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ISSUE #42 - October 2, 2005

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

                             ISSUE #42

            Edited by Jimmy Maher (maher SP@G grandecom.net)
                           October 2, 2005

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

    SPAG #42 is copyright (c) 2005 by Jimmy Maher.
    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 -----------------------------------------------------

    Dastardly
    Flat Feet
    Future Boy!
    Return to Ditch Day

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

    (shuffle, shuffle) Is this thing on?  Oh!  Hello, there!  Jimmy Maher,
    latest caretaker of this venerable institution called SPAG, here!

    I will venture to guess that most you don't know me at all.  The sum total
    of my contributions to the IF community so far is one still slightly buggy
    Z-code interpreter that I really must get back to and polish up, a few
    reviews for SPAG, and the occasional newsgroup post.  Be that as it may,
    Paul O'Brian saw something in my meager corpus that he liked.  Assuming it
    was unwise to distrust such a distinguished IFer, I accepted his job offer,
    and so, here I am, the next editor of SPAG.

    SPAG is most definitely NOT all about me, but I will nevertheless tell you
    all a little bit about whom I am and how I came to be here...

    1) For the long version, read on.
    2) For the short version, skip down to where you see this... -->

    Like so many of you, I was introduced to IF through Infocom.  Back in 1984,
    my parents bought me a Commodore 64 computer for Christmas.  I hadn't asked
    for a computer, mind you, and I was actually rather disappointed to find
    one under the tree in lieu of all the other grand possibilities.  I was
    even more disappointed when I realized that this magic machine was
    effectively useless.  You see, my parents had had great insight in thinking
    I would (eventually) take to computers with a passion, but they didn't have
    the practical knowledge to realize that a computer without any storage
    media whatsoever -- no tape drive, no disk drive, nothing -- wasn't much
    good to anyone.  The Commodore 64 was soon relegated to my closet as an
    interesting but impractical curiousity.

    Months later, I was at the local Waldenbooks browsing for something, likely
    sci-fi novels or role playing game materials, when I stumbled into the
    software aisle.  (Remember those days when bookstores sold software?
    Wasn?t that sort of cool?)  I was stunned to find dozens of colorful boxes
    offering undreamt of adventure, all through that useless little gadget that
    my parents had bought me and I had almost forgotten about.  The games that
    caught my eye most of all were those from Infocom, for they promised me the
    opportunity to become the hero of my own interactive story, and the Infocom
    game that caught my eye most of all was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
    Galaxy, for I had just finished the novel, and Douglas Adam's surreal
    universe had left quite an impression indeed.  I spent virtually every
    weekend after that examining -- nay, let's be honest, stroking -- those
    boxes that offered me the opportunity to pilot a fighter plane, to plan and
    execute D-Day, to play Dungeons and Dragons without having to drum up four
    or five equally nerdy friends... and, most of all, to wander with Zaphod,
    Ford, and Arthur through the world of Hitchhiker's.  When not fondling
    software at the mall, I spent my free time explaining to my parents that
    what I would like, what I needed more than anything I had ever needed
    before, was a disk drive for Christmas, and a certain gray-boxed game to go
    along with it.  Of course, dear people that they are, they came through.  I
    received my disk drive, along with a nice color monitor, and Hitchhiker's,
    along with a war game my father had picked out called Crusade in Europe.
    That Christmas morning I took my first stumbling steps into the world of
    IF, and into interactive entertainment in general.  I have been hooked, to
    one degree or another, ever since.

    And then? I grew up.  For better or for worse, computers and computer
    gaming remained a big part of my life throughout adolescence, and probably
    had much to do with my solid C average in high school.  I bought some games
    and I pirated many more.  I traded my Commodore 64 in for a 128, and traded
    the 128 in for an Amiga.  Along the way, I managed to learn quite a lot
    about how computers work and how to make them do what you want, knowledge
    which still serves me well today.

    By the early 90s, I was out of high school, and the Amiga scene in the
    U.S. was beginning its slow death spiral.  I belatedly began to realize
    that there is a great big magical world outside the computer screen.  I
    sold my Amiga and spent a few years wandering bleary-eyed through the Real
    World, trying to puzzle out what I had missed during my decade-long digital
    dream.

