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ISSUE #30 - September 20, 2002

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    The  |___/ociety for the |_|romotion of  |_|_|dventure  \___|ames.

                             ISSUE #30

               Edited by Paul O'Brian (obrian SP@G colorado.edu)
                         September 20, 2002

               SPAG Website: http://www.sparkynet.com/spag

    SPAG #30 is copyright (c) 2002 by Paul O'Brian.
    Authors of reviews and articles retain the rights to their contributions.

    All email addresses are spamblocked -- replace the name of our magazine
    with the traditional 'at' sign.

    REVIEWS IN THIS ISSUE -----------------------------------------------------

    Bmissfill
    The Fellowship Of The Ring
    I'll
    Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Presents "A Fable"
    Pick Up The Phone Booth And Aisle
    Pick Up The Phone Booth And Dye
    Planetfall
    Savoir-Faire
    Tinseltown Blues
    WARP!

    ###### Review Package: An Unnkul Bunch Of Reviews ######
       GC: A Thrashing Parity Bit of the Mind
       The Horror of Rylvania
       The Legend Lives!
       Unnkulia One-Half: The Salesman Triumphant
       Unnkulia Zero: The Search for Amanda
       Unnkulian Underworld: The Unknown Unventure
       Unnkulian Unventure II: The Secret of Acme

    EDITORIAL------------------------------------------------------------------

    First, the bad news: There's no interview in this issue of SPAG. A
    contributor offered to do one, I said "Great!", and then that
    contributor flaked. Ordinarily, I'd probably just delay the issue a week
    or so, and do the interview myself, but this is the September issue of
    SPAG, and the September issue must come out before the comp starts,
    because once that day arrives, my IF energies are pretty much all Comp,
    all the time. So no interview -- maybe I'll do two in some future issue
    to make up for it. Sorry.

    Now, let's clear that sour taste away with the good news. As you can see
    from the section above, the SPAG review larder is quite well-stocked
    this issue! Even more satisfying, our seventeen reviews come from no
    less than *eight* different contributors. I think it's a remarkable
    showing, especially taking into account that none of those eight
    contributors are named Duncan Stevens. I want to thank everybody who
    came through with a review for this issue -- it's a great expression of
    community spirit, and it really touches my heart.

    One batch of reviews in particular caught my imagination: Valentine
    Kopteltsev sent me several reviews in one big document, each review
    building on its predecessors, with an introduction explaining his point
    of view, and a big theme tying all the reviews together. I thought this
    was a really neat idea, and it seemed a crime to separate them all and
    spread them throughout the issue in the way that SPAG reviews are
    normally presented. So instead, with grateful acknowledgement to Mr.
    Kopteltsev, I give you SPAG's newest feature: the Review Package!

    I'm a music fan, and I nurture an endless fascination for mixed
    tapes/CDs and themed sets. I love the notion of putting together a group
    of works that all interrelate, that create new levels of meaning by
    their juxtaposition, and that are even more fun together than they are
    separately. My life is littered with such compilations, and if it's good
    enough for my car stereo, I say it's good enough for SPAG! So I hereby
    officially invite any and all interested parties to send me their Review
    Packages, groupings of two or more reviews united by some common theme
    or thread. You can set them up however you like, with connective text,
    introductory ruminations, or what have you. If you like, you can even
    mix them together thoroughly, in the style of those book reviews you
    occasionally see that end up covering all their subjects but in a
    discursive, essay-style manner. It's all up to you. I'll put them in
    their own separate section of the issue, set apart from all the one-off
    reviews.

    Of course, I'm aware that I may be dreaming. It's easy enough to
    announce something, but the real test is whether people are interested
    in actually writing it. Case in point: SPAG Specifics -- since I
    announced this concept, several people have sent in great reviews for
    it, but there have also been a number of issues, such as this one, which
    have no Specifics section at all for lack of entries. Still, the Review
    Package concept got me excited, and maybe that'll be true of somebody
    else as well. Time, and my inbox, will tell. In the meantime, enjoy the
    bounty of reviews that this issue offers you.

    NEWS ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    NEW GAMES
    It's been a fairly fallow period for new games, a condition we hope will
    be alleviated by the upcoming competition. However, most of the games
    we've gotten have been important ones: Peter Nepstad has finally
    released his enormous work 1893: A World's Fair Mystery, a mystery
    exploration game extraordinaire, and Simon Baldwin presents us with
    Glulx/Glk Chess, the next logical step from last year's Z-Machine chess
    simulator, Silicon Castles.
       * 1893: A World's Fair Mystery by Peter Nepstad
       * Glulx/Glk Chess by Simon Baldwin
       * Chateu Le Mont by Paul Allen Panks (no, that's not a typo --
         "chateau" is intentionally misspelled.)

    SEE ME, FEELIE ME
    The IF community right now is producing more and better games than
    Infocom did in their heyday, but the Infocommies still beat us in one
    respect: the feelies. For those of you not familiar with this term,
    "feelies" are the nifty little items that Infocom used to package with
    each game -- you know, the peril-sensitive sunglasses with Hitchhiker's,
    the Ebullion tablets with Deadline, the Stellar Patrol ID card with
    Planetfall, and so forth. Now, thanks to a crew of dedicated IFers, the
    Feelie Gap has been narrowed considerably by the arrival of
    http://feelies.org, offering nifty toys and trinkets for several modern
    IF games, and providing feelie fulfillment for interested authors and
    players alike! Now you too can enjoy the Lost New York subway token, or
    the Fallacy Of Dawn rephasia pill, and if you're an author, maybe
    feelies.org can set up some feelies for your very own game...

    I'M FREEWARE or SHE WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN
    Speaking of feelies, Emily Short is offering a pre-order for the feelies
    to her major new game, City Of Secrets. This game was originally
    commissioned to appear on a CD for a San Francisco synthpop band, but
    for various reasons the deal fell through, and Short is releasing it on
    her own. The game is scheduled to be released by the end of this year,
    but you can get an advance look at
    http://emshort.home.mindspring.com/CSUpcoming2.htm.

    MEET THE NEW FROTZ, NOT THE SAME AS THE OLD FROTZ
    David Kinder has been working on it for months, and now the dreams of
    PC-owning Frotz enthusiasts have been realized at last with Windows
    Frotz 2002. This spanking new software is the first post-Infocom PC
    interpreter to be able to handle version 6 zcode files, as well as all
    Blorb resource types. (Translation: it plays the music on Moments Out Of
    Time, and can handle future authorial attempts at v6.) In addition, it
    features full Unicode support for games with alphabets different from
    English. Windows Frotz 2002 is available at the IF Archive under
    infocom/interpreters/frotz.

    WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE, WHERE? WHERE, WHERE?
    Okay, that may be stretching it a bit, but the fact is I'm going to see
    The Who tomorrow and couldn't break my headline mini-theme once it got
    started. The point here is that I'm very gratified indeed by the review
    turnout for this issue, but one issue doth not a trend make. The
    upcoming issue will be the annual competition special, which is
    traditionally hard-up for reviews, given that most people tend to post
    theirs to the newsgroups. So if you don't manage to get your reviews
    written by the Comp end date, or you want to offer a more comprehensive
    response that includes other reviewers' viewpoints, or you just want to
    make my day, I strongly encourage you to send me your comp reviews for
    the December/January issue. I'll still happily accept reviews for non-
    comp games, too, and put them in SPAG 32. If you're looking for
    inspiration, look no further than the...

