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DELRON
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A Witch Tale Reviews
Author: Dan Blazquez
Date: 2008
ADRIFT 4.0
Reviewed by Abbi Park
1. What was your initial impression
of the game, when you first opened it up, and how did the game compare?
I thought it would be kind of a fairy tale. 'Twas. I really liked how the
game's title looked on the intro screen.
2. How did the author do within the restrictions?
Wonderfully. One (at least one) of the events was there just to fill space, but
that was fine.
3. How were the puzzles and/or storyline?
Good. The puzzles were straightforward, and moved the story along. It worked
perfectly.
4. What did you like best about the game?
It was fun. I liked the writing style a lot.
5. What did you like least about the game, and how could this be fixed?
The tense kept shifting. It's fine to switch between acting like it's the
present and like you're telling a tale of the past, but it would be better to
add in clearer breaks between them so that it's not like: I'm sweeping the
floor to clean up my mess. That's what I have to do when I make messes. Little
did I know that my fairy godmother would appear later that night. (Of course
the writing style wasn't bland like that) I would have appreciated a different
message when objects weren't described, as well. It shouldn't confuse the
player character to be asked to describe something when the object is right in
front of them.
6. What stood out most to you from/about this game?
Nice lightly humorous tone. Painted colorful pictures.
7. How did this game compare with the others in the competition and/or what set
it apart?
Most simple (in a good way) story-type game. It was simply enjoyable.
Any other comments?
Fun game.
Reviewed by revgiblet
Harriet Potter and the Restricted Game Comp.
AWARD: The "Most CHARMING Game" Award
Is it just me or did anyone else think "Harry Potter" while they were playing
this? I mean, a girl with an unusual identifying feature suddenly finds out
that she's from a family of Witches when a mysterious old stranger arrives into
her life? Come on. It can't just be me. And those Skitterlings, they seem to
have been filtered directly through the mind of JK Rowling. Surely someone
agrees with me. Surely?
But none of that matters really, because I'll just come out and say that I
thought that this was something of a special game. 'Special' might be too
pretentious a term to use about IF, so here's another word to use. Charming.
It's a charming game. Well, that one might sound just a bit too patronising,
but I can't help it. The game is just so...charming. There was something
magical about it. It made me feel a bit like a child again, and if that isn't
magical then I don't know what is. I could feel the inane grin on my face as I
played. I could feel myself having fun.
I admit, that I was a bit underwhelmed when I first began playing. The simple
title page was a nice touch, but the opening 'puzzle'/dialogue neither grabbed
or entertained me. In fact, it seemed superfluous. It almost felt as if...as
if the author had thrown it in to meet some task/event requirement imposed on
him from an invisible but omnipotent source. Surely not? But don't worry about
that. The game really starts in the forest, and that is also where the magic
starts.
It's hard for me to identify why I enjoyed this game so much. I think the
individual components are so strong that when you put them together the whole
becomes greater than the sum of its parts. The 'rite of passage' story isn't
unique, but the twist at the end is rather...here's that word again...charming.
The employment of text formatting to identify items that you can interact with
was an inspired idea in a game where the restrictions limit the player's
involvement with the world, and the use of this in the game's puzzles was also
excellent (Though I must confess that one of the puzzles asks you to say the
three words that are identified as being different, but the total number of
words that you are looking for is actually five). The characters are classic
fairy tale, but no-less endearing for it. In other words, this game was a
pleasure to play.
This was the first game that I played, and this was also the game that made me
realise that the restrictions of the competition were not going to hinder the
authors as much as I thought that they might. I was quite surprised at the
amount of game that had been fit into the limited framework. This was something
that would continue to amaze me as I played all of the entries.
What else can I say? I think that a little part of me had fallen in love with
this game by the time I sat down to write this review. Despite the fact that
every other game idea that pops into my head could usually be filed under the
genre "Horror", I'm something of a romantic at heart. This game bypassed my
need for Zombie Ninja Pirates and plugged straight into the part of my brain
that responded to The Emperor's New Groove. So, once more for luck.
This game is utterly, utterly charming.
Reviewed by Lumin
1. What was your initial
impression of the game, when you first opened it up, and how did the game
compare?
I was completely won over by the character before I'd even gotten to the second
paragraph of the intro. The opening was just wonderfully...well I think
revgiblet summed it up best, it was charming, and I'm happy to say the
rest of the game followed suit.
2. How did the author do within the restrictions?
Seeing as I barely noticed there were restrictions while playing this I'd
say he did pretty well. Like my other favorites, A Witch Tale feels like a
complete (if small) game in its own right.
3. How were the puzzles and/or storyline?
I really enjoyed the puzzles at the bridge and the clearing; I realize they were
done out of necessity to work around the restrictions, but they were still
something unique I've never seen in an IF game before. (Which is a little
strange, come to think of it...you'd think in a medium that's all about words
and puzzles I would have run into more actual word puzzles...)
As for the storyline, it was...adorable? :P (just trying to avoid the 'c' word
here since I'm sure Dan is sick of it by now...) I did feel the ending fell
just a tiny bit flat....not to say it didn't work fine as an
ending, I just wasn't all that thrilled with it as the ending. The lack
of an alternate one is pretty much the only time the task restriction became
obvious.
4. What did you like best about the game?
The writing and atmosphere, definitely. Everything was very fairytale-ish and
cha--um, enchanting? I only wish the game were longer as it's been far too long
since I had a nice big magical forest to explore. I'm going to steal from
revgiblet once again and say that there's just something about that that makes
me feel like a kid again...blame C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.
5. What did you like least about the game, and how could this be fixed?
I was a little put off by the tense switching helga mentioned, and except for
rare exceptions I'm a little traditional in that I generally have a hard time
getting into games written in first person. Of course that's not really
something that needs to be 'fixed', just a matter of taste.
Any other comments?
No comments, just a question: Dan, any plans to release an expanded version
somewhere down the road?
Reviewed by Duncan_B
PROS: Strong writing and
character development. A fun fairy tale with a Kyrandian sort of feel to it,
minus all that mucking about with birthstones, etc. A good intro made the
controls clear and easily accessible to the player. Clever use of formatting
streamlined the game.
And let’s face it— enchanting as all get-out. Hard to believe it’s a “first
game.”
CONS: Mostly minor gripes that just made me feel like a buffoon. In the first
room in the forest, the player is told “I can only move west” when what you
really have to do is move north… in desperation, I tried south and east… I gave
up on it and came back to it later in the comp when, with a clear head, I
re-read the room description…
The game makes good use of ADRIFT’s conversation system, but at the same time
the limits of that system sometimes blatantly interfere with the game (e.g., try
asking the witch about magic words and you get the big-wall-o-text spiel about
magic that has no real relevance to the game). While most of the conversation
was manageable, the “ask X about Y” will almost always feel awkward, and to me
will always come off as a bit “eh.”
Event descriptions (i.e., hair falling, sounds of nature, and “Leif is here…”)
kept displaying in-line with regular descriptions, which bothered me.
Some grammatical gripes… spelling errors, tense switches, missing or misplaced
apostrophes.
No help/hints.
OVERALL: Basically what everyone else has already said.
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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