    Then I stumbled into a good job at the IT services company I still work for
    today, and suddenly at least one foot was back in the realm of geekdom.
    This was a different sort of world,  where people used (grrr!) Microsoft
    products on the desktop and the operating systems I was to administer had
    names like Unix, MVS, and OS/400 and ran on big machines larger than my car
    that nevertheless had really bad graphics.  I adopted.

    I spent some time doing the corporate America thing full-on, but I began to
    find it unsettling.  I decided to shift gears.  I slowed down at work,
    managing to get myself slotted into a rather cozy and low-stress (if hardly
    career-enhancing) position and then I went back to college as, of all
    perverse things, a liberal arts major.  I am now one semester away from
    finishing up my undergrad work.  I vaguely plan to continue on to graduate
    school, where I hope to spend at least part of my time studying what some
    call "new media" and some call "humanities computing."  Basically I am
    still as excited by the potential of these strange imagination machines of
    ours as I was as a boy back in that Waldenbooks all those years ago.  I am
    interested in introducing the computer to the storyteller, and vice versa.
    Perhaps now you understand why I'm really, really happy to have this
    particular gig.

    --> One day several years ago I started feeling nostalgic and typed
    "infocom" into a search engine.  Like so many before me, I was surprised
    and delighted to discover not only a wealth of information on our favorite
    game publisher, but also a thriving community of authors and players still
    working in their tradition.  I never left.  Oh, I wasn't prominent, mind
    you.  I lurked more than anything, and played quite a few games, and then I
    wrote an interpreter for the hell of it, and I also wrote a few reviews,
    and I even started to post a bit (but not too much) on the newsgroups, and
    then suddenly I was the editor of SPAG.  Somewhere a butterfly rests from a
    job well done.  Funny how things work out sometimes...

    IF NEWS -------------------------------------------------------------------

    COMP 2005
    Yes, the IF Comp is upon us once again.  This year we have 36 entries.  If
    any of them makes a strong impression on you, please think about working up
    a review for SPAG... and stay tuned for SPAG's special Comp issue at year's
    end, which will feature interviews with the top three finishers.
    http://www.ifcomp.org

    INTROCOMP 2005
    Another IntroComp has come and gone.  Congratulations to all the entrants,
    and especially to the top three finishers: Deadsville by William McDuff,
    Weishaupt Scholars by Michael C. Martin, and The Fox, the Dragon, and the
    Stale Loaf of Bread by David Welbourn.  We will hopefully see these games
    completed someday.  In the meantime, feel free to submit a review for SPAG
    if any of the intros made an impression on you.

    IF FOR DUMMIES
    David Cornelson really wants to bring IF to a wider audience, and I concur
    wholeheartedly.  As his latest venture in that direction, he has created a
    new version of the IF Promotional CD.  This CD allows the newbie to start
    playing a variety of quality IF right away, just by putting the CD into the
    drive.  Windows only, but then that?s where most of our untapped market
    probably is, isn't it?  Share this with your friends!
    http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Promotional_CD%2C_July_2005_Edition

    THE UNSOLVABLE PUZZLE?
    Gonzalo Garramuno is the latest to try his hand at creating a practical
    system for mapping IF games.  Maybe, just maybe he has succeeded where so
    many others have failed.  IFMapper is multi-platform, but requires that
    Ruby scripting language be installed on your OS of choice.
    http://rubyforge.org/projects/ifmapper.

    THE GREAT 2005 NON-COMP REVIEW PROJECT
    Greg Boettcher wants to make sure that every IF game released in 2005 gets
    at least one review, and he wants you to help out.
    http://www.springthing.net/noncomp/noncomp2005.htm.

    THE UNIFIED INTERPRETER THEORY
    Tor Andersson has brought interpreters for many IF systems together under
    one unified front end.  In its present incarnation, Cugel supports AGT,
    Alan, Z-Code, Glulx, Hugo, Level 9, Magnetic Scrolls, Adrift, TADS 2, and
    TADS 3.  Impressive, no?  This is alpha software, but already usable and
    well worth keeping an eye on.  Mac OS X only... why do they always get the
    good stuff?
    http://ghostscript.com/~tor/software/cugel.

