{"id":637,"date":"2010-10-13T21:17:53","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T04:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/islemaster.wordpress.com\/?p=637"},"modified":"2010-10-13T21:17:53","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T04:17:53","slug":"ifcomp-2010-divis-mortis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/ifcomp-2010-divis-mortis\/","title":{"rendered":"IFComp 2010: Divis Mortis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Zombie\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Divis Mortis” by Lynnea Dally<\/p>\n

The infection has spread. They are coming.<\/em><\/p>\n

Tut tut, looks like zombies. I’m not expecting too much, but then Glulx games are usually more ambitious that your typical z-code entry, so I could be wrong. Let’s find out. Spoilers await: <\/p>\n

Yes, it’s zombies. Zombies in a hospital. I awake in a radiation chamber with a terrible hunger, and immediately wonder if I’m a zombie myself. Apparently I am not. In my first attempt I get my hands on flashlights I can’t open, food I won’t eat, medicine I won’t take and a gun with no bullets before being eaten by the first solitary undead I stumble across. Maybe should have been titled “I Wanna Be The Zombie?”<\/a><\/p>\n

On my second attempt I make it just slightly further (successfully barricading the doors) before starting to look for hints. Pushing the exercise stairs three rooms to climb the barricade was a bit much. And who can’t lift exercise steps anyway? But really, this is a symptom of a larger problem in the game: It’s inconsistent in how it draws attention to important items. Some rooms (like the Pharmacy) are empty and purposeless except as a place to write “Some pills are sitting on the counter.” Others (like the weight room) nonchalantly mention key items (exercise steps, rope) in-line with scenery, and even seem to imply that there is nothing useful in the room. This isn’t helped by the sometimes lacking synonyms or verbs. I mean, to give you my experience I just need to provide anecdotes:<\/p>\n

\n> open can
\nYou remove the lid, salivating at the prospect of food.<\/p>\n

> eat food
\nYou can\u2019t see any such thing.<\/p>\n

> eat peas
\nYou scarf the vegetables down, eager to…\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And a simple case that could have been handled with an instead rule:<\/p>\n

\n> take pills
\nYou already have those.<\/p>\n

> eat pills
\nYou pop the recommended dosage of pills into your mouth.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It took me forever to find the scissors to open the flashlight and lamp. I thought, “surely there must be some other way to open this stupid plastic packaging.”<\/p>\n

\n> unwrap flashlight with gun
\n(the flashlight (wrapped) with the handgun (loaded))
\nThat doesn\u2019t seem to be something you can unlock.<\/p>\n

> shoot flashlight
\n(the flashlight (wrapped))
\nYou aim and fire. You have 2 bullets left.<\/p>\n

> open flashlight
\n(the flashlight (wrapped))
\nYou rip at the plastic crap, but you never could do it with your bare hands. You need a sharp object.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I finally did get the lamp open and I wished to drop it down the stairs I thought of a great puzzle solution. I would turn the lamp on, stick it back in its stupid indestructible packaging, and drop it. The light would shine through the clear plastic. But no:<\/p>\n

\n> put lamp in lamp crap
\n(the electric lamp in plastic lamp crap)
\nThat can\u2019t contain things.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And finally getting downstairs, I’m unable to open the electric panel because I have no screwdriver. Hints? “You must get past the car zombie.” What? I’ve searched this place high and low, and found no so-called car zombie. There’s no garage either. The description of the panel says something like “if only you had a quarter or a screwdriver.” Too bad I can’t pick up the coins mentioned in the same drawer where I finally found the scissors. In the end, I read every hint and scoured every room, and was unable find a car zombie or screwdriver so I could not finish the game. The writing’s nothing to write home about, the puzzles feel a bit unfair (and there are some missed opportunities for very good alternate solutions) and I may have found a showstopper bug.<\/p>\n

This is making me re-evaluate some of my other grades. Since I didn’t really like it, and it’s badly in need of testing and possibly broken…<\/p>\n

Verdict: C-<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Divis Mortis” by Lynnea Dally The infection has spread. They are coming. Tut tut, looks like zombies. I’m not expecting too much, but then Glulx games are usually more ambitious that your typical z-code entry, so I could be wrong. Let’s find out. Spoilers await:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[26,384],"class_list":["post-637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-ifcomp-2010","tag-zombies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}