Re: Instant Death
8 Mar 1995 11:42:15 GMT
In article <baf.794602567@max.tiac.net>,
Carl Muckenhoupt <baf@max.tiac.net> wrote:
>whizzard@uclink.berkeley.edu (Gerry Kevin Wilson) writes:
>
>>In article <3jhabr$ll@nic.lth.se>, Magnus Olsson <mol@loglady.df.lth.se> wrote:
>>>
>>>Let's face it: many of the games in the if-archive stink. Or, if they
>>>don't stink, then they're not very good.
>
>>Ain't it the truth. I may have to put in a Golden Doodoo award for IF
>>games, though I imagine Aliens Laughed at my Cardigan could hold the
>>title for years running.
>
>Hah! No way. Sure, Cardigan is rife with typos and misspellings, was
>apparently never debugged, and suffers from all the ills of AGT and
>more, but at least it was created with an understanding of the
>fundamental basis of IF. Try "detect" for an AGT game that doesn't
>even rise to AGT's usual level of technical merit. Or worse, "cavchao2",
>which is glorified hypertext, except that you have to type the words
>yourself instead of just clicking on them. Plus, it kills without
>warning, has a hackneyed plot, has no save feature, and runs in 40 column
>mode.
>
Ah, but there's a difference between bad and bad. "Detective" is a very
bad adventure: it's author simply can't write, and clearly hasn't even
the faintest idea of what makes a good IF game.
"Cardigan", however, is bad in a trulymagnificent manner; in its own
perverse way, it's a glorious achievement of bad IF. See my review in
SPAG4 for a more detailed opinion.
Magnus Olsson (mol@df.lth.se) / yacc computer club, Lund, Sweden
Work: Innovativ Vision AB, Linkoping (magnus.olsson@ivab.se)
Old adresses (may still work): magnus@thep.lu.se, thepmo@selund.bitnet
PGP key available via finger (to df.lth.se) or on request.