    SPAG NEEDS YOU!
    You have probably already noticed that the pickings are a bit slim in this
    issue.  Only four new reviews is a bit disappointing, but SPAG will soldier
    on.  Please, please think about lending the magazine your support.  The
    next issue will be the annual Comp edition, featuring interviews with the
    top three finishers from this year's Competition.  Why not help flesh out
    the issue even more by contributing one or more reviews?  Reviews of Comp
    games are welcome, as are the following unjustly neglected titles that are
    still oh so deserving of a review:

    SPAG 10 MOST WANTED LIST
    ========================
    1.  All Hope Abandon
    2.  Dawn Of The Demon
    3.  1893: A World's Fair Mystery
    4.  Finding Martin
    5.  The Corn Identity
    6.  Mystery House Taken Over games (any, some, or all!)
    7.  Narcolepsy
    8.  Building
    9.  Threnody
    10. Whom The Telling Changed

    NEWS FROM THE WIDER WORLD--------------------------------------------------

    THE ESCAPIST
    The Escapist is a new online magazine dedicated to games, the games
    industry, and its effect on culture. Serious, thoughtful writing is all too
    rare in game journalism.  These guys are making a brave stab at elevating
    the discourse, and they deserve our support.  (And they've already done an
    article on IF to boot.)
    http://www.escapistmagazine.com.

    STAR CONTROL 2 REVISITED
    Some of you may have played a game called Star Control 2 back in the day.
    If you did, I am certain that you remember it.  This space opera brought
    together multiple disparate gameplay elements, grafted them to a compelling
    plot, threw in clever and sometimes hilarious writing, and out of the whole
    created one of the most compelling games of... well, ever.  Yes, it really
    is that good, and a stellar example of what interactive storytelling can be
    when it's done right.  The creators of Star Control 2 released the source
    code for the 3DO console version in 2002, and a group of fans have used it
    to make a new version of the game that combines the best features of the PC
    and console versions.  If you remember Star Control 2 fondly, take this
    opportunity to revisit an old friend.  And if you haven't played it, you
    need to.  Yes, it really is that good.  Don't let the early version number
    fool you.  The current release is complete and stable.
    http://sc2.sourceforge.net

    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.
    VERSION: Release 23

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

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

    From: Greg Boettcher

    TITLE: Dastardly
    AUTHOR: Andy Chase
    EMAIL: dastardly.20.banjo SP@G spamgourmet.com
    DATE: December 2004
    PARSER: Inform
    SUPPORTS: Z-code ports
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware; Author's site or 24 Hours of Inform site
    URL: http://achase.net/files/32/dastardly
         or http://kevan.org/hoi/
    VERSION: Release 1

    I came to Dastardly with pretty low expectations. I had never before played
    a game from 24 Hours of Inform, the contest for which this game was
    written. I was expecting something not much better than a SpeedIF game.
    What I got instead was a game that has much to admire in its atmosphere and
    character development, although it does have a particularly serious flaw.

    The third 24 Hours of Inform contest had two basic rules: write a game in
    24 hours, and set the game in a theatre, featuring a petticoat, an
    advertisement, something which is repainted, and a trapdoor. These
    requirements led Andy Chase to set his game in a financially troubled
    theatre in Victorian London. Your are an ambitious playwright, while your
    financial backer, James, has ruined your hopes by turning your theatre into
    a burlesque house while he indulges in excesses of drink and flesh.

    In the "about" menus for this game, Andy Chase says that Dastardly probably
    contains a lot of historical inaccuracies. Maybe, but I didn't notice any.
    In fact, I really liked the game's setting and atmosphere. Another thing I
    liked was the extent to which its characters were developed, far more than
    I would have expected in a speed-written game. You may not be able to talk
    to James much during the opening segment, but you can read your journal to
    gain insight into him, yourself, and others. Before you are done exploring
    the theatre, you have a fairly good idea of what you must do, and why.

    Unfortunately, this game has a serious bug that prevented me from being
    able to finish it. I thought maybe it was just me, so I asked my
    girlfriend, another IF veteran, to play the game, but she got stuck at the
    same place that I did. I wrote to the author and found out that we had both
    essentially done everything we were supposed to do, but were stuck because
    of a serious bug that often turns the final puzzle into a roadblock.

    The other major flaw is shallow implementation, whereby a lot of scenery
    items can't be examined, and lots of other details are overlooked. Of
    course, this is what you'd expect in a game written in 24 hours.

    Do I recommend Dastardly? Well, I guess that depends on whether you're
    willing to write to the author for help, because I'd expect most people to
    get tripped up by the game's major bug. But if you are so inclined, then
    yes, play it. It's a short, enjoyable little game, with decent characters
    and an interesting but flawed puzzle.

