A Moment of Hope / Simmon Keith
Barney (1999)
| The Annoyomatic 2000's Verdict: |
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| Sorry, buddy, but I love multiple-command games.
Pthpth. |
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I may be a
mischievious little sprite, but geez, even I try not to bend guys over like this. Watch me
frolick!! |
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| An interesting story, but totally on rails. |
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Game Information
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| Simmon is, much like your humble narrator, another bitter IFer residing
in the Fort. His webpage is here. He is also the author
of Insanity Cubed. |
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A Moment of Hope is the story about a guy
trying to resolve a crush in the information age. See, I've been that guy. In terms of
communicating what it's like to be a dude involved with an on-line chick, Mr. Barney does
an excellent job of portraying the act as a mostly lonely and, ah, pathetic one. The
story's character is a goateed, Linux-using longhair trying to discern, over the course of
a few days, whether or not a girl that threw him a "crush" e-mail truly likes
him.
It really is more a story than a game, however. The
challenge is simply in getting the next consecutive bit of text to appear. A
Moment Of Hope suceeds when it is telling its interesting, compenent tale
of modern day puppy love. It tends to fail, however, in terms of mechanics and gameplay.
Certain actions need to be continually repeated in order to advance the plot. There
certainly isn't any puzzles to speak of, and objects tend to fall into scope right after
they are mentioned.
So, then. It's not a game, per se, but more an interactive
longing. I wish that it had defined its PC a little more strongly, however. I feel that
when it comes to manipulating emotions in a text adventure there are two methods that tend
to work really well: either present the scene as it is and allow the player to feel fear,
love, anger by him or herself (a la Anchorhead), or else construct a PC
intended to be seperate from the player, so it's "fair" to throw emotional
reactions about. I can accept that being told, as Ernie Eaglebeak, I have an insane lust
for Lola Tigerbelly. If I'm just supposed to be Robb Sherwin, well maybe not so much. I
instead sit there, play through and mentally say, "I don't feel that way!
Wtfman?"
A Moment Of Hope does a pretty solid job
relating the feeling one gets when maybe, just maybe, you allow yourself to believe that
someone unattainable is within your grasp. Sort of like "Close To Me" by the
Cure: The Video Game. I think it may have worked better as a more tradional short story,
however. Nevertheless, I would definitely download the author's next work with the
understanding while I may not be casting spells or navigating around in a spaceship, it
will definitely be a somewhat solid and entertaining read.
Parser
Responsiveness
6.8 / 10 |
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