Baf's Guide to the IF Archive

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Madame L'Estrange and the Troubled Spirit

Authors:Ian Ball and Marcus Young
Genres:Horror
Mystery
Science Fiction
Released:1997
Review:

Strange is right. You're an Sydney psychic investigating weird doings involving a big nasty animal on the loose and an apparently unrelated murder of a scientist. This feels like a short story that was inexpertly converted into IF--you get long, long chunks of text with no interaction potential, most of which is in the third person, past tense (whereas the parser still thinks it's in second person, present tense, of course). Spelling and grammar problems abound, as well as other bugs--it's hit or miss whether SAVE crashes the game or not. Yet the story is pretty good, and some aspects are well-implemented, for instance a TRAVEL TO feature that whisks you around town. Try it if you're in a forgiving mood. No hint menu, but there's a walkthrough included (via a HELP menu).

Rating: ***

Reviewed by Duncan Stevens (02 Jul 2000)

Competitions/
Awards:
17th place, rec.arts.int-fiction competition 1997
Finalist, Best Story, Xyzzy Awards 1997
Play Online:Play it at ifiction.org: Release 1
Related Links:SPAG reviews
Downloads:
lest.z5 (231.50 KB)
Z-code 5 executable (version: Release 1)


Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive
Copyright © 2012 Carl Muckenhoupt
All reviews included in this site are copyright © the credited author of the review.