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S Tar Dus T Reviews
Author: Amzie
Date: 2006
ADRIFT 4.0
Reviewed by Lumin
I was glancing through the games listed on the main site, and I came across one
written with 3.9 and released way back in October that I'd never heard mention
of on the forum, with an author, Amzie, who was equally unfamiliar to me. On a
whim I decided to download it, and thus began my S Tar Dus T experience.
(Henceforth referred to as Star Dust, for the sake of both my sanity and the
reader's eyes)
Now I'm not ashamed to say that I loaded up the thing expecting the worst,
because, well, newbie author and all, but while Star Dust DID have a number of
flaws that I'll soon go into, on the whole it showed a lot more promise than
most other 'My First Adventure' games I've attempted to play.
The premise seems to be the somewhat tired 'thrust the PC into surreal
surroundings where they solve random puzzles just because they're there' cliché;
specifically, you play a teenage girl named Jillian who one day got bashed over
the head by a crazy old woman and woke up on a giant checkerboard underneath a
strange night sky. Heading off in the cardinal directions just adds to the
strangeness, leading you to an assortment of completely unrelated locations.
Definitely not everyone's cup of tea, and those who insist on mimesis are likely
already typing QUIT, but I admit the odd 'Alice in Wonderland'-esque setting
started to sort of grow on me before too long. I think it was the pink tea pot
and the ominous warning sign that did it.
That's nice, I hear you saying, but how is the actual gameplay? Well...this is
where the flaws come in, I'm afraid.
Star Dust doesn't SEEM to contain any obvious game-breaking bugs, and the
description insists that it is playable, but unfortunately this seems to be one
of those games where 'READ AUTHOR'S MIND' is a necessary command if you want to
have a hope of finishing it. That's right, GtV problems abound; I could easily
see what needed to be done to solve at least a few of the puzzles, (leading the
old man to a certain location, getting an item from the merchant, etc.) but
after trying every command I could think of I was no better off than when I
started. There are no hints and using the Generator isn't an option due to
password protection, so after struggling for about half an hour with no progress
I was forced to give up.
Adding to my frustration were the sparsely implemented NPCs. Each of them just
sort of stood in their respective locations and didn't respond to much of
anything, not even the most obvious topics. For example, when you TALK TO an old
man, you get the following:
As you approach the old man, you can hear him babbling to himself. "... back in
the day I killed me an army o' demons, zombies, vampires, weres, and the like,
and I was the king of the slayers, and everybody loved and respected me, and now
all I have is this Old Nanner, she's been my only friend for decades, and I
don't know what I'da done without her, 'cause ..."
Wow, looks like there might be a lot to ask him about, right? Wrong. Asking
about any of the above gets you a standard 'Old Man does not respond to your
question' reply. He doesn't even have a thing to say about 'Old Nanner' the
strange statue that seems rather important to him and is the only distinguishing
feature in the room he occupies. In fact, it seems like the only thing he DOES
care about is something that's in another room entirely, and that you don't have
any real reason to ask him about in the first place. (The only reason I found
out about it at all is because I originally played the converted version of the
game in the 4.0 runner, which broke a couple of things, including giving away
the related puzzle's solution in a room description...though unfortunately it
didn't also give away the COMMAND needed to get to that point or I might have
actually been able to accomplish something.) It would also have been nice to
have been able to ask small unimportant questions like where the heck I was or
how I could get home, but hey, baby steps.
There were other small problems and annoyances, (common commands like 'search'
and 'show' not being implemented, etc.) but most of them were trivial in
comparison.
But as I said in the beginning, despite a number of problems, Star Dust has
promise. Or more specifically the AUTHOR does. I stated earlier that I kept
playing for quite awhile even after it became clear to me I'd beat my head
against the wall in every location and wasn't going to accomplish anything
further. Why did I bother? Because the writing was actually GOOD, and if there
was equally good gameplay hidden in there I wanted to find it. Well... granted,
the merely serviceable and perfunctory plot was nothing to get all excited
about, but the meat and potatoes of IF, the scenery and descriptions were well
done, charming and amusing and just generally leaps and bounds ahead of what I'm
used to seeing in a newbie game. There were a few omissions, but for the most
part every major object mentioned in a room had a description, and a nice one at
that.
And this is why I hope to see more from Amzie in the future, because the writing
is the hardest part, and she's already got that down. The rest just takes a
little experience; playing more games by other people, knowing to go to the
forums to get help or ask for a beta tester, and just generally brushing up on
the technical aspects of writing IF. So even though I have my reservations about
recommending Star Dust, I'm sure that once the author spends a bit more time
getting the hang of Adrift she'll be capable of producing something really
enjoyable and fun.
Reviewed by Duncan Bowsman
While playing S Tar Dus T, I keep constantly thinking,
"This would be great if...
... I could get the NPCs to respond to me reliably.
... the author would just tell me how I can use this item.
... this game had a hint system.
... I could read the author's mind."
(and so on)
S Tar Dus T has a compelling narrative tone and interesting descriptions that
bespeak the skill of a talented amateur writer. It drew me in. I found the
environment delightfully surreal (as opposed to "jumbled mish-mash non sequitur
surreal), vaguely reminiscent of Lewis Carroll. Even non-responsive, the NPCs in
the game are colourful and seem to promise something unique, but the characters
and writing are let down by the game's obscure construction.
Unfortunately, the game offers no hints or help to allow players meaningful
progress, I haven't been able to find a walkthrough, and the code is password
protected. So, until a walkthrough comes around or someone posts the password or
the author publishes a revision, I can only rate this one a disappointment. This
is all the worse because I really do want to finish it.
Sorry, cannot recommend this game.
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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