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DELRON
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Reflections Reviews
Author: Timberwulf
Date: 2004
TADS
What does AIF stand for? Adult Interactive Fiction. If you likely to be offended by games with sexual content, you are advised not open these files.
Reviewed by A. Ninny
I came away with very mixed feelings about “Reflections,” which was unfortunate
because it is a game with an intricately crafted and intriguing story, dark
setting, interesting characters, and the atmosphere is very fully rendered.
I though the story was creative, but it took a big effort for me to suspend my
disbelief. To me, the mimesis swap that happened after the fight scene was
abrupt, and only on subsequent play-throughs did it begin to seem to flow better
– the fogginess in the details in the manor lend a certain surrealness to the
surroundings, giving you the impression that you aren’t really someplace that
exists in the characters’ real lives. Once I managed to get my mind around what
was happening in the darkest parts of the story, I enjoyed them, mainly because
you feel convincing emotional reactions as the main character as you learn about
your past.
So why should I have mixed feelings? Well, there are a number of problems with
the game, both technical and in the story:
One problem was a stack of bugs. To list a few, in the sex scene, you receive
TADS stack overflow errors when you attempt to rub or lick Alisha’s tits, you
get no response whatsoever when you ask Alisha to rub your cock or to ‘fuck me.’
Timburwulf acknowledges this in his readme, but clothing is also incompletely
implemented, but gets in the way of some actions even if not worn. Attempting
some sex acts after the mirror is broken also returns no responses, there are
‘ask Alisha about’ subject problems and the list, unfortunately, goes on from
there.
Another problem, in my mind, is the brevity of the sex scene. You are given a
very limited number of turns to engage in sex acts before the next part of the
story begins. Maybe that is ok, simply due to the fact that the sex coding is
very incomplete – you do what you can with what the game has in its current
state, then move on.
The implementation of the transition story also bothered me. You have nothing to
do but wait until the death scene (actually, you are forced to move from room to
room at some points to advance the action), and then you need to start sorting
it all out, but even then, you need to know exactly what questions to ask to get
meaningful or different answers.
All in all, I felt this game can be a very successful game, but it needs a lot
of work.
Mini-reviews and scores:
Concept: 7.5. The game had an interesting story and good writing to back it up.
Characters: 8. You really feel like you get to know them.
Technical: 2. Extremely buggy.
Playability: 6.5. Generally the game played ok. Many objects mentioned are not
given descriptions, which is always annoying.
Hotness: 4. Sex scene was fragmented and too short, and many commands were not
implemented. The sex writing was pretty good.
Enjoyment: 6.5. Interesting backstory and good writing, but tons of errors
hampered enjoyment. The game possibly needs more options at the end.
Reflections is scored 6th overall out of 12 reviewed.
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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