    I'll be able to recommend this game much more strongly when Release 2 comes
    out, or if hints or a walkthrough are released. Even if there is never a
    Release 2 (and there usually hasn't been for 24 Hours of Inform games),
    this game shows promise, and I'd be interested to see whatever Andy Chase
    does next.

    P.S. Now that I've written to Andy Chase for help on finishing his game, he
    told me that his interest in Inform is somewhat rekindled now. He says that
    a new version of Dastardly may indeed be on the way, though he can't say
    when. To check for any updates, or to get the most recent version of the
    game, visit: http://achase.net/files/32/dastardly

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

    From:	Neil Butters

    TITLE: Flat Feet
    AUTHOR: Joel Ray Holveck
    EMAIL: joelh SP@G piquan.org
    DATE: March 13, 2005
    PARSER: Inform
    SUPPORTS: Zcode interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: freeware; IF Archive
    URL: http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/springthing/2005/flatfeet.zip
    VERSION: Release 1

    When I began playing Flat Feet I was a bit surprised that it only ranked
    fourth in the 2005 Spring Thing Competition. Despite not having played the
    other games I assumed they must have been very good to place better than
    this one. However, it quickly became apparent that the game's  auspicious
    beginning was a broken promise.

    In Flat Feet you are a cat and you have a detective agency with your ferret
    partner, Ralph. You haven't had a mystery to solve in a long time but this
    quickly changes. The mystery involves you and Ralph traveling around San
    Francisco trying to solve a series of robberies.

    The game opens with a clever prologue and enjoyable interplay between you
    and Ralph. After you receive your assignment and head off there is even an
    "in-joke" that anybody who has attempted to learn the INFORM language will
    likely appreciate. But after that the game becomes tedious as you try to
    solve a couple of contrived puzzles to achieve the simplest tasks.
    Depending on what you already have and the places YOU have visited, these
    puzzles could require a lot of traveling that only slows down the pace.
    Grannted the places you have to visit are interesting authentic San
    Francisco locations but the descriptions could have been more interesting
    and more detailed. None of these puzzles contributed directly to plot
    development and thus the mystery is thin and the perpetrator leaves behind
    some evidence that makes you question her intelligence.

    The game also doesn't take advantage of some interesting ideas. I thought
    that being a cat would provide some interesting twists, ie using your
    agility to solve a puzzle or two. In fact, the first puzzle would have been
    solved easily by a cat. Unfortunately being a cat is irrelevant. At one
    point you are offered a different point-of-view of the city but again the
    game doesn't really take advantage of it in its room descriptions (although
    this may have been an attempt by the author to comment on how dirty the
    city is, play the game and you'll see what I mean).

    There is a rather poor attempt at creating alternate endings. The final
    showdown could occur in any of six locations but the ending is ultimately
    always the same. You don't even have to get all the evidence to catch the
    robber, the one piece of evidence you do need is so generic that it allows
    for any of six possible suspects. Yet this flimsy evidence is still enough
    proof to confront the robber.

    There are some aspects of the game I did enjhoy.  The game was sometimes
    very witty and the comeraderie between yu and the ferret was fun. I liked
    the locations (maybe only because I visited there once) and there are some
    bizarre happenings that may hold some interest. I didn't encounter any bugs
    or any problems interfacing with the game although some room descriptions
    only make sense the first time you enter them or approach the room from a
    certain direction.

    I think Flat Feet is probably worth playing if you are interested in the
    San Francisco area and would like to read about some of the attractions
    there. Otherwise you may find the game a bit too tedious  and the weak plot
    won't maintain your interest.

    	Note: There is a walkthrough and source code files available with
    the game.  The walkthrough is a sample transcript complete with room
    descriptions so it may be tempting to simply read that and not play the
    game.

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

    From: Soenke Klettner

    TITLE: Future Boy!
    AUTHOR: Kent Tessman
    EMAIL: kent SP@G generalcoffee.com
    DATE: 2004
    PARSER: HUGO
    SUPPORTS: HUGO interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: commercial; http://www.generalcoffee.com
    URL: http://www.generalcoffee.com.
    VERSION: ?

    Future Boy! Is the first commercial project developed with the HUGO-engine,
    written by HUGO’s creator Kent Tessman. As expected, it is flawless with
    regard to programming and parsing and it is a convincing proof of HUGO’s
    power. But what is more important, it is one of the best games I have
    played in years.

