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DELRON
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Marooned
Reviews
Author: Bruce Davis
Date: 2006
ADRIFT 4.0
Reviewed by
Paul O'Brian
Marooned was the first ADRIFT game I've ever played. Anytime I review a game whose system is new to me, that review can't help but be partly about the system
as well as the game itself, since it's often difficult to disentangle who is responsible for what in the overall playing experience. Unfortunately, what with
all the growling on the newsgroups from ADRIFT advocates who feel their system isn't getting a fair shake, it's a little tough to advance an opinion on it --
anything less than unadulterated praise runs the risk of getting me labelled a "snob" or an "elitist" or something. Nonetheless, I shall brave the waters, and
try to discuss the entire experience of playing Marooned, starting with the things for which I suspect ADRIFT was responsible, then moving on to those
things that I'm guessing were done by the game's author.
In the interest of diverting the WOAA (Wrath of ADRIFT Advocates), I'll even begin with the things
I liked about the interface. The ADRIFT runtime has a clean environment with two windows: one for the command line and one for the game text. The overall presentation was attractive and aesthetic, though the text window used a few too
many newlines for my taste. One particularly interesting feature is that clicking on any word in the text window will insert that word into the command
line. I'm too much of a typist to be messing with the mouse in that fashion, but
I can see where it could be a really cool feature, especially after one got used
to it. (I was so unused to it at first, unaware of it in fact, that when I clicked back onto the interpreter window after doing something in another
window, I accidentally clicked on a command word and couldn't figure out why the
game seemed to be executing commands without my typing them!)
A similar convenience is the "auto-complete" option, which allows you to just type a
couple of letters from any dictionary word and attempts to guess what you mean, Microsoft-style. This option was a little wonky at times -- for example, you
find a "dented gas can" at one point which the game will auto-complete if you start typing "gas", but not if you start with "dented" or "can". Still,
quirkiness aside, this was a great time saver, because it also shows you right away which nouns in the descriptions haven't been implemented.
Some other cool
options are available from the menu bar, most notably an excellent automapper, which operates in a separate window but creates a lovely map of the game's landscape. This is an innovation for which many people have been clamoring, and it was especially welcome in this game, where many of the locations have the
exact same name. There's also a "control panel" which can execute common commands for you, even a "goto" command which gives you a listbox of discovered
locations and sends you there via the best path.
Finally, I must mention that I appreciated the inclusion of "Verbose" as a menu option, something I can just
leave turned on for all games rather than having to explicitly request it each time.
OK, so there are a substantial of things I liked about the ADRIFT interface. Sadly, there are also a number of things I really hated. First and foremost is
the problem of the parser. ADRIFT's parser violates all three of the current tenets in Paul's Parser Manifesto (which I made up in response to another
nonstandard parser, the one in last year's homebrew game "Lunatix".) Those tenets are as follows:
1. Parsers must not pretend to understand more than they do.
2. Parsers must not give smarmy, unhelpful error messages.
3. Parsers must not ask questions without being prepared to receive an answer.
Well, I'm not actually sure it breaks #3 -- I got too angry to try it. The exchange went something like this (I've inserted prompts before my commands for
clarity's sake -- ADRIFT doesn't put command prompts in its text):
> look in it
(the first aid kit)
This is a standard issue first aid kit. The first aid kit is open. Inside the first aid kit is a small bottle.
> x bottle
This is a small bottle for pills. The bottle is closed.
> open bottle
You open the small bottle.
> look in it
(the small bottle)
This is a small bottle for pills. The bottle is open.
> x bottle
This is a small bottle for pills. The bottle is open.
> look in bottle
This is a small bottle for pills. The bottle is open.
> empty bottle
I don't understand what you want me to do with the small bottle.
> get all from bottle
You are not holding a small bottle.
> get it
(the small bottle)
You are not holding a first aid kit.
> get kit
Take what?