    SPAG 10 MOST WANTED LIST
    ========================
    1.  Bad Machine
    2.  Chateu Le Mont
    3.  Doomed Xycanthus
    4.  1893: A World's Fair Mystery
    5.  Frobozz Magic Support
    6.  Heroine's Mantle
    7.  Hollywood Hijinx
    8.  Katana
    9.  The Oracle
    10. Unease

    KEY TO SCORES AND REVIEWS--------------------------------------------------

    Consider the following review header:

    TITLE: Cutthroats
    AUTHOR: Infocom
    EMAIL: ???
    DATE: September 1984
    PARSER: Infocom Standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code (Infocom/Inform) interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: LTOI 2
    URL: Not available.

    When submitting reviews:  Try to fill in as much of this info as you can.
    Authors may not review their own games.

    REVIEWS -------------------------------------------------------------------

    From: Stas Starkov

    NAME: Bmissfill
    AUTHOR: Tilli Productions, Santoonie Corporation
    EMAIL: None given
    DATE: 2002
    PARSER: TADS Standard
    SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/tads/bmiss.gam
    VERSION: Release 1

    Warning: I consider this game extremely short, bad, and stupid. I'm
    writing this review only to warn you to avoid the game.

    Premise of the game: you must escape from a prison. The task must be
    accomplished by doing stupid actions, based on a guess-the-verb scheme.
    Further features are: deaths-without-warning, bad writing, and a lot of
    (intentional, I believe) typos. Example:

       Cell Block H
           The stoned stones of the cell walls are cold and damp, and the
       grey light coming in from the window is striated by the irony iron
       bars which prevent your escape.  A small cottish cot is along one
       wall, and the doorlike door to your south is closed.
           You see a prison window here.

       >x door
       You can't see any way of opning it.

       >x cot
       This is where you sleep.  It's has a worn mattress and a tattered
       blanket on.

       >take blanket
       Taken.

       >x it
       Its age really prevents you from feeling warm, but you put it on at
       night anyway.  Theirs something about having a blanket on when you
       sleep that makes you feel more secure.

       >x cot
       This is where you sleep.  It's has a worn mattress and a tattered
       blanket on.

    Despite the game's size (around 120 Kb), it consists of only five rooms
    (I think), which almost don't have any objects. The main obstacle that
    will stop you from winning in two minutes is the bad implementation of
    the game. And it's not funny!

    Verdict: trash.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    From: J.D. Berry

    TITLE:         The Fellowship of the Ring
    AUTHOR:        One of the Bruces (Adam Thornton)
    EMAIL:         bruce SP@G fsf.net
    DATE:          2002 (Originally released as an IntroComp entry)
    PARSER:        None (menu options)
    SUPPORTS:      Atari 2600 emulators
    AVAILABILITY:  IF Archive:
                   ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/atari-8bit/fotr2600.tgz
    URL:           http://www.fsf.net/stella/

    From the "Fellowship of the Ring" manual:

       For starters, on the face of it, an Atari 2600 text adventure is
       ridiculous. An Atari 2600 text adventure that attempts to compress
       several hundred pages of densely-written prose into a 4K ROM image is
       even more ridiculous. It should be obvious even to the dimmest that
       the game is not intended as a serious interpretation of one of the
       most complex works of fiction ever put on paper, although it may in
       fact be about the best one can do given the limitations of the
       medium.

       Fellowship of the Ring is intended as a gentle spoof of the
       retro-gaming community, the mindset that attempts to produce
       derivative works in woefully inadequate media, fanfic authors in
       general, and the rec.arts.int-fiction and IFMud communities in
       particular.

    Nothing conveys these sentiments more than the "Fellowship of the Ring"
    (FotR) "cover" artwork. Robb Sherwin's magnificently-drawn battle scene
    between Gandalf and the balrog could lead a player (if he were born
    yesterday, perhaps) to expect an epic of modern cinematography and
    Doom-like gameplay. Such a player would be more than a wee bit
    disappointed.

    This deception follows tradition. The Atari cartridge jacket for
    "Baseball" conjured images of America's game that would have made Ken
    Burns envious. The actual game featured two block figures and four tiny
    bases on an all-green background. The jacket for "Combat" made you run
    for cover as jets screamed across the smoky sky and fell tanks overran
    your camp. The actual game featured two block figures and four tiny
    bases on an all-green background. (Kidding. The background was blue.)

    But even Atari wouldn't have had the temerity to release FotR in the
    late '70s. Not from any moral qualms, but from a marketability
    standpoint. Sure, reduce a work of epic scope to a few blips and doinks.
    Go ahead, imply that the spectacular action and grand strategy depicted
    on the cover occurs in the game. But, for goodness sake, you gotta have
    replay value.

    So, can you play FotR? Yes, you can play it. This isn't just a clever
    joke, is it? No, it's not. But you must clear some hurdles, first. I had
    to download and install an Atari emulator. Then I spent several minutes
    tinkering with flicker rates and color, never really getting them to
    satisfaction and settling for "close enough." This is not the game's
    responsibility, of course, but a prospective player whose system isn't
    already wired for hot Atari-2600 action should plan for a few minor
    aggravations setting up the environment.

    With that accomplished, you assume the role of Frodo, the ring-bearer.
    You'll encounter key scenes from Tolkien's "Fellowship of the Ring" with
    none of that boring travel stuff. The top of the screen briefly
    describes the current situation. The bottom displays one of several
    possible actions. You scroll with your joystick (or your keyboard keys
    of choice) and when you reach the action you want to perform, you press
    the fire button (for my money, nothing says "big red button" like
    alt-tilde-F3.)

    When your action matches what Frodo did in the book, you advance to the
    next scene. Doing the wrong thing results in a "no, silly, that didn't
    work" type message and an implied invitation to try again. If you've
    read the book, you'll have a fifteen-second head start for each
    encounter. You'll finish the entire game in five or six minutes,
    depending.

    Disclaimer: no socks were knocked off in the playing of FotR. But I did
    feel a strange beauty with its competent simplicity. The meta-experience
    implied in the manual wouldn't have worked without a functioning game
    underneath. Adam mixes practical joke with compassion, satire with
    devotion. And unlike "Baseball", FotR has no blocky graphics that remind
    you you're playing a game. Nope, just text and your own imagination.
    Hey...

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    From: Stas Starkov

    NAME: I'll
    AUTHOR: Sean Barrett
    EMAIL: buzzard SP@G world.std.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform Standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code (Infocom/Inform) interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/ill.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    There are some IF games that can't be narrowly described without
    completely spoiling the enjoyment of somebody who hasn't played them
    yet. And "I'll" is one of those. So my review will be ultra-short.

    "I'll" is very well written from (my) literary point of view, and, while
    being experimental and a bit oddball, the game provides a good heap of
    enjoyment. It is puzzle-less (sort of). And you may finish the game
    in... well, very fast... or you will not.

    If you like literature experiments, you should try the game. Absolutely.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    From: Øyvind Thorsby

    TITLE: Mystery Science Theatre 3000, Adventure 102, Reel 1
           Also known as: Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Presents "A Fable"
           Possibly also known as: A Fable: An Interactive MiSTing
    AUTHORS: Graeme Cree
             Ported to Z-Machine by Stuart Moore
             Based on the game A Fable, by Stan Heller
    EMAIL: Unknown
    DATE: July 2000
    PARSER: AGT/Inform
    SUPPORTS: AGT/Zcode interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: IF-archive
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/agt/mst3k2.zip (AGT)
         ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/mst3k2.z5 (Inform)
    VERSION: Release 5

    [Note: This review is based on the Inform version.]

