Author: emshortif

Playing “Inside Woman”

So I’m playing Andy Phillips’ just-released Inside Woman, and it’s reminding me of all the stuff I have liked and disliked about Phillips’ past work.

The good: a lot is happening. Phillips writes in a slightly different genre than the average IF — there’s a lot less generic exploration and uncovering of backstory, a lot more sneaking around and playing clever tricks in the present. He goes for plots about jewel thefts, espionage, corporate surveillance. Action-movie stuff. This gives his games a kind of gonzo energy. You can tell he’s working from a big concept.

The bad: Sometimes the execution doesn’t work so well. He doesn’t always do this in a way that works for IF — Heroine’s Mantle contains some sequences that feel like they were imagined for a movie screen and then only grudgingly and reluctantly transferred to interactive format. In particular, scenes are sometimes a bit infodumpy and don’t provide enough else for the player to do while they’re going on.

Also, sometimes the puzzles are just weirdly unfair, and sometimes in ways that don’t make sense within the story. Spoilers on a couple of particular things right at the start of the game (I only have 32/400 points so far):

Continue reading “Playing “Inside Woman””

Inform 7 Extension “Recorded Endings”

Coming out of my fiddling with Alabaster is an extension for multiple-ending games. Designed for Glulx only (because it uses external files), it keeps track of all the endings the player has found and allows him to review them with an ENDINGS command during the final question.

I’ve occasionally kicked around the idea of a similar extension for games that rely on a fixed set of randomized starting parameters (like the “When in Rome” games, or “Act of Murder”). The idea would be that an external file would record which starting parameters the player had already solved and avoid giving him the same scenario again before he had worked through all of the options. But it is hard to come up with a general syntax for this. Hrm.

Homer in Silicon for today

On Jojo’s Fashion Show 2. On the subject of which, is Gamelab really gone/completely repurposed? When I wrote this article a few weeks ago, their website was still up and running, but now — as the editorial note points out — it is completely given over to Gamestar Mechanic and there’s no sign of their other work history.

If so, I’m really sorry to see it. They were doing some of the most innovative work in the casual game market.

EnvComp results out

The results for EnvComp are now out, giving the win to C. E. J. Pacian’s entomological fantasy “Dead Like Ants”. They’re accompanied by reviews from a panel of ten judges. This is great stuff — critique from experienced players is worth its weight in… well, it doesn’t weigh anything. Still, it’s worth a lot.

The good news is that this minicomp series still has another three competitions whose deadlines are a little way out: NPCComp, SenseComp, and GameplayComp. (AbilityComp is closing May 1, so unless you’re a demon coder, …)

And while I’m on the topic of things to enter, GunchoComp has a deadline in August, for games written for multiple players on Jesse McGrew’s Guncho system.

Inform build out

Inform build 5Z71 is now out, hosted on a new website, which features, among other things, a new section on education with Inform and reports from teachers in the field; a new introductory screencast by Aaron Reed showing off some of the features of the IDE and how to get your game started; and a revised handling of the extensions allowing authors to view extension documentation online before downloading.