by Roody_Yogurt » Sat Oct 27, 2012 1:48 pm
Eurydice by anonymous
First off, it doesn't seem like the quote box code at the beginning was inserted into the game as well as it could be. In Gargoyle, the game doesn't recognize the true status line height until the second turn of the game, and in Frotz, the quote box overlaps the game title text and initial room description. Shows the importance of testing on several interpreters, that.
Also, some text in the help menus suggests that the game is based on a real loss suffered by the author, so I hope my criticism of certain aspects of the game can be regarded as separate from actual judgments of character.
What I liked-
I really liked that there were progressive responses beyond just talking to people. Examining people and things often gave several responses, making extended scrutinizing worthwhile.
I also really liked the ubfcvgny-nf-uryy metaphor, and I especially liked the representation of Crefrcubar. In general, I'm not a fan of Greek myth stuff in IF, and this game obfuscates it all nicely.
The room layout was also intuitive enough; some smaller-sized games manage to make themselves harder to navigate than they should be just because of weird direction choices.
What I didn't like-
Eurydice is one of a handful of games this comp where, while it was betatested, I got the feeling that the betatesters were largely friends and family (and therefore likely to miss things that a “hardened” IF player might find). There was the hospital with the distinctive smell, where >SMELL gives you, “You smell nothing special.” There were the NPCs who keep on hugging you, yet >HUG is not an understood verb. As it stands, the level of implementation is not especially bad, but it just really shows how much work goes into a well-implemented game (to the point, sometimes, where I wonder if it really is worth it).
Overall, the writing is good, so when it fails, I found the failure pretty glaring, like the kitchen that my character speculates would be good to cook in, right after reminiscing about the many cooking adventures that had taken place there.
There was another thing. When I was in film school, we watched this documentary called “Seventeen” that followed some Indiana kids around in the early 80s. At one point, one of their friends find out that a friend died in a drunk-driving accident. They honor his memory by requesting a Bob Seger song from a radio station and getting really, really drunk. Anyhow, as I watched them drunkenly listen to this Bob Seger song on the radio, part of me was enraged that we can demean something as important and profound as a life by attaching it to something as ephemeral and bland as pop culture. I mean, I love pop culture, but I think it's really depressing to use it to define somebody.
Anyhow, Eurydice pushed some of those buttons for me. There were several great anecdotes about the personality that this deceased Celine had, but then there were a handful of geek-pop-culture namedroppings that furthered my disdain for the PC. I would have liked to have seen more of the former and less of the latter.
So, there was that, too. I didn't really like the main character. It's like, sure, on some levels, I'm not supposed to like the PC, as he is antisocial due to his grief, but by the end of the game, I felt like it should have rewarded me better for walking in his shoes as long as I did. If anything, instead of just finding solace, I think the hardest-to-achieve ending should also have involved the PC having a revelation about himself and maybe growing up a little.
* * *
Considering I have more to say about theme-related stuff in Eurydice than I do for most of the Comp games is probably an argument in its favor. I can understand why others have been so touched by this work. Still, I feel like I don't see eye-to-eye with this piece and hope that there are future revisions that bridge the gap some.
[b]Eurydice by anonymous[/b]
First off, it doesn't seem like the quote box code at the beginning was inserted into the game as well as it could be. In Gargoyle, the game doesn't recognize the true status line height until the second turn of the game, and in Frotz, the quote box overlaps the game title text and initial room description. Shows the importance of testing on several interpreters, that.
Also, some text in the help menus suggests that the game is based on a real loss suffered by the author, so I hope my criticism of certain aspects of the game can be regarded as separate from actual judgments of character.
What I liked-
I really liked that there were progressive responses beyond just talking to people. Examining people and things often gave several responses, making extended scrutinizing worthwhile.
I also really liked the [b]ubfcvgny-nf-uryy[/b] metaphor, and I especially liked the representation of [b]Crefrcubar[/b]. In general, I'm not a fan of Greek myth stuff in IF, and this game obfuscates it all nicely.
The room layout was also intuitive enough; some smaller-sized games manage to make themselves harder to navigate than they should be just because of weird direction choices.
What I didn't like-
Eurydice is one of a handful of games this comp where, while it [i]was[/i] betatested, I got the feeling that the betatesters were largely friends and family (and therefore likely to miss things that a “hardened” IF player might find). There was the hospital with the distinctive smell, where >SMELL gives you, “You smell nothing special.” There were the NPCs who keep on hugging you, yet >HUG is not an understood verb. As it stands, the level of implementation is not especially bad, but it just really shows how much work goes into a well-implemented game (to the point, sometimes, where I wonder if it really is worth it).
Overall, the writing is good, so when it fails, I found the failure pretty glaring, like the kitchen that my character speculates would be good to cook in, right after reminiscing about the many cooking adventures that had taken place there.
There was another thing. When I was in film school, we watched this documentary called “Seventeen” that followed some Indiana kids around in the early 80s. At one point, one of their friends find out that a friend died in a drunk-driving accident. They honor his memory by requesting a Bob Seger song from a radio station and getting really, really drunk. Anyhow, as I watched them drunkenly listen to this Bob Seger song on the radio, part of me was enraged that we can demean something as important and profound as a life by attaching it to something as ephemeral and bland as pop culture. I mean, I [i]love[/i] pop culture, but I think it's really depressing to use it to define somebody.
Anyhow, Eurydice pushed some of those buttons for me. There were several great anecdotes about the personality that this deceased Celine had, but then there were a handful of geek-pop-culture namedroppings that furthered my disdain for the PC. I would have liked to have seen more of the former and less of the latter.
So, there was that, too. I didn't really like the main character. It's like, sure, on some levels, I'm not [i]supposed[/i] to like the PC, as he is antisocial due to his grief, but by the end of the game, I felt like it should have rewarded me better for walking in his shoes as long as I did. If anything, instead of just finding solace, I think the hardest-to-achieve ending should also have involved the PC having a revelation about himself and maybe growing up a little.
* * *
Considering I have more to say about theme-related stuff in Eurydice than I do for most of the Comp games is probably an argument in its favor. I can understand why others have been so touched by this work. Still, I feel like I don't see eye-to-eye with this piece and hope that there are future revisions that bridge the gap some.