    Some things you should know:

    Mystery Science Theatre 3000 is a TV show where a man and two robots
    watch actual bad movies and make fun of them. It is approximately the
    sixth best TV show ever. C. E. Forman stole the show's concept and
    characters and used it to make fun of the game Detective. The result was
    my all-time favourite computer game, Detective: An Interactive MiSTing.
    Now the concept is re-stolen, this time to make fun of A Fable.

    A Fable is a game about a man walking around in surreal places. It has
    already been reviewed for SPAG. It was described as "utter drivel", which
    seems fitting. The concept of MiSTing has also already been discussed in
    SPAG, in several reviews of Detective: An Interactive MiSTing. So all
    that is left for me is to say something about the quality of this game.

    It is not as good as Detective: An Interactive MiSTing, partly because A
    Fable has fewer bugs to make fun of. Partly also, I think, because it is
    harder to make fun of surrealism. A Fable is also a bit more difficult
    than Detective, so after I had explored most of the game, I spent a
    short but boring time, with a terrible absence of robot jokes,
    completing it. I still thought it was pretty funny though. I laughed out
    loud a few times.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    From: Adam Myrow

    TITLE: Pick Up The Phone Booth And Aisle
    AUTHORS: David Dyte, Steve Bernard, Dan Shiovitz, et al.
    EMAIL: Too many to list
    DATE: June 2001
    PARSER: Inform Standard
    SUPPORTS: Any Zcode interpreter
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware IF Archive
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/PUTPBAA.z5

    When several regulars of rec.arts.int-fiction got together and decided
    to do yet another parody of Pick Up The Phone Booth and Die, they
    decided to also parody Sam Barlow's Aisle while they were at it. The
    result is one of the most side-splitting things to ever be uploaded to
    the IF Archive. Not only do we see the two games mentioned above being
    ripped to shreds, there are more inside jokes than you can shake a stick
    at. This has Sins Against Mimesis beaten hands down.

    Basically, you find yourself in the town square with the phone booth
    from the original Pick Up The Phone Booth And Die. However, you quickly
    discover that like Aisle, this is a one-move game. You have exactly one
    move to do something and then it's over. However, unlike Aisle, it
    doesn't loop back to the start. You'll have to restart the game by
    typing restart or undo and try something else. It's too bad that they
    couldn't have done it like Sam Barlow, but that's the only flaw in what
    is supposed to be a big joke. Anyhow, every time you make a move, the
    response is totally off the wall. Nearly all Inform actions are handled,
    and there are few default responses to be had. Most of the responses
    bear no relation to each other, so forget trying to make a story out of
    it. The point is to have fun and I did. However, there is one set of
    responses involving a particular object that are related and I had fun
    trying to get them all. For a starter, try >INVENTORY.

    Here are a few of the responses to illustrate what I mean by inside
    jokes. I've cut out the restart/restore/quit prompt and the initial
    description since they never change.

       >kick booth
       The booth's eyes widen as you draw your foot back. "Terry, no,
       please, oh God you can't--" Its cries are cut short as your foot
       slams into it. With the sound of eggshells cracking, the booth
       fragments into countless pieces which are quickly lost in the mud.

           *** You have quit smoking ***

       >smell
       You inhale deeply, smelling for the background scent of this
       particular location. It smells like broth... no, wait, is that
       tortillas?

           *** You have been ruined ***

       >enter booth
       There are 56 fellow MIT students in there already, but one more and
       you get the WORLD RECORD. You somehow squeeze between Misty and
       Muffy, and end up sandwiched beside Mindy. Then the creaking begins.
       Then the cracking. Then the exploding. Fifty-seven MIT students end
       up scattered across the town square, many crippled for life, but
       every single one ends up in the Guinness Book of Records.

           *** You have been recognized ***

    So, only if you know something about the history of Infocom, a bit about
    Losing Your Grip, and have some familiarity with the Inform Designer's
    Manual will all those responses make sense. There are tons more like
    that. Be sure to try out your spells from the Enchanter series and of
    course, the magic words from Adventure.

    The bottom line is that an IF veteran who is looking for something to
    kill some time after a bad day should download this and give it a shot.
    A newcomer to IF might not understand a lot of the jokes, and if you've
    never played Pick Up The Phone Booth And Die or Aisle, you should play
    them before to understand why PUTPBAA works the way it does.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    From: Stas Starkov

    NAME: Pick Up the Phone Booth and Dye
    AUTHOR: Eric Schmidt
    EMAIL: None given
    DATE: 2002
    PARSER: Inform Standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code (Infocom/Inform) interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/boothdye.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    This game is a short one-joke game with a single puzzle. (And the joke
    is not very much in the style of "Pick Up the Phone Booth and Die",
    which I advise you to play first.) What to say about the game? Well, the
    game is quite accurately done. That is, it gives sufficient answers to
    player actions, without visible holes in implementation, or missing
    descriptions. But the wild psychedelic charm of "Pick Up the Phone Booth
    and Die" is not there! The only puzzle of the game is not bad, however
    -- and the game has been written to demonstrate the puzzle, I suppose.

    Completion time? From several seconds, to several minutes.

    Resume: If you like short-puzzle-one-idea games -- try "Pick Up the
    Phone Booth and Dye". It's worth the tiny bit of your time you'll spend
    on it.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    From: Alex Freeman

    TITLE:  Planetfall
    AUTHOR:  Steve Meretzky
    EMAIL:  Damned if I know
    PARSER:  Standard Infocom parser
    SUPPORTS:  Practically all
    AVAILABILITY:  Activision
    URL: Not available.

    Planetfall is one of the greatest adventure games I have ever played!
    All the puzzles are logical and have, more or less, the correct balance
    of difficulty. It's amazing how the puzzles can be solved once you just
    step back and think about them a bit. However, I think a little
    background is in order before I move on.

    You start off as an Ensign Seventh Class, and the scourge of your
    existence is Ensign First Class Blather, who acts like a drill sergeant.
    However, as fate would have it, some terrible disaster happens to the
    station whose floor you are being made to scrub, and you (should) take
    advantage of this opportunity by going into an escape pod. It takes you
    to a deserted planet, and you have to figure just what the heck you're
    supposed to do there. Along the way, you end up meeting the robot Floyd,
    whom every Planetfall player seems to like.

    This brings me to the characters. For interactive fiction, the
    characters are very well developed, since IF NPCs have the tendency to
    have little or no personality at all. Because of this, I feel that
    Planetfall's NPCs are big achievements, even though they wouldn't be
    considered well developed characters for non-interactive fiction since
    they are basically flat stereotypes. Floyd is basically like a cheery
    little child whom every player seems to find charming. I have to love it
    when he says how he was able to solve all the puzzles in Zork except how
    to get into the white house. Blather acts like a stereotypical drill
    sergeant, and most of his personality is revealed through your dreams
    since you must sleep during the game. I have to love that one dream
    sequence in which you refuse to scrub the scenery and throw your brush
    at him, only to have him go after "the valuable company property". ^_^

    Also, the atmosphere is pretty good. It has humorous touches amongst an
    interesting planet. It has a machine shop, some offices, some mess
    halls, and also a library. The writing is pretty good too. It gives fine
    descriptions of the rooms and is some of the funniest writing I've seen
    this side of the Space Quest series (which is remarkably similar in many
    ways). As for the parser, it's a typical Infocom parser, so it's quite
    good.

