{"id":446,"date":"2008-10-10T01:11:21","date_gmt":"2008-10-10T06:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/446"},"modified":"2016-08-05T12:07:56","modified_gmt":"2016-08-05T19:07:56","slug":"ifcomp-2008-the-absolute-worst-if-game-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/446","title":{"rendered":"IFComp 2008: The Absolute Worst IF Game in History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, that&#8217;s actually the next game&#8217;s title.  My initial reaction, before even opening it, is skepticism &#8212; I&#8217;ve seen games that extol their own badness before, and they&#8217;re never as bad as the ones that are convinced that they&#8217;re brilliant.  Well, let&#8217;s find out if it lives up to its claim, shall we?  Spoilers follow the break.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nSo, at first glance, what we have here is a simple gag game, consisting of nothing but a traditional maze of twisty little passages, but without any inventory items to help you map it.  Your ostensible goal is the &#8220;scarab\u00e6us of floccinaucinihilipilification&#8221; on the other side of the maze, but every once in a while the game just tells you &#8220;You have won&#8221; or &#8220;You have died&#8221; completely at random.<\/p>\n<p>I, for one, do not accept these random victories as genuine, any more than the shortcuts in <em>Secret of Monkey Island<\/em> or <a href=\"http:\/\/ifdb.tads.org\/viewgame?id=00wlim27k5d1hmf2\"><em>A Change in the Weather<\/em><\/a>.  Mapping a maze without objects to drop is not an insurmountable obstacle for an experienced adventurer; the <a href=\"http:\/\/ifdb.tads.org\/search?searchfor=tag:T%2fSAL%20source%20available\">T\/SAL<\/a> games from the dawn age of the genre routinely did much worse things with their mazes, and this one only has about a dozen rooms.  Picking up the scarab\u00e6us once I found it was a little tricky, what with the ligature, but there are several ways around it (including cut-and-paste and pronouns).<\/p>\n<p>So, on the down side, this game has no plot, only one fairly uninspired puzzle, and a randomized factor that makes me need &#8220;undo&#8221; frequently.  On the up side, it has no bugs, doesn&#8217;t demand a large time commitment, and evokes memories of bygone eras of gaming.  I can&#8217;t honestly say it succeeds in its goals, given the title.  But at least it manages, by not attempting anything difficult, to avoid doing anything seriously wrong.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rating: 3<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, that&#8217;s actually the next game&#8217;s title. My initial reaction, before even opening it, is skepticism &#8212; I&#8217;ve seen games that extol their own badness before, and they&#8217;re never as bad as the ones that are convinced that they&#8217;re brilliant. Well, let&#8217;s find out if it lives up to its claim, shall we? Spoilers follow [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[84,53,236,238],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-if","tag-if","tag-ifcomp","tag-ifcomp-2008","tag-trolling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3914,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions\/3914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}