An intriguing premise--you've been hired to guard a cave against a bunch of looting adventurers--but the implementation lets it down. The competition release was entirely unfinishable due to bugs, but there are still plenty of bugs in the latest release. The cave itself is large and well described, so if you enjoy cave settings you may enjoy this, but the game itself needs work.

Rating: ***

Reviewed by Duncan Stevens (28 Jan 2001)

1999-10-01 guard.z8 (338.00 KB)

Z-code 8 executable (version: Release 1, original competition entry)

2000-01-01 guard.zip (241.60 KB)

Z-code 8 executable (version: 2), debugging history, graphic puzzle clue

You're woken up by the telephone, having slept a lot longer than you should have, and there'll be hell to pay if you don't get out of the house in a hurry. A very short game with a devious twist that the IF theorists out there will find interesting. Gains immeasurably on replay.

Rating: ****

Reviewed by Carl Muckenhoupt (03 Jul 2000)

2000-02-12 905.exe (106.95 KB)

MS-DOS executable (version: 1.01)

2000-02-12 905.z5 (60.50 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: 1.01)

2000-01-03 905notes.txt (506 bytes)

author's notes

2001-07-13 ACgamesForPalm.zip (638.44 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: 1.01, ported by Trevor Menagh, converted to PalmOS .prc file)

Since this is a small game, and finding out what happened is an important plot point, all I'll say about the premise is that it's a real-life emergency situation in which you play hero despite your own injuries. Dramatic, but a bit buggy and low on detail. Once past a certain point, your required actions and their motivations become far from obvious.

Rating: ***

Reviewed by Carl Muckenhoupt (30 Jun 2000)

1997-09-30 down.hex (92.11 KB)

Hugo executable (version: Release 1)

1997-09-30 down.sol (292 bytes)

solution, Walkthrough

2000-01-14 down.hex (97.23 KB)

Hugo executable (version: Release 4)

2000-01-14 down_source.zip (33.06 KB)

Hugo source code (version: Release 4)

You're a Native American boy charged with saving your village from a monster. Well-researched and nicely done setting, but buggy--the competition release had a bug that made it unfinishable, and while the latest release cleaned up that particular bug, it has lots of others, including one that, again, makes the game unfinishable. It would be nice to see this cleaned up, since it's a setting that's never been done before in IF. As it is, however, it's too buggy to be worth trying.

Rating: **

Reviewed by Duncan Stevens (09 Jul 2000)

1999-10-01 waterbrd.gam (272.73 KB)

TADS executable (version: Release 1, original competition entry)

2000-01-01 waterbrd.gam (274.25 KB)

TADS executable (version: Release 1.1)

2001-01-07 Waterbird.wlk (4.99 KB)

solution

Not to be confused with the epic 'Lost New York' by Neil deMause, "Lost In New York" is a short one-puzzle game. Well at least I believe it is a short one-puzzle game as I just can't solve it!

Rating: ***

Reviewed by Stephen Griffiths (23 Sep 2000)

2000-01-11 liny.zip (13.86 KB)

Alan 2.8 executable

You're a Dwarven Reclaimer, who is charged with going into ancient Dwarven cities and cleaning them up for future habitation. In the case of this particular city, this includes getting the power and water working again, surveying the city itself, and exorcising three ghosts. Your basic fantasy puzzle-fest, including a bit of random combat, mechanical puzzles, a maze you don't need to map and some spellcasting. Some minor bugs involving the rail-car. An afternoon's entertainment.

Rating: ****

Reviewed by R. Serena Wakefield (30 Jul 2000)

1999-12-10 deephome.z5 (130.00 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: 1)

2000-01-18 deephome.sol (3.64 KB)

Solution

Smaller and tighter than the first entry in the series, and funnier as well. You and the gang are chasing the title character, and you overcome some amusingly mundane obstacles. Mr. Redundancy Man is hilarious, as is another fellow named the Validator, who praises everything you do, and your sidekicks have lots of funny asides. An immensely amusing half hour or so.

Rating: ****

Reviewed by Duncan Stevens (01 May 2001)

2000-01-02 fren5-2.hqx (142.94 KB)

Macintosh executable (version: 1.1)

2000-01-02 fren5-2.zip (104.35 KB)

TADS executable (version: Release 1.2)

A laughably bad attempt at pathos and moral anguish: "I just can't believe that dear little Billy, the kid I used to sit on my knee, became a murderer." If the writing weren't bad enough, the only input the player has is at the very beginning and the very end. The rest of the time, you just page through endless "Click here to continue" prompts. It's all CYOA-style, and yet the author couldn't even be bothered to give us the occasional illusion of choice. Instead, we have what may as well be a noninteractive short story, except you have to read it through an inconvenient hypertext thingy.