    Overall, Planetfall is easily one of the best adventure games I've ever
    played because of the balanced and logical puzzles throughout the game,
    the humorous writing, and the amusing characters. My only complaint
    about the game is that the laser wasn't described well enough, making
    two puzzles difficult. I thought that the laser was supposed to be like
    one of those laser pointers, but it's actually more like a laser gun.
    However, Planetfall is definitely one game you should check out!

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    From: Daphne Brinkerhoff

    TITLE: Savoir-Faire
    AUTHOR: Emily Short
    EMAIL: emshort SP@G mindspring.com
    DATE: April 2002 (original)
    PARSER: Inform
    SUPPORTS: Zcode interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: IF Archive
    URL: http://emshort.home.mindspring.com/savoirfaire.htm
    http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/Savoir.z8
    VERSION: 6 (most recent)

    (Note: I have recently moved, and my computer is still in pieces in
    boxes, so I am not able to replay the game to get exact details. Also, I
    played an older release (not sure which one).)

    Savoir-Faire is an excellent game, featuring a strong sense of place, an
    innovative backstory & magic system, and a protagonist whose
    idiosyncrasies are charming in a way that reminds me of Varicella.

    Place: The opening "room" is so present and alive that I spent many
    turns there before even going inside. Throughout the house, the
    furniture, doors, molding, and knickknacks all contribute to a feeling
    of really being there. But what would you expect from the author of
    Pytho's Mask and Best Of Three -- both games which focus on conversation
    and still have room for books, costumes, inlaid tiles...? "Place" also
    encompasses the idea of culture. With sausages strung up on the rafters
    and seven planets in a model of the solar system, it's clear that we
    aren't in Kansas any more. So *this* is "old skool"? I don't remember
    Zork and Advent being quite like this.

    Backstory: Obviously, I can't say much about this without giving away
    the plot. But even the brief opening text raises a number of questions:
    Where is everyone? What is your relationship to them? To this house? Who
    are you, that you can so blithely gamble away your life savings and
    assume someone else will bail you out? Like so many games, Savoir-Faire
    has a subplot about discovering your true identity, but it's low-key: no
    melodramatic scenes of revelation.

    The magic system: Figuring this out is one of those "aha!" moments, so
    again I can't go into great detail.

    In some ways, though, I felt frustrated -- the magic seemed to be so
    powerful that the limitations felt arbitrary at times. The thought "If
    action A works, why doesn't action B?" crossed my mind many times.

    If I may digress briefly, I think this is a universal problem with
    powerful characters in general. It could be called the Commander Data
    problem (after the Star Trek character). If you have an exceptionally
    able character, plots tend to fall apart. "A heavy bulkhead? Data can
    lift it. An encoded password? Data can decrypt it. A rescue in the
    vacuum of space? No problem!" So the writer ends up inventing more or
    less believable reasons why this power can't be used to solve this
    problem. For me, this *mostly* works in Savoir-Faire, but there are
    occasions when I just rolled my eyes and went to the walkthrough. Of
    course, this can be written off as more of that "old skool" atmosphere.

    I should add that another alternative (severely limit your character's
    powers) is the more usual way of handling things -- hence the numerous
    magic systems with equivalents of "fnord: create illusion of blue
    antelope", and similar very specific powers. What Savoir-Faire attempts
    is more interesting, and mostly more intuitive -- if I *had* magic
    powers, this is how I would both prefer and expect them to work.

    Protagonist: A bit prissy, a bit amoral (breaking and entering starts
    the game, after all!), a bit noble -- yeah, kinda like Varicella. I
    particularly enjoyed being hungry and eating. This guy is *serious* (and
    seriously vivid) about his food. Fortunately, he does care about
    something other than himself. And there is evidence (especially if you
    play it right) that he has a strong sense of humor and self-mockery.
    Basically, I enjoyed being Pierre.

    Other: I especially enjoyed the memories that pop up from time to time
    (they reminded me of an aspect of L. Ross Raszewski's "Moments Out of
    Time." My only quibble is that there weren't quite as many of them as I
    wanted, and they seemed to cluster in the beginning parts of the game.

    And now I've gotten through a whole review without mentioning the
    puzzles! Isn't that why people play "old skool" games? I had fun with
    some of them (finding a light source and exploring the cellars,
    particularly). Mostly the puzzles are tied up with the magic system
    described above. If you like the magic system, you'll like the puzzles
    (and mostly, I did).

    To sum up, while this game may claim to be "old skool", that doesn't
    mean Yet Another Dungeon Crawl. There's atmosphere & polish which bring
    Savoir-Faire to a higher level than that.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    From: Eytan Zweig

    TITLE: Tinseltown Blues
    AUTHOR: Chip Hayes
    EMAIL: chiphayes SP@G attglobal.net
    DATE: June 2002
    PARSER: Inform
    SUPPORTS: Z-Machine interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: IF Archive
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/blues.z5
    VERSION: Release 1.1

    Tinseltown Blues is nothing more, and nothing less, than a competent
    puzzle game. It tells no story -- there is a plot, but that plot is
    deliberately paper-thin, and makes sure that it doesn't get in the way
    of the puzzles. The game itself has a simple, and well-tried goal: the
    scavenger hunt, where you must find objects that have been placed in
    totally arbitrary, but always hard to reach, locations. The nice thing
    about Tinseltown Blues is that it has no pretensions of being anything
    more than that -- it's a game, to be played and enjoyed, not anything
    more, and it knows it.

    While the game doesn't have a plot to speak of, it does have an
    interesting choice of location: Paramount Studios. The choice of a
    Hollywood studio, while obviously at least partially motivated by the
    fact that the game's author actually works there, is a nice touch --
    where else would you expect to find office buildings side-by-side with
    mechanical reconstructions of Zork I? At times, however, the liberties
    that are taken with Paramount seem so strenuous -- all the NPCs have
    totally cartoonish names, and some geography seems to have been tampered
    with for the sake of the puzzles -- that I'm not sure the game wouldn't
    have worked better in a fictional studio. If there was more in the game
    that actually spoke of the real Paramount Studios I may have felt
    differently, but other than a reference pamphlet and some celebrity
    graves, there really wasn't anything there that had any particular
    resonance for me.

    That, however, is a minor quibble, since the real heart of the game is
    its puzzles. And, as far as puzzles go, it has some good ones. There are
    quite a few of them, most of them in medium difficulty -- not so easy as
    to not require any thought, but not hard enough to make me run to a
    walkthrough at any point (which was fortunate, since the walkthrough was
    written after I won the game, by myself). There are precious few
    guess-the-verb situations, and it is very rare to be in a situation in
    which you don't know what to do next -- it's usually a question of how.
    Some alternate solutions are available, though not to all puzzles. The
    puzzles aren't perfect -- there is one particular puzzle (the parrot),
    for instance, where it was very clear to me what I had to do, but not
    why it would help me -- I had to solve the puzzle in order to discover
    why I needed to solve it. It is also possible to lock yourself into an
    unwinnable state by missing certain events, but the time window given is
    so wide that it's very unlikely that this would happen, as long as you
    remember to wander around.

