Barely awake from suspended animation, you sense the ship is about to crash. Your other companion isn’t as lucky; you find him slumped down on the floor, lifeless. Inside the cockpit, the pilot, who also happens to be your captain, is skewered to his seat with a long steel rod, unable to move. The console for steering the ship is blown. Still a bit groggy, you work your way to the other console and try to lift the ship – but it will not cooperate. What do you do?

That is how Morningstar begins.

There’s a lot to like in Morningstar that it seems the better question would be “What’s there not to like?” The game’s graphics were very well-made and polished. There’s enough detail in each location for those who like to explore objects. Some details were also put in to keep the game realistic, which is a nice touch. For instance, most of the game is seen from inside the helmet of the remaining functional member of the team, and to this end the artists incorporated barely noticeable scratches on the helmet’s lens, as well as crosshair lines on the sides.

The introductory and ending animation scenes were spectacular. I found myself watching it over and over while I was checking out different places in the game. There is very minimal animation within the game itself, however. Apart from probably a couple of places, most of the game features static images, which is fine, since the protagonist’s goal isn’t here to fight with hordes of unknown aliens. He’s looking to get the hell out.

Most of Morningstar’s puzzles are quite easy, but it helps sometimes to be patient especially as there are instances where one needs to figure out which item can be used with another. For those uninitiated to point-and-click games, Morningstar offers a lot of helpful clues in the form of witty dialogues between you and your captain. Of course, if you find yourself stuck somewhere along the game, the game includes a handy link to a walkthrough. It also allows the player to save and load their game from three available save slots, which can be accessed through a menu in the corner.

The music is solid, and it lends a haunting atmosphere to the game. It helped keep me on edge looking for clues what to do while I was playing the game. The voice parts for both the protagonist and the captain were decent and well-acted, but my thinking was, anything that provides clues to what you need to accomplish next has to be heard and read as well.

So what is there not to like, then? A minor bug: at the time that I played, I reached a point where, to avoid spoilers, I had to get over to another part of the land. Setting up the means to reach that part of the land triggered one of my default response soundbites to the captain to be looped over and over, which was a little irritating. When I reached that part where I needed to go, the soundbite stopped, and the problem never recurred. Still, this is a minor bug, and most likely by the time you have played the game, this might already be fixed.

Overall, Morningstar is one of those Flash games that deserve to be played. It contains most, if not all, the merits of a solid adventure game. If you like a good science fiction adventure with puzzles that are challenging enough, and with great visuals to boot, I suggest heading over to Bubblebox and play this game.

Got wind of this from Ice Cream Jonsey’s post in Jolt Country. It’s better to show it with a screenshot:

Click to See BS

See the highlighted portion? Wow. What a way to blow off the competition.

All of Malinche Entertainment’s games are made with Inform, so any platform with tools that can run Z-code games can naturally play their own games as well as the free ones available from the Interactive Fiction Archive. Because of this, the problem of running their games on the newer iPhone is also solved – without them breaking a sweat.

However, let me point this out about the games bundled with the latest version of the iPhone Frotz (emphasis mine):

Bundled stories: includes a large subset of well-rated stories from the IFDB bundled with Frotz; the IFDB story browser uses these bundled files instead of downloading them from the Internet.

For those who are not familiar, IFDB is a collaborative project aimed to provide a comprehensive catalog of IF games (so, yes, it includes Malinche games) and allow users to share recommendations about IF games that they’ve played.

With the iPhone Frotz being a free app, it will naturally include free IF games along with it. Naturally it would choose the best, and where else would it go for recommendations? (It doesn’t help that Malinche games are poorly rated there, though.)

It makes some business sense for Malinche to belittle these games, of course – he’s trying to sell his own. But going on the offensive like this is just plain ugly.

EDIT: Here’s the link where you can see it live.