    The story: Even though the title suggests otherwise, you are not Future
    Boy, but his roommate. Nevertheless, it is up to you to save the city from
    the evil supervillain Clayton Eno. To minimize spoilers, let me just say
    that the plot takes many interesting and surprising turns and is
    beautifully designed. Plus, you meet very interesting characters, some
    friends, some foes, some something else. As in any good action comic (or
    movie, by the way) the pace quickens towards the end. At the same time, the
    difficulty of the puzzles rises, thus stretching the suspense to a maximum
    (unless you use the in-built hint system prematurely). The game features
    congenial graphics, animation sequences and music bits. Cartoonish in
    style, they add to the superhero flair effectively, but they are neither
    necessary nor helpful for advancing in the game. So the enjoyment doesn’t
    suffer too much on a system without graphic support (e.g. Palm). The voice
    acting deserves special praise: it is amazingly well done and very
    professional. I didn’t discover any major flaws worth mentioning.

    The game itself has a linear structure, which means there are no
    alternative endings and the plot doesn’t develop in different directions
    depending on the player‘s actions. In the beginning,  there is always only
    one puzzle at hand to be solved to advance the story. In the middle game,
    the structure becomes much more open and the player can decide which puzzle
    to try next, so he doesn’t get stuck that easy. The level of difficulty
    starts very moderate, so even the unpracticed (or untalented) puzzle solver
    will advance easily and get motivated to try to solve the later, more
    difficult puzzles by himself as well. This later puzzles get pretty hard
    and multi-layered, but are always fair, solvable and well provided with
    clues.

    There are two features of the game I would like to see in every future text
    adventure: a "goal" command which tells you what (basically) to do next and
    a short summary of what happened so far after each restore.

    So, I really recommand the game to anyone who likes superhero stories, good
    puzzles and/or good text adventures in general. It is not cheap, but worth
    the price (although I wouldn’t order the deluxe package again, which is 5 $
    more for a common CD case and a four page booklet).

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

    From:   Valentine Kopteltsev

    TITLE: Return to Ditch Day
    AUTHOR: Michael J. Roberts
    EMAIL: mjr SP@G hotmail.com
    DATE: June 12, 2004
    PARSER: TADS3
    SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: freeware; IF Archive
    URL: http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/tads/return-to-ditch-day.zip
    VERSION: Release 1

    Prepare for a nostalgic trip to Pasadena, California, back to your alma
    mater - the California Institute of Technology, which you once explored
    when playing Ditch Day Drifter.

    One of the problems with nostalgic trips is, the traveller risks going
    through a major disappointment in the end. Like, when getting to the place
    you used to live as a child, you suddenly find out that your wonderful
    playing area full of mysterious corners and secluded nooks turns out to be
    a rather dull patch squeezed between faceless blocks of flats, and the
    music school, the way to which you remember as quite a jorney, lies in fact
    within a five minutes' walk from your former house.

    The first good news is, you won't have such "shrinkage" troubles with
    Return to DD. There are several reasons for that. The first one has little
    to do with the skills of the game author: the thing is, the world
    perception difference between a student and an alum isn't as harsh as for
    children and adults;).

    But even if it was, I doubt you'd have noticed any decrease in size. That's
    because the game world itself has grown considerably bigger. I don't mean
    just the number of rooms, although Return to DD has about twice as many of
    them as DD Drifter (that is, if you don't count in the Behavior Lab maze in
    the latter); rather, I'm talking of the way the rooms are depicted.

    What passed for room descriptions in DD Drifter, were essentially lists of
    exits. That's entirely different in Return to DD: even locations in the
    area leaving the least space for being elaborate, the steam tunnels, can be
    distinguished between not just by the directions they lead; other rooms
    have yet more detailed and vivid descriptions, with practically all the
    objects mentioned there implemented. You can bet this makes the whole thing
    seem  more real.

    Still, with all those changes, the place remains quite recognizable. There
    are topographical resemblances -- in particular, the room you have to solve
    the "stack" (a challenge you need to overcome to get into a senior's room)
    for is the very same as in DD Drifter, and its nearest surroundings have a
    similar structure. Some other major sections, like the aforementioned steam
    tunnels, don't retain the layout but maintain the overall atmosphere, the
    "feel" of the rooms. Another thing "inherited" by Return to DD from its
    predecessor is the humour, which, however, has become more brilliant yet
    much less harmless; in fact, it gets rather spiteful at times -- for
    example, read the brochures in the Carreer Center Office. This is quite
    understandable -- our player character clearly has rid himself of most of
    the illusions he had during the years that have passed since he graduated.