> ^%$# you! [Expletive removed to protect the easily offended] I really don't think there's any need for language like that! Frustrating exchanges like this
were not uncommon, but even more infuriating were ADRIFT's violations of tenet #2. Probably the worst offender was this one:
>undo
I can't undo your blundering.
Let me tell you an easy way to get me angry fast: give me an insulting message in response to a reasonable command. This one broke all previous speed records.
Finally, there were the violations of tenet #1, most obvious when you type "x [anything the parser doesn't understand]" -- instead of telling you it didn't
understand you, it just says "Nothing special." I hope that Santa will still bring me presents this year despite the fact that I couldn't resist typing "x
adrift." All these parser problems more than blew away any pleasure I derived from ADRIFT's other innovations, because the parser is more important than the
nifty features. Let me say that one more time, and listen up, system authors: THE PARSER IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE NIFTY FEATURES. Further crippling the
ADRIFT experience was the sublimely aggravating policy that there is no scripting option as such -- only a menu command that will record a transcript of
the game *thus far*, a command that is naturally unavailable after a game ends! Who uses scripting, you ask? I do -- I use it to write reviews.
Because I didn't find my way around this misfeature until I'd been playing Marooned for an hour or so, it's difficult for me to assess my experience with
much accuracy, except to say this: Marooned is not the game I'd use to champion ADRIFT. To the problems in ADRIFT's parser, this game adds its own irritations.
For one thing, there's a starvation puzzle. Game designers, please quit it with the starvation puzzles. Like mazes, they were interesting long ago, but no
longer. They're not clever, they're not challenging, and they're not fun -- they
just suck. This one was especially offensive because none of the food you find actually staves off starvation, and a couple of perfectly legitimate food items
aren't edible, according to the game. Compounding this problem is the fact that there are tons of red herrings in the game, which means that you waste your time
trying to figure out how to use something that's actually useless, and consequently you keep dying over, and over, and over again. Dull, dull, dull,
and ultimately rage- inducing. The premise of the game was fine, but it's hampered by severe design problems, as well as the more fundamental weaknesses
of the ADRIFT interface. All in all, I'd rather play Guess the Verb again.
Rating: 3.6
Reviewed by Dorothy Millard
After finishing with some afternoon fishing, you notice some rather dark and
menacing clouds have snuck up on you. While preparing to head back to
port, the wind picks up and jagged streaks of lightning stab the sky. A
heavy rain begins to pelt you. The waves grow stronger and threaten to
dump you in the raging ocean. Dark clouds drift overhead and the ocean
swirls angrily around the boat. You can barely make out anything in front
of you. Despite your attempts to keep the boat upright, a huge wave hits
you and dumps you into the raging ocean. Thus the game commences with you
marooned on some kind of apparently uninhabited island. You must get off
this speck in the middle of
the ocean.
You are free to explore the
island in this traditional type game. It was nice to see a game with a different
colour scheme (I've been playing too many Z Code games). The ADRIFT
Interpreter completes words for you, for example if you type "x c" it will
complete the word to read x clothes. Sometimes it completes with the wrong
word, for example I wanted to type IN but I got INVENTORY instead, but if you
keep typing the correct letters appear and so long as you are aware of it, it's
not a problem. Additionally Auto-Correct can be turned off if this annoys you.
The ADRIFT Interpreter also has a Control Panel with all the standard commands
such as Examine, Pick Up, Wear, Remove, Goto,
Help etc, which can be used
with the mouse. You can also use the mouse to point to the text instead of
typing words and in fact, if you wish, most actions can be accomplished using
the mouse. Marooned is nothing new or special, but fun anyway, despite its low
ranking in the IF Competition.
Reviewed by Brian Rushton as "MathBrush"
In this game, you are marooned on a small island, and you have to get off.
Like most adrift games, the parser is poor and has disambiguation
trouble.
The game has a lot of under-described locations. And there is
really no hint on what you are supposed to be doing. Also the walkthrough says
to take tires, but the game says they are too heavy.
Overall, this seems
like a really ambitious game with moving NPCs and fire simulation, but it was
probably too big to polish up in time for the comp.
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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