    The interface presented a couple of issues, however. The game features
    an item bulk system, where some items are too large to brought into
    certain places, or to be carried simultaneously. This works quite well
    as a way to narrow down the field of possible solutions to one or two of
    the puzzles. The problem is that there is also an item weight system --
    carrying heavy items tires you, and gives annoying messages and even
    more annoying effects. There is absolutely no reason for this and it
    doesn't contribute anything to the game.

    There are some minor bugs -- a few typos, and one or two places where
    items give incorrect descriptions (one locked door has the deadbolt on
    the wrong side in the descriptions, though it functions correctly). None
    of them seriously impaired my enjoyment of the game. Tinseltown Blues is
    not an ambitious game, but what it does it does well, despite a few
    minor nitpicks. If you enjoy puzzles, and want some that won't have you
    pulling out your hair in frustration, I suggest trying it out.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    From: Stas Starkov

    NAME: WARP!
    AUTHOR: Dosius Software Co. and Richard Kelly
    EMAIL: None given
    DATE: 2002
    PARSER: Inform Standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code (Infocom/Inform) interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/warp.z5
    VERSION: Release 2

    Beginning of the game:

       You're on a space station.  This is nothing special in itself, but
       for some reason, due to your body's genetics, your very presence is
       causing the station to become unstable.  Stay aboard, and the station
       will explode.

       ...

       WARP!
       Usocon interactive fiction - a science fiction story
       (C)Copyright Dosius Software Co. and Richard Kelly, 2001-2002
       Release 2 / Serial number 640101 / Inform v6.21 Library 6/10
       Interpreter claims to support Z-Machine Specification 1.0
       PC interpreter version F detected.

       Welcome to WARP!
       Try not to mess up too quickly.

       Bedroom
       This is a rather sparse bedroom.  About the only thing here is your
       bed, which folds up into one of the floor tiles.  Exits lead north,
       west and east.

       What should I do now (dare I ask)?
       Well? _

    Looks like a jokey game, doesn't it? Well, the truth is: the game is
    implemented badly, and no joke can prettify the impression. More
    examples:

       What next? x bed
       [I don't see that here.]

       What should I do now (dare I ask)?
       Well? w

       Bathroom
       This is a modest bathroom with doorways leading east and southeast.
       You can see a sink and a toilet here.

       What next? x sink
       In the sink is a ring.

       What next? get ring
       Taken.

       What next? wear ring
       You can't wear that!

       What next? x ring

       What next? asdf
       I know your waist line has a bigger number than your IQ, but even you can do
       better than that.

       What next? _

    I think comments are needless. I mention only one more thing --
    instant-death rooms.

    Summary: An amateurish work. The premise is not bad, but not enough for a
    _game_.

    ########################################################
    ###### REVIEW PACKAGE: AN UNNKUL BUNCH OF REVIEWS ######
    ########################################################

    From: Valentine Kopteltsev

    Let me start with a confession: I don't share the dislike of what's
    usually called out-of-date game devices (OGDs), such as puzzles
    involving dark rooms, inventory limits, exhaustible resources, and (no,
    don't lynch me immediately!) even mazes -- most members of the IF
    community seem to have. I see these devices solely as designing tools,
    which can't be "bad" or "good" in themselves -- it's rather a matter of
    the author's talent and skill to use them properly. Sure, a game
    consisting of several dozens "rooms with twisty little passages, all
    alike", all of which you need to visit and to map out in order to find
    one single secret button that opens you the entrance to yet another two
    hundred "little twisty passages" sucks, especially if you've got to
    master such a maze with a lantern that only lasts for thirty or so
    turns. However, to me, it doesn't prove mazes are faulty -- rather, it
    proves that (a) this particular author can't keep within reasonable
    limits, and (b) that *ANY* idea can be over-developed to absurdity.

    One illustration of the last thesis, just to make my point clear: people
    have different attitudes towards long, detailed room descriptions; some
    like them, some don't, but no one thinks such descriptions are flawed in
    themselves, and should be banished from IF. Now imagine a game that
    starts with umpteen screens of long description depicting every item
    present in the room, no matter how irrelevant to the game it is, with
    indication of each dust particle's exact position in a Cartesian
    coordinate system. Well, I doubt you'd bother finishing reading this one
    description, much less completing the game.

    I'm sorry about such a long preamble, but it had to be. I just don't
    want to confuse anybody by praising games packed with OGDs (and most of
    the games reviewed here are, with little exception) without explaining
    myself.

    But now, let's proceed to the reviews.

    -=-=-

    TITLE: Unnkulian Underworld: The Unknown Unventure (better known as Unnkulia 1)
    AUTHOR: D. A. Leary
    EMAIL: N/A
    DATE: 1990
    PARSER: TADS Standard
    AVAILABILITY: Former shareware, now free
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/adventions/adventions.zip

    Well, considering the aforesaid, we're dealing with a practically
    flawless game here;). Seriously, Unnkulia 1 has everything a text
    adventure needs to be successful: a nice setting, a memorable player
    character, good puzzles... Admitted, it's not as deep as most of its
    successors -- but for what it lacks in depth, it makes up in bright
    humour, and vividness of descriptions, with "all the recurring themes of
    the Unnkulian games established here, from Duhdhism and the obligatory
    fried egg puzzle to the Acme Corporation and its vastly inferior
    products" (sorry for the quotation from Carl Muckenhoupt's review in
    Baf's Guide, but you simply couldn't put it better -- except that funny
    reincarnations of the Bridge Troll from ADVENTURE, the obligatory
    presence of a bar/lounge, and a couple more things probably should be
    added to the list of recurring themes).

    One trick David Leary used to make his player character appear more
    realistic was especially amusing for me: you see, the game begins with
    the death of the man whose slave the PC has been. It must be said the
    hero doesn't like his late master, Kuulest, too much. On the other hand,
    Kuulest was the centre of his world for quite a long time. And thus,
    during the course of the game, the former slave keeps recalling his
    master on every appropriate, and sometimes less appropriate, occasion,
    referring to Kuulest with words derivative of "geeze" (as in, "The old
    geezebreath sure won't need it anymore, so it's yours now.") These
    reminiscences form yet another recurring theme -- this time, not for the
    whole series but for the game -- which helps the overall atmosphere a
    lot. Likewise, the NPCs are worthy of praise: they're probably not the
    most advanced ones, in that they don't carry out complex scripts, nor
    are they burdened by an AI; no, they've been implemented under the usage
    of but the basic animation techniques -- which hasn't kept them from
    being vivid, and characterized nicely (the way one of them suddenly
    becomes interested in his fingernails when being asked for help still
    makes me smile when I think of it).

    The only thing one could complain about in Unnkulia 1 is, it's somewhat
    straightforward. Somewhere in the beginning of the game, you get your
    task -- to save the world by doing this and that -- then, you go and do
    it, and that's about it. The whole layout of the game, plot- and
    puzzle-wise, seems to insist on the principle formulated by Michael
    Roberts in his TADS Manual: "Filling in the details of the plot can
    proceed by 'working backwards' from the overall goal  to
    the major sub-goals, then backwards to the smaller goals that must be
    reached for each sub-goal, and so on." OK, that's not a bad thing in
    itself -- I'm aware it's to a very large extent a matter of personal
    taste whether you prefer more or less "goal-oriented" plots/puzzles/
    games; thus, I'm just expressing my own opinion here.

