity overlooking the

       tangled remnants of an overgrown garden. A cracked stone walk winds

       from the forest opening north, through lank beds of herbs and

       wildflowers, and up to the wide stairs and darkened doorway leading

       west.

    The plot ties together neatly. In fact, figuring out exactly what

    happened years ago to leave things in their current state is part of the

    fun. It's impossible to put the game in an unwinnable state (a feat

    which clearly required some extra programming), and there are no sudden

    deaths. Puzzles are relatively simple, but fun to solve, and a few of

    them are clever enough to yield that nifty "aha!" feeling when you think

    of the answer. I especially liked the hilt-password puzzle, and when I

    realized the solution to the final puzzle, I laughed aloud. It was just

    perfect.

    Bottom line: YAGWAD is a polished gem. It was written by an author who

    clearly knew what he was doing and took the time to do it right.

    "Digby McWiggle": Thank you for reminding this world-weary judge why she

    fell in love with IF in the first place.

    Rating: 10

    Inform .z5 file (updated version)

    Inform .z5 file (competition version)

    You Are Here

    From: Adam Myrow <myrow SP@G eskimo.com>

    Review appeared in SPAG #27 -- January 4, 2002

    TITLE: You Are Here

    AUTHOR: Roy Fisher

    EMAIL: royhome SP@G powersufr.com

    DATE: October 2001

    PARSER: Inform Standard

    SUPPORTS: any Inform interpreter

    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (IF Archive)

    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/competition2001/inform/URHere

         (a directory containing a readme and the game itself.)

    VERSION: Release 1

    My competition rating: 7

    This game is very odd in many respects. First, it is supposed to be a

    promotion for a play about an online MUD or multi-user dungeon. Second,

    it is actually a fairly complete simulation of a MUD, minus, of course,

    real people. This makes sense as a MUD is really nothing more than a

    souped up version of a text adventure. Most fall more towards the

    role-playing and hack'n'slash types of activities than the storytelling

    Interactive Fiction that most readers are accustomed to. So, I suspect

    that this and the fact that the game tries to promote a play that few

    would have gotten the chance to see, turned a lot of people off and

    resulted in the relatively low rating. However, the thing that makes me

    rate this game so highly is that I see it as a humorous jab at many of

    the well-established traditions of IF. For example, the main quest in

    the game is described by your companion as a "gather a bunch of

    completely unrelated items Fed-X Quest." I suspect that the author had

    played games like Arthur, where the plot fell into such a quest.

    That isn't the only real bit of humor to be found. Virtually all the MUD

    elements are here. There is a combat system similar to that in Beyond

    Zork, except that all the monsters disappear in a cloud of black fog.

    It's clear that the author put this in on purpose. You can use MUD-like

    commands to list players, and the other NPCs sometimes talk out of

    character or whisper so you can't hear them. Since the story is that you

    are a guest player, you naturally are prevented from exploring at will,

    and this device works well to keep the game small.

    In this game, you choose your gender near the beginning by deciding

    which armor you will wear. Like most of the Infocom games, this makes

    little difference to the plot, but I strongly recommend playing as a

    female and hanging around the little girl for awhile. There are some

    really great little Easter Eggs when the other characters see you with

    her. The remarks from Harrold, the companion you have during the

    majority of the game, are a real hoot.

    Since I've mostly written about the humor of the game, here is an actual

    example. Like any town in an RPG type game, this town has a tavern. The

    drinks, however, are unusually bad. This little bit of interaction

    contains one of my favorite responses in the whole game.

       >ask bartender for mead

       The dwarf reaches behind him and grabs a seemingly indistinguishable

       bottle from the shelf. "A drink for northern ponces with horns," he

       says, pouring a small quantity into a stein and placing it on the

       counter. "I'll just put it on yer tab fer now."

       >drink mead

       It isn't as nice as you expected. It's made with genuine honey--you

       can tell from the floating bumblebee corpse you fished out from

       between your teeth--but it tastes more muddy than meady. You can't

       for the life of you think of why you'd want another. The stein itself

       disappears, part of a kingdom-wide initiative to "keep our enchanted

       forests clean!"

    Well, the game isn't perfect, of course. There are several annoying

    bugs. The most well-known and most complained about is the Changeling

    bug. Basically, don't mess with the Changeling until you have an idea of

    what to do with it. If this creature is attacked too early, the game can

    be made unwinnable despite the author's claim to the contrary. Yes, this

    is most likely a bug as Harrold makes it clear that this is a magical

    creature that shouldn't be able to be killed normally. Another bug is

    that typing "fill mug" will result in a string of "***programming

    error***" messages. The author forgot to turn off debugging and strict

    modes, a common mistake every since they are turned on by default. This

    makes cheating possible, but I didn't do it.

    There is no walkthrough for this game, but hints are available by

    praying at the temple. Other than the bugs, it isn't that difficult and

    has an ending that fits with the rest of the game quite nicely.

    So, I recommend this game to experienced IF players who have played both

    the best and worst of IF and like humor in a fairly easy, relaxing game.

    Directory with .z5 Zcode file and readme

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