Beyond Exile is Doug Shanahan’s adaptation of author Lawrence Johns’ epic poem, written in Quest. During most of the game, the player dons the role of Frank Glendover, continuing his philosophical and personal journey during the 1970’s which is said to have started out in Johns’ previous work Love and Hate. However, the game also puts the player into the shoes of such real-life characters such as convicted revolutionary Ilich Sanchez (“Carlos the Jackal“) as well as acclaimed poet/professor Billy Collins.

Beyond Exile screenshot

Beyond Exile is primarily a mouse-driven game, with most of the places’ and objects’ names and the required actions listed out in a neat little window on the right of the game window. The game’s text appears to have been copied directly from the book – the conversations between NPCs, the rather generalized object descriptions, even some of the game responses are rendered in double-spaced lines of free verse. The game is also quite puzzle-less, as there’s hardly a part where the player is required to solve out anything.

But then there’s puzzleless, and there’s nearly puzzleless, and then there’s this.

Setting the game text aside, Beyond Exile was, for me at least, a frustration. Not because of puzzles or gameplay mechanics, but because of the interface. There were several instances where I had to go through the different compass directions, cycling through the only 3 options available for the player – “Look at,” “Take,” and “Speak To” – just to see which of those would advance the plot. It even got to the point where I considered purchasing the book and reading it instead of going through all this hassle.

Throughout the game the protagonist had to travel to different parts of the world in order to learn and answer the burning questions inside his mind. Instead of employing textual descriptions, the author decided instead to use small images which bore highlights from those places. I would have loved to see verses describing the places as well, at least through the eyes of Frank, or whoever the player was at the time.

Beyond Exile had been made to be very faithful to the original poem – too faithful, in my opinion, to be truly interactive. There aren’t a lot of opportunities to stray away from the main theme, and not all of the places you visited as a player can be visited back. These minor additions would have lessened the burden of looking for the next “plot gatekeeper,” so to speak. For example, providing other minor NPCs (and not just Lamont the taxi driver) some speaking parts would have added to the realism – or at least, anything other than “He says nothing” would have been good.

What made me stick to playing the game was, inevitably, the philosophy. The plot pretty much resembles a James Bond movie, with a dash of the occult, but Frank Glendover is no Agent 007. He reminds me more of Miyamoto Musashi in the manga series Vagabond, but not as destructive.

Ultimately, adaptations are a mixed bag, and its success or failure will depend on not just how faithful the rendition is to the original work, but how effective the plot will be in the new medium, along with the many changes inherent within it. Beyond Exile, in its current IF form, is further proof why some authors prefer to let their work stay in its original medium – something always gets lost in the transition. If Lawrence Johns had been as involved in the making as much as Douglas Adams was during the Infocom days, it might have resulted in a more enjoyable experience.

I recently spotted an IF game on the Artsy Games Incubator website called My Uncle George, written by Filipe Salgado (download page here; web version here). It’s a one-room piece written using Inform 7, which casts the player as 17-year-old Matt, trying to kill some time before school, having a “criminally awkward” breakfast chat with his uncle George, a former convict on parole.

The game on Gargoyle

Considering this was the only IF piece among the six games produced in Round 4 of AGI, I thought I’d try this and see.

The game essentially revolves around engaging George in a conversation, using the so-called ASK/TELL method (ASK <NPC> ABOUT <SOMETHING>) commonly found in interactive fiction games. Then before the game ends, George asks you for a big favor.

There are situations where asking someone about different topics works well, and there are some where a more directed approach (e.g., conversation menus, like in Best of Three) is better. Sometimes, a combination is used. Here, the ASK/TELL method appeared to be appropriate for the player’s “bonding” moments with his uncle, but the responses felt a bit too automated, as if George was merely spewing out opinions on various topics rather engaging in a real conversation. In that case, the author might as well have added a TOPICS command to list them down.

What I would have liked to see is the player’s response to George to consistently appear within that conversation. For example (the lines I added are in blue):

>ASK GEORGE ABOUT HOUSE
“What do you think about the house, Uncle George?” you ask.