    And one final observation: you know, the whole time I've been playing
    Unnkulia 1 I had a funny feeling the game reminded me of something. This
    feeling remained latent until recently, as I was reading a book that was
    part of the Myth series by Robert Lynn Asprin, and came across a
    reference to ACME corporation. At this moment, everything suddenly slid
    into place: I realized that, coincidentally or not, the mood in Unnkulia
    1 was very reminiscent of the Asprin's humorous works' style (not that
    it's a rip-off, mind you). Again, it's entirely a matter of personal
    preferences whether to see it as a 'good' or a 'bad' thing; for me,
    however, it was as wonderful as meeting an old pal somewhere you didn't
    expect to see him.

    SUMMARY:

    PLOT: Rather straightforward "save the world"
    ATMOSPHERE: Wonderfully Asprinish
    WRITING: Vivid and humorous
    GAMEPLAY: Goal-oriented, a bit linear
    BONUSES: Rich setting with many Easter eggs, references to "old geezer
    Kuulest"
    CHARACTERS: Non-exceptional, but nice
    PUZZLES: Not that hard, but fun to solve
    DIFFICULTY: Claims to be (and probably is) handleable (5 out of 10)

    -=-=-

    TITLE: Unnkulian Unventure II: The Secret of Acme (or, simply Unnkulia 2)
    AUTHOR: David M. Baggett
    EMAIL: N/A
    DATE: 1991
    PARSER: TADS Standard
    AVAILABILITY: Former shareware, now free
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/adventions/adventions.zip

    When I started playing Unnkulia 2, my first impression was, I was dipped
    into the world of Unnkulia 1 again -- which surely wasn't much of a
    surprise. However, this was the case of the first impression that's
    deceptive: the longer I played it, the more I got the feeling Unnkulia 1
    and 2 were quite different. I admit I had to mull over a lot before I
    could get at the roots of this difference, but I think I found the
    answer.

    The thing is, David Leary's goal seemed to be the creation of a *game*
    that'd be fun to play; by contrast, David Baggett seemed to be trying to
    create a *world* that'd be fun to explore. Thus, in Unnkulia 1, you're
    given a goal to work towards practically at the very start; in
    Unnkulia 2, you are set out into your yard without any particular goal.
    Well, closer to the end you'll receive some sort of hint what to do, but
    you still won't know what's *really* going on until you make the final
    move. Hence, your stimulus not to give up and to keep playing here is
    the exploration of the game world. This might appear like a rather
    meagre motivation, but the author put enough effort into the setting to
    make such "exploring for the sake of exploring" an entertaining pastime.
    The game impresses by plentiful, maybe even excessive scenery, lots of
    interesting things to do, and loads of... OK, looks like we're in for
    another diversion. ;)

    It's been said Unnkulia 2 contains loads of red herrings; to me,
    however, that doesn't seem true. You see, a red herring is something the
    author puts into his game for the sole purpose of misleading the player.
    For instance, let's think of a game taking place in an underground
    station. Say, a locked trophy case containing a magic wand, that stands
    amidst the platform, and for which no key exists in the game, clearly is
    a red herring. However, a fully functional control gate is not -- it's
    rather a well-implemented scenery object, and remains such one even if
    there is no need for the player to ever pass through it. Similarly, all
    the "red herrings" (maybe with very few exceptions) in Unnkulia 2 turn
    out to be scenery objects, which give the setting even more depth.

    And one more difference between the two Unnkulias, which probably also
    results from the dissimilar approaches used by their authors: Unnkulia 1
    can be mapped out much easier than Unnkulia 2. The latter resembles Zork
    a bit, in that it sometimes provides a sudden shortcut between locations
    that seemed to be on the opposite ends of the map. Such a layout makes
    the place appear more "tight" -- the single locations hang together much
    better.

    The humorous aspect of the game isn't as obvious as in Unnkulia 1, where
    the jokes virtually are hurled at the player; here, they are hidden in
    object descriptions and responses. Unnkulia 2 presents a more restrained
    style than its predecessor -- which doesn't mean it's any less funny.
    One of my favorite moments: somewhere in the game, you arrive...

       On Top of Dawg Rock, West of the River

       Here you are, on top of Dawg Rock. This would sure impress the
       climbers, you think to yourself. Too bad no one's around to notice.
       But no matter. The striking beauty of Dawg Rock and the landscape
       below make standing up here alone a great joy.

       The rocks become trickier here, and consequently the only ways to go
       are east, back to the bridge, and down, which I would highly advise
       against.

       >

    (Naturally, the first thing I tried was...)

       > DOWN

       I told you, I advise against it.  Must I always nag?

    The puzzles in Unnkulia 2 were very hard for me -- to a large degree
    because the game wouldn't offer a direction to go; even the built-in
    "hint machine" didn't always help. Also, there were three rather
    large mazes. Since, as mentioned above, I've got nothing against
    mazes as such, and because I'm so fond of Unnkulian games, I'd say
    Mr. Baggett was on the verge of overdoing it in Unnkulia 2; someone
    less (or more ;) biased probably would say he passed this verge by
    far. Still, the puzzles were well-designed and satisfying to solve.

    But with all these nice features, the game would fall apart because
    of its rather loose construction -- if it wasn't for the plot. At
    first, you probably wouldn't see much of it, for the reasons
    described above. You'd keep playing because of that feeling there's
    something interesting waiting for you around the corner. Gosh, I've
    played enough games (and read enough books, for that matter) that
    used exactly this device -- and many of them turned out to be a
    let-down. But not Unnkulia 2 -- the final twist of the plot nicely
    tied up all the loose ends that cropped up during the game, and
    secured the whole structure, like a keystone of an arch. Great it
    was, just great.

    SUMMARY:

    PLOT: Probably appears to give more freedom to the player than it does
          in reality
    ATMOSPHERE: Certainly present
    WRITING: More restrained than in Unnkulia 1, but not less humorous
    GAMEPLAY: Almost totally undirected
    BONUSES: Generous setting with LOTS of Easter eggs
    CHARACTERS: Not as vivid as in Unnkulia 1
    PUZZLES: Well-designed, but a bit illogical sometimes
    DIFFICULTY: Claims to be 7 out of 10 (to me, it seemed more like
                10 out of 10)

    -=-=-

    TITLE: Unnkulia Zero: The Search for Amanda
    AUTHOR: D. A. Leary
    EMAIL: N/A
    DATE: 1993
    PARSER: TADS Standard
    AVAILABILITY: Former shareware, now free
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/adventions/adventions.zip

    As I played through more games in the Unnkulian series, I got the
    growing impression both of the major game authors, Mr. Leary and Mr.
    Baggett, influenced each other, so that their approaches to game
    design became closer (if you read the previous review, you'd know
    what I mean).

    Unnkulia 0, for instance, is much less "linear" than Unnkulia 1, the
    previous game by Mr. Leary -- although the central goal of the game
    still is defined at the very start, the sub-goals don't stand out as
    clearly.

    The plot was much deeper than in Unnkulia 1, though its main idea
    seemed somewhat moot to me. The atmosphere, however, remained as
    light-hearted as in Mr. Leary's previous work, including the
    recurring theme -- this time, those are references to the "powerful
    wizard" Wowsa Willy.