    This brings us to the characters. The very generalized, "about the same as
    always"-looking drifter has developed to a man with a well-defined
    personality. The folks he has to deal with also aren't the sparingly
    animated cardboard puppets they used to be anymore; it was amazing to find
    out they have streaks I previously encountered in real people (for
    instance, I myself recently baited one of my workmates with getting a huge
    project done in the couple of days remaining till her vacation pretty much
    the same way the workers in Return to DD tormented their colleague).

    With all the praise the "troupe" deserves, one design choice concerning
    character animation seemed somewhat odd to me: namely, the way conversation
    was organized. I think it's best described with the term "implicit menu-
    based system". In most cases, when you initiate a dialogue with someone,
    the game comes up with topic/action suggestions, like this:

      >TALK TO TIFFANY
      As you open your mouth, Tiffany suddenly starts to cry.
      (You could try to comfort her, or pummel her into silence.)

    These suggestions really work like menu choices: they only are used to
    advance the conversation, and the parser doesn't understand them if they're
    typed somewhere else in the game. The only difference is, instead of
    selecting the options by number, the player has to re-type them, which is
    somewhat tedious (in spite of the fact they can be abbreviated). As far as
    I see it, the theoretical benefit of such a system is more freedom for the
    player, since, in addition to the options suggested, (s)he can enter some
    other command. In practice, however, I didn't encounter any situations
    where this extra freedom was needed, so that a "normal" menu-based
    conversation seemed more appropriate. Well, maybe it's just a matter of
    getting used to; anyway, making the suggested options clickable wouldn't do
    any harm.

    Having such great characters in one's game, it'd be rather stupid to stick
    to the old trusted treasure hunt, instead of providing them with a decent
    story. Without getting into much detail, let me assure you -- there is a
    good plot, and, which is even better, an optional semi-mystery by-plot. The
    puzzles needed to be solved in order to complete the main story line are
    kept on the easy side. The player never remains without guideance, as the
    "tactical subgoals" always are formulated clearly. One of the puzzles was
    of the "refer to data source one to find out about data source two, then
    refer to data source two to find out about data source three, then [put the
    necessary number of iterations here]" type, which I'm personally not so
    fond of, yet it was just an episode, and anyway short enough to avoid
    becoming annoying. Also, a couple of puzzles required some random
    exploration of the surroundings, but it seemed quite logical under the
    given context, and was, because of the splendid game world, more of a
    pleasure than of an issue. The puzzles for the by-plot were more
    challenging, but still manageable. Since we're talking about puzzles -
    unlike its predecessor, Return to DD features an adaptive hint system of
    top quality that keeps track of the player's progress in the game.

    To put it short - the sequel, quite unsurprisingly, turned out to be
    superior to the original game in almost every respect. The only point where
    DD Drifter probably beats its offspring is, encouraging new authors to
    write in TADS. I mean, after completing DDD, a novice author probably is
    going to feel a fit of energy and enthusiasm, because the game really is
    very simple from the technical point of view; Return to DD, on the other
    hand, is more likely to put him in a state of depression ("Bah, I'll never
    be able to write THAT good!"). Still, if I had to choose between the game's
    overall quality and its promotional value, I'd undoubtedly opt for the
    first one.

    SNATS (Score Not Affecting The Scoreboard):

    PLOT: The main plot is decent, the by-plot even makes things fancy (1.4)
    ATMOSPHERE: Collegiate (1.5)
    WRITING: Great fun to read (1.6)
    GAMEPLAY: Well-guided (1.3)
    BONUSES: Detailed setting, brilliant humour (1.4)
    TOTAL: 7.2
    CHARACTERS: One of the strongest aspects of the game that has no weak
    points whatsoever (1.8)
    PUZZLES: Solid, but they don't seem to be the keystone of the game (1.2)
    DIFFICULTY: Optimally suited for introducing novices to IF (6 out of 10)

    ...And no, there won't be any SNATS for Ditch Day Drifter, because that'd
    be an unfair comparison.

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