If you feel you must play it, the easiest way is to select the file Child.dxr using a Shockwave-enabled browser. (You spare yourself two megabytes of download time that way, too.) If you must play it offline, you'll need all of the files (including Child.dxr), with the files ending in .x32 in a subdirectory called "Xtras". If you're going to be downloading the other Competition 2000 games, I suggest grabbing the complete set instead, which will have it already set up correctly when unpacked. But no matter how you download this work, it isn't worth the trouble.

Also, be warned that some of the filenames have spaces in them, and thus might require special handling. In fact, I had to rewrite sections of this Guide's back-end just to accomodate this lousy game, which leaves me not at all inclined to be charitable in this review.

Rating: *

Reviewed by Carl Muckenhoupt (17 Apr 2001)

2000-09-30 Child.dxr (378.75 KB)

Online version (requires Shockwave)

2000-01-09 Dirapi.dll (946.00 KB)

Driver

2000-01-09 Iml32.dll (385.00 KB)

Driver

2000-09-30 quest.exe (102.65 KB)

Windows executable (version: competition release, Requires the above dll's in the same directory and x32 files in a subdirectory called Xtras.)

1999-12-29 Font Asset.x32 (48.00 KB)

Multimedia file

1999-12-29 Font Xtra.x32 (225.00 KB)

Multimedia file

1999-12-29 Text Asset.x32 (49.50 KB)

Multimedia file

1999-12-29 TextXtra.x32 (326.00 KB)

Multimedia file

A three-chapter game (with an epilogue) in which you're a different character in each chapter. The twist is that each chapter covers roughly the same space of time, and you interact with the other two characters, to varying degrees, when you're in each pair of shoes. The gameplay is a bit restrictive--the game doesn't allow for a lot of variation--but the characters themselves are well developed and the interactions feel reasonably realistic. The game even does a passable job of recording the actions you take when you're one character and playing them back when you're a different character, observing the antics of the first. Very short--20-30 minutes to play through at most--but worth playing; it largely eschews puzzles in favor of character interaction in a way that little IF attempts.

Rating: ****

Reviewed by Duncan Stevens (30 Apr 2001)

2000-01-18 Ground_src.zip (142.52 KB)

TADS source code (version: Release 2)

2000-01-18 Ground.gam (256.17 KB)

TADS executable (version: Release 2)

1995-11-14 bunbro.ddc (14.79 KB)

Acorn Archimedes executable (ported by J. J. Farmer)

2000-01-09 Bungle_Brothers.zip (3.35 KB)

solution and map in GUEmap format

2003-07-06 beebgames.zip (1.32 MB)

BBC executable

2000-01-09 Stolen_Lamp.zip (4.01 KB)

solution

A massive work, solidly built on the same principles as Curses!. This will take you months to solve. The sheer quantity of puzzles is staggering, and virtually every kind of puzzle you've ever seen in a text adventure is represented (excluding the maze of twisty litte passages all alike, but including a liquid measurement problem and a cryptic crossword clue). The story concerns a search for an elderly relative in his museum. The museum turns out to be a museum of magic, and the magic turns out to be strange stuff indeed. From the museum, the player can sometimes escape into self-contained sub-worlds through visions, time travel, or other means, often learning more about the nature of magic or the history of the Mulldoons in the process. Alternate solutions abound, and many parts of the museum can be reached in more than one way. Humorous, imaginative, full of surprises, and most of all, devious. Relies on character graphics in a couple of places.

Rating: *****

Reviewed by Carl Muckenhoupt (02 Apr 2002)

2000-08-04 Mulldoon.z8 (458.00 KB)

Z-code 8 executable (version: 6)

2000-01-06 mulldoon2.sol (34.21 KB)

solution

2002-04-19 mulldoonmaze.sol (1.79 KB)

erratum to solution

1997-11-27 trs.zip (429.95 KB)

TRS-80 executable

1995-11-17 atari8gm.zip (790.45 KB)

Atari 800 executable

2001-04-30 BASIC_Adventures3.atr (90.02 KB)

Atari 800 executable

2000-01-09 Time_Adventure.zip (2.18 KB)

map in GUEmap format