    Puzzlewise, the game left me with ambiguous feelings: on one hand, the
    author clearly made a serious effort to make it more challenging for the
    player; on the other hand, this effort partly resulted in a much larger
    possibility to make it unwinnable without warning than in any of the
    previous games of the series. Plus, a couple of puzzles seemed to be
    loaned directly from Unnkulia 2. Since I doubt Mr. Leary hadn't got
    enough fantasy and skill to create good puzzles (as he had proven the
    opposite too often), I considered this to be an in-joke I didn't
    understand. But it wasn't of a benefit to the game, anyway. And a note
    for maze-haters: Unnkulia 0 contains two pseudo-maze puzzles -- mostly
    for the purposes of mocking the universal maze-abhorrence, it seems.

    All in all, I'd say this work organically fits into the Unnkulian
    universe, providing lots of background for it, but doesn't introduce
    (m)any groundbreaking ideas. Because of this, it probably would be
    wise to try out one of the previous games first; chances are high
    that, if you don't like them, you won't enjoy Unnkulia 0, either (and
    vice versa).

    SUMMARY:

    PLOT: Very solid
    ATMOSPHERE: (Sometimes inappropriately) light-hearted
    WRITING: Not very different from Unnkulia 1
    GAMEPLAY: Nothing unusual
    BONUSES: Provides lots of background, funny references to other Unnkulian
             games, as well as ADVENTURE
    CHARACTERS: See the comment for WRITING
    PUZZLES: Fine for the most part -- the quibbles are listed in the review
    DIFFICULTY: The game's statement to be 7 out of 10 seems to be true

    -=-=-

    TITLE: Unnkulia One-Half: The Salesman Triumphant
    AUTHOR: D. A. Leary
    EMAIL: N/A
    DATE: 1993
    PARSER: TADS Standard
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/adventions/adventions.zip

    This game, in which you play, for a change, on the "bad" side -- an
    Acme salesman -- has been created as sort of an "appetizer" for
    Unnkulia 0; thus, it isn't either hard or deep. It was like in a
    circus -- the spotlights went on, the main comedian entered the lit
    circle in the arena, and the performance began -- now, who wouldn't
    enjoy a clown's show?

    Well, *I* didn't.

    As the story progressed, and the PC got his prescribed portion of
    kicks and socks, I noticed that, instead of laughing, I started to
    feel pity for the poor guy. Sure, an Acme salesman isn't the most
    pleasant person to deal with, and an intellectual giant he isn't,
    either -- but not giving him even a single chance just seemed unfair
    to me. To put it simply -- few things in IF are more terrible than a
    game author who doesn't like his own PC at all, no matter how bad
    this PC is. (Again, that's entirely my personal point of view --
    regarding both what's worst in IF, and whether the author of this
    game really doesn't like his PC).

    Fortunately for Unnkulia 1/2, Mr. Leary's sense of humour (which,
    admittedly, remains up to the mark) finds other outlets than derision
    of the PC, so that the game had its enjoyable moments, after all.
    (For example, try referring to the fabled Bicorn of Radeekal with
    "goat").

    And that's pretty much all I can say about the game -- in all other
    respects, it's not outstanding; if you like Unnkulia in general, and
    aren't as over-sensible as myself ;), you're probably going to enjoy
    it. One final warning, though: like in other Unnkulian games, you
    sometimes can get yourself killed without warning; however, *unlike*
    in other Unnkulian games, you can't undo your last action after doing
    that (I don't know the reason why this feature has been removed from
    Unnkulia 1/2, but I remember it being an unpleasant surprise when I
    played it); thus, "save early, save often".

    SUMMARY:

    PLOT: Boils down to a treasure hunt
    ATMOSPHERE: Clownery
    WRITING: Unnkulian standard
    GAMEPLAY: Doesn't differ much from ADVENTURE
    BONUSES: Clever embedding into the Unnkulian universe
    CHARACTERS: Unnkulian standard
    PUZZLES: Not very challenging, but some are nice
    DIFFICULTY: Modestly describes itself as being trivial (2 out of 10)

    -=-=-

    TITLE: The Legend Lives!
    AUTHOR: David M. Baggett
    EMAIL: N/A
    DATE: 1994
    PARSER: TADS Worldclass
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/adventions/adventions.zip

    In previous reviews, I've been trying -- I know, with varying success
    -- to remain objective, and not to over-praise the reviewed games.
    But now we got to a game that can't be over-praised;). I think it's a
    true gem among other Unnkulian games (that doesn't mean the others
    are bad, mind you), and deserves to be called a classic not less
    than, say, Curses!, or Spider And Web.

    ...And now, I'm going to try digging up some grounds for this rather
    daring statement. ;)

    Let's start with the setting. The game is set in a rather far future,
    with space travelling, and matter moving, and stuff, and it must be
    said that the game world is very convincing. It seemed alive alright
    -- but at the same time, I got the feeling of being inside a somewhat
    buggy program. Well, it must be said that in the last few years, our
    *real* world often gives me the same feeling -- very much because of
    the steadily intensifying rhythm of life, and the growing amount of
    hack-work in all spheres. In this respect, Mr. Baggett's work turned
    out to be prophetical -- in 1994, the year when Legend was released,
    life wasn't quite like that, though the trends certainly were
    present. Let's add that the scenery in Legend is one of the richest
    in the whole IF-history -- one could spend a couple of hours just
    playing with the gadgets in the game, or watching EV (the Unnkulian
    analogue of our TV). The "create a world that'd be fun to explore"
    approach clearly rules here; the player is taken through a number of
    vastly different worlds -- from a computer centre to a rural
    backwater, from a crowded supermarket to jungle -- and yet, all of
    them feel like parts of a whole. Furthermore, the author cleverly
    uses the opportunities provided by the futuristic technologies (in
    particular, matter moving) to consequently continue the war against
    linearity he declared in Unnkulia 2. For instance, Legend can't be
    mapped out in principle -- only the separate areas of it, because you
    travel from one area to another via matter movers. And while the
    gameplay is somewhat more directed than in Unnkulia 2, because the
    goals stand out much better here, the player still has a lot of
    freedom. Yes, there is a prescribed set of puzzles you need to solve
    to win the game -- but you can, to a quite significant extent,
    determine the order for them to be solved.

    Which brings us to the puzzles as such.

    At the very start, Legend tries to scare players off by declaring its
    difficulty rating is 10 out of 10; but let me assure you -- it isn't
    that difficult. Yes, the puzzles are hard, but they are very logical,
    too. I'm not very good at puzzle-solving, but I managed to get
    through the game using the built-in hints only for three puzzles (of
    those three, one was a riddle, which traditionally represents a
    stumbling-block for me, and one I'd probably solve without help if I
    kept trying for a few more days -- as it turned out, I was working in
    the right direction) -- though it took me a few weeks. Take this as a
    hint -- I'm not the most persistent person, but I was perfectly
    willing to spend so much time on the puzzles. And remember me saying
    that most games reviewed here, with little exception, are packed with
    OGDs? Well, Legend is such an exception.

    Legend has been criticized for not having its NPCs developed enough. I'd
    disagree; to me, it rather seemed that Mr. Baggett was experimenting
    with animation techniques -- probably because he had got disappointed in
    the traditional "ASK ABOUT/TELL ABOUT" method. Among other things, he
    used long "cut-scenes" of non-interactive text for those purposes -- but
    since references to such "cut-scenes" in reviews of Legend have become
    commonplace, I won't say anything else about them. I felt the characters
    were quite vivid; one of my favorite moments was asking a visitor at
    Terminal Velocity about something (though people with UNIX knowledge
    probably will appreciate the response much more).

