Saturday, October 6, 2007

IF Comp 2007: Gathered in Darkness


What starts out a little clunky turns out to be a nice, if not spectacular pulpy semi-Lovecraftian text adventure. The prose is serviceable, with some typos and a little grammar trouble, but nothing too distracting. Plot and structure make it seem like a modest Call of Cthulhu scenario made interactive. The puzzles are sensible too (again), but a little on the conservative side.
Flaws are sometimes (and only sometimes) spotty implementation (why can I open a desk drawer not with "open drawer", but only with "open desk"? -could actually be a problem of the QUEST interpreter for all I know), and the "gameyness" of the thing, leading to moments of clunky exposition and reducing any feelings of creepiness.
And the writing sometimes falls into moments like this:

The beam of your flashlight catches the bag just in time for you to see his eyes, like boiled eggs, droop casually from their sockets and begin to float like little clipper ships in the pool of blood that has been steadily collecting in the bottom of the sack.

Seeing that it is the author's first piece of IF, I still expect good things of future projects. I'm looking forward to playing the full (longer) version after the comp.

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