“Well, Maggie’s done well for herself. It’s a nice place, even if the neighbourhood is a bit bougie.”

>ASK GEORGE ABOUT HOUSE
“‘Bougie?’” you ask. “Why do you think the neighbourhood’s bougie?”

George smiles. “Well, maybe it isn’t that bad. After all, I’ve been away for a few years, and maybe I’m just not used to the changes.”

Or something to that effect. Small things, really, just to make the conversation look more natural.

Then, of course, there are the minor quirks:

>ASK GEORGE ABOUT GUNS
“Don’t got much to say about that.”

and

>WEAR BACKPACK
(first taking the backpack)
I hoist it onto my back.

You can’t wear that!

Despite all these, My Uncle George does have its funny and sad moments every now and then, which helps endear George to the player. Even looking at the different items inside the dining room were a bit amusing. Compared to Bob from She’s Got a Thing for a Spring, though, George probably needs to get out more.

Overall, My Uncle George, at its current state, is something I’d recommend to people looking for a short IF piece to play. With a bit more polish, it could stand out among the one-room-game stories found in the Archive. I certainly hope the author would consider releasing an improved version sometime in the future.

One of the things I generally look for in games is how well-meshed the gameplay is with the narrative. Inform author Graham Nelson himself wrote about it in his introduction to his essay The Craft of Adventure, where he refers to adventure games as “a crossword at war with a narrative.”

Fortunately, Ben Chandler’s games Shifter’s Box – Outside In and Heed did not disappoint.

Shifter’s Box – Outside In is about a young woman’s (Sally) almost dizzying search for her way back home, after opening a mysterious box in the park. This leads her to different worlds meeting different characters, all of whom have been affected by users of the box one way or another.

What I particularly like about this game are the puzzles. Don’t get me wrong: I’m just as much of a puzzle wretch as the next guy, but puzzles one after the other are always welcome. Thankfully, the puzzles were not too hard, and it didn’t involve hunting for the correct hotspot. The logic was clearly there, even with the red herrings around.

The game’s graphics were polished and very well-done. Granted, there aren’t a lot of places to go to, and most of the time there are only a few objects to interact with, but still – the effort to draw what’s needed for the story and more is certainly appreciated. The Ebenezer Leary was a nice touch.

The music was fun to listen to. From the intro music down to the end, it was easy on the ears, and for me, it suited the game’s theme perfectly.

I won’t gripe at the game’s length because I felt the number of places the player could visit was enough to run the story on, so to speak. Of course, I wouldn’t mind if the author had added two or three more worlds, but to add more would have been like “Sliders” gone bad all over again.

Heed, on the other hand, takes a more “puzzle-less” approach. Here another young girl plays the story’s protagonist, but unlike Sally, she seeks enlightenment.

The game’s graphics are little more refined here: the edges of the characters as well as the background art are smoother, and the surroundings are a lot brighter except for one part (the cave). The music was also a delight in this game, having been written by the same team who worked on Shifter’s Box, though it sounded odd at times (it sounded like old 50’s recorded twice on a platter and re-mastered yet again).

Since Heed involved less puzzles, there was a lot more interaction with other characters and with the environment as well. One thing I wished for while I was playing this game, though, was for conversation branches to be pruned out automatically once it has been used, but in the end I didn’t really mind it at all.

What both Heed and Shifter’s Box made up for in the overall integration of puzzles with the plot, it lacked in character development. There was barely any story behind both Sally and the nameless protagonist in Heed, which made me identify less with these games’ characters as I would have liked to.

But did I find what I was looking for? Yes, I did. In the end, both games reminded me of what Graham Nelson said in the last chapter of his essay:

An adventure game, curiously, is one of the most satisfying of works to have written: perhaps because one can always polish it a little further, perhaps because it has so many hidden and secret possibilities, perhaps because something is made as well as written.

I can only hope to make games as good as these someday.