    But the coolest thing about Legend is, it makes you THINK. Think
    about... er, well, an enumeration probably would spoil the fun for
    you. So, why not try to find out by yourself?

    SUMMARY:

    PLOT: "Unprecedentedly deep" isn't an exaggeration
    ATMOSPHERE: Plenty of it
    WRITING: Makes me envious
    GAMEPLAY: Thrilling
    BONUSES: Too many to be listed here
    CHARACTERS: Rather unconventionally designed
    PUZZLES: Great, just great
    DIFFICULTY: approx. 8 out of 10 (though it claims to be 10 out of 10)

    -=-=-

    And here, a couple more reviews of "Unnkulia-related" games:

    TITLE: GC: A Thrashing Parity Bit of the Mind
    AUTHOR: David M. Baggett, Carl de Marcken, and Pearl Tsai
    EMAIL: N/A
    DATE: 1994
    PARSER: TADS Standard
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/tads/gc-gam.zip

    This game isn't part of the canonical Unnkulian series, but it's
    reviewed here because it's set in the Unnkulian universe. You, a
    native of a small Unnkulian village, come to the Acme Institute for
    the Less Convincing Sciences to study there. Your goal is...

    Well, your *true* goal in this game is to get as much score as
    possible, because it has been written for the MIT Artificial
    Intelligence Laboratory Olympics, "a competition held between four
    teams of about 40 people each, mostly graduate students, professors,
    and secretarial staff" (quotation from the intro to GC). And it's
    been intended to be, well, a *challenge* for those people;
    consequently, the difficulty of the puzzles varies from "very hard"
    to "impossible"; the fact that many of them are optional, and the
    large number of red herrings don't make things easier. Some technical
    background is absolutely needed to at least understand what the
    puzzles are about; I received a technical education (though it got a
    bit rusty with the time), and it was just enough for me to appreciate
    the elegance and the wit of the puzzles -- after I looked up the
    solution in the walkthrough. To make *real* progress you'd need a
    damn good technical background, knowledge of various aspects of
    computer science, and studying/working experience at MIT. The last
    one is required, because many puzzles are totally, hopelessly
    in-jokey.

    And so is the whole game. MIT inhabitants probably would split their
    sides laughing when playing it; non-insider surely would find their
    funny moments there (for me, one of those moments was the "suicidal
    robot"), but the overall effect naturally would be much weaker.
    Still, the setting is quite rich (especially for a puzzle-fest),
    though not the deepest one. By the way, the game comes with a number
    of "feelies" -- materials from the original competition distribution,
    and a text file explaining some of the MIT-specific things. It'd be
    advisable to read them, as well.

    To sum up, I'd say the game isn't for everyone -- but it isn't to
    ignore completely, either, for it certainly occupies its place in IF
    history. Among other things, it probably holds the unofficial record
    in having the most NPCs in a single room. It's difficult to say
    whether you're going to enjoy playing it, but here's a rule of thumb:
    if you have an idea what an imaginary plane is, you probably should
    try it. Otherwise, stay away from GC!

    SUMMARY:

    PLOT: Just an "excuse" for a puzzle-fest
    ATMOSPHERE: Humorous, but many jokes got over my head
    WRITING: Wonderfully ironic
    GAMEPLAY: OK, for me it was "Follow the walkthrough"
    BONUSES: Unnkulian references; "suicidal robots"; vampire bunnies;
             Barbies looking a bit stiff; and many other things
    CHARACTERS: Mostly MIT-specific
    PUZZLES: Very elegant, but many are impossible to solve

    -=-=-

    TITLE: The Horror of Rylvania
    AUTHOR: D. A. Leary
    EMAIL: N/A
    DATE: 1993
    PARSER: TADS Standard
    AVAILABILITY: Former shareware, now free
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/adventions/adventions.zip

    Rylvania is reviewed here, because it's been (like the Unnkulian
    games) published by Adventions, has been written by the "father" of
    the Unnkulian universe, and contains several references to Unnkulia.
    However, it has little else to do with Unnkulia; it's a horror story.
    And it left me with mixed feelings.

    On one hand, the plot and the atmosphere were great (despite the
    Unnkulian references -- they really seemed out of place there). On the
    other hand... But let's begin from the start.

    Well, the game starts with you and your friend Carolyn being attacked by
    a pack of wolves during a trip through Rylvania, a small country
    somewhere in the backwoods of Central Europe. Carolyn gets seriously
    wounded, and your first task in the game is to help her. It gripped me
    at once, and I started to follow the plot enthusiastically. This run for
    Carolyn's life went on for twenty or so turns. Then, just as things
    really got rolling, I was resolutely grabbed by the collar, pulled back,
    and told, "Not so fast, my friend. From now on, you've got to do it the
    usual way -- explore, pick up things, and enjoy yourself". This sudden
    change alone was baffling enough; to make things worse, it turned out
    that one had to be pretty careful, if not pedantic, in collecting items
    -- the game is split in two parts, with many rooms in the first part no
    longer accessible when you reach the second stage; however, puzzles at
    stage 2 often require objects from stage 1 to be solved, so that you're
    very likely to lock yourself out of victory, and find out something is
    wrong only several hundred turns later (sometimes without a hint what
    item is needed, exactly). Also, be prepared for a couple or more
    restarts; many decisions in the beginning phase of Rylvania depend on
    knowledge you only acquire later in the game. Combined with the fact
    that the game sometimes requires actions that seem completely
    inappropriate in the given situation, it makes a thorough strategic
    pre-planning practically inevitable.

    This degenerating into ADVENTURE is all the more a pity as the
    puzzles don't seem to be the main focus of the game, and as the
    storytelling aspect of the game has got so much potential. I'm not
    saying that the puzzles are bad -- they are very solidly done for the
    most part, but they're... well, unexceptional. I like creative,
    challenging puzzles (though I'm not very good at solving them); here,
    however, I'd rather prefer puzzles that'd be easier, but would fit
    the plot better: as it is, the plot and the puzzles seem to literally
    fight against each other.

    Still, the game's plot (which has several interesting twists), and
    the scary atmosphere make it worth playing (I'm deliberately not
    going into detail here in order not to spoil the fun). However, I
    suggest you keep a walkthrough handy for the first stage of the game:
    this might prevent you from many disappointments.

    SUMMARY:

    PLOT: A high-quality horror story
    ATMOSPHERE: Scary, though Unnkulia references spoil it a bit
    WRITING: Supports the atmosphere
    GAMEPLAY: Requires too much pre-planning
    BONUSES: Nice background
    CHARACTERS: Don't add much
    PUZZLES: Hamper the plot
    DIFFICULTY: The claimed rating of 5 out of 10 seems to be correct

    -=-=-

    Index of sources used:

    1.  Several reviews by Carl Muckenhoupt and Duncan Stevens from Baf's Guide
        to Interactive Fiction

    2.  The Legend Lives! review by M. Sean Molley, from SPAG issue Nr. 5

    3.  Interview with David M. Baggett, from SPAG issue Nr. 5

    4.  TADS Manual by Michael Roberts

    ###########################################################

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