IF comp 2009 – How i scored ’em

Well, it’s all over bar the shouting.  I wonder if there’ll be much shouting.  Wonder why people even say that anyway.  Wonder why i said it.

So, i’ ve played them all, some of them i’ve played far more than they deserved.  Some i’ve come back to and played again much to my own wonderment.  And some i simply played because i had to(so to speak) to enable me to rate them.

In the end i have to say, i very much enjoyed playing and reviewing them all(even the annoying ones).

Thanks to all the authors.

And thanks to all the reviewers too.

IF comp 2009 – Yon Astounding Castle! update

Ya know, i really don’t know my own mind on this one.

I want to like it, i really do, but find it extremely annoying.  I think it wants to give me a good time but just, well there’s no other way to put it, it annoys me.  It also wants me to explore and enjoy and laugh and, yes, yes i’ve done all those things.

But it’s damned bloody annoying.

It just sodding IS.

IF comp 2009 – GATOR-ON, update

Update to GATOR-ON, Friend to Wetlands!

Turns out i was a little pre-emptive in attempting to locate the crow, since i hadn’t attempted to unlock the hatch in the first place, it hadn’t therefore stolen my shiny key.  In my defense, i did examine the hatch.

>x hatch
You see nothing special about the hatch.

Now, i know that a hatch in the middle of the wetlands should have made me think to pursue it further but given the fact that almost every other attempt to examine or search something has so far not been implemented, i really don’t think it was entirely down to my stupidity this time.  OK, maybe it was but… well… uh screw you!

Incidentally, i’m now way over the 2 hour limit, so if this one gets seriously good i’m gonna have a bugger of a job scoring it.

Anyway, i’m hoping that’s the hard work out the way.  Lets see.

IF comp 2009 – Spelunker’s Quest

Here we are at the end of our great quest then. And how appropriate that our last game to review is one that has the word quest in the title. I know, i’m reaching here. Literally.

No, i’m joshing of course, it’s not that bad. Not quite that bad anyway.

Well, it’s pretty bad.

Anyway, in the words of a really angry little sausage,

Spelunker’s Quest. Caves and shit.

IF comp 2009 – GATOR-ON, Friend to Wetlands!

So, this one’s giving me jip.

I’m gonna have to do this review in bits. It bugs me to have to admit it, but i’m pissed off with it and enamoured of it all at the same time.

Still…

Doesn’t stop it being very, very annoying.

IF comp 2009 – Eruption

Eruption… <big drum-roll, clash of cymbals>

Are you ever famous my friend.  There’s people and stuff been fighting over you.  Boys, Girlys, famous and er… not.  Yep, you’ve brought them all out of their deep, dark holes fists flying.  My word, but you are famous.

Why have you caused so much unrest amongst the big and the beautiful?  (…and the short and ugly!?!)

Well, lets don our armour, clench our fists before us, and enter the fray shall we?

Oh gods.  It’s another cave. <groan>

IF comp 2009 – The Grand Quest

Ah-hah. A grand quest.

Must be good. Hope there’s not a cave crawl in it though. D’ ya think there’s gonna be a cave crawl? Dammit. There is isn’t there? There’s gonna be a sodding cave crawl.  Maybe it’ll have a cave crawl, and it’ll be good. Huh…? huh…?

No. No, maybe not.

Ok then,

>Take lamp

…and off we go!

IF comp 2009 – Broken Legs

This looks good.

Cover helps of course. I know it’s shallow of me, but it does show that the girly-type author(huh! the author’s a girly-type. Well, well, well!) has loved her little creation.

Does it show?

Well, yes. Yes it does. It always shows in my opinion, even when i haven’t liked the finished product very much, the time and effort and… yes, the love has shone through(ok, you can throw up now). But seriously, it is worth spending that little extra time and effort to polish your beloved a little(polish what? you perv.)

So, I’m gonna play this one again. After the comp. Just for the sheer pleasure of it. Yep, the sheeeeer pleasure.

<sigh>

IF comp 2009 – The Duel That Spanned the Ages

I’m not going to labour the point.  Ya know, the one where i tell you over and over again that i really don’t like sci-fi in IF.

This one however, turned out to be pretty well done.

I still don’t think i’m ever going to be the type that gets immense enjoyment from this genre though.

So, we’re some kinda future hero-soldier with our cool, futuristic talking armour and our obligatory super-duper weapons and shit.  Nice.  And we’re gonna go find some people or at least find out what happened to ’em.  And then there’s futuristic creatures and stuff too.

Hope that’s not too spoilery.  Don’t think it gives much away anyway.

So, enjoy.  I kiiinnnnnda did.

IF comp 2009 – Gleaming the Verb

Hehe!  tricky little bugger this randomized list.  More puzzles.  More confusion.  More humiliation.

This one screwed me over big time.  Especially when i read some of the reviews afterwards and discovered that absolutely everybody(except me) found it extremely easy.  So easy in fact that intense smugness drifted out of the screen and wafted through the room in thick, saccharine swirls as i read each review in a desperate search for one single person, just one sodding person, that didn’t <smug> me to death.

Well, in the words of a very great man(!?!)

SCREW YOU GUYS.  I’M GOING HOME!