"Words of Power" thoughts

Okay, I'm no good at being formal, so I'm not going to try. These are just
semi-organized opinions.

I enjoyed the story and the almost complete lack of puzzles. There was only
one puzzle I can think of that I actually had to figure out, but that
solution was fairly obvious, since it involved an immediate threat to my
life. There was a section that stumped me because I couldn't figure out the
required action to make the story move again, but eventually it hit me.

The ease of the puzzles is greatly helped by the small inventory and few
spells. I actually wish there had been more to do with the spells, and more
words besides, but the game and documentation did a good job incorporating
lessons as to how to cast the spells. If only magic were real. Then more IF
would have that handy light spell rather than having to rely on torches. The
puzzles that did require the spells were fun in that I got a feeling of
"Cool" when it worked.

The inventory is unusual in that it only seems to be used to carry a few
things and you don't keep any of them anyway. I've never played a game where
scenery is just scenery and there's no need to obsessively pick things up,
so that in itself was an interesting change.

Since I'm a totally blind player, I cannot comment on the graphics except to
say thank goodness they were added bonuses and not actually necessary to
solve any puzzles. I have to say, for the blind, or at least myself, I hate
ASCII art because it means nothing to me and makes no sense in a screen
reader. I doubly hate when games rely on the ASCII art for its playability,
meaning that the art is required to solve the game successfully. So it's
nice *that* frustration wasn't played out here.

I think one of the best things about the game was the music. I thought each
piece was well-chosen for the mood of the particular scene and it added
another sensory experience, which is always a good thing. The only other
game I've played that had sound was "Six Stories," which was cute. The sound
added color to the games that I could actually appreciate, so it's kind of
neat that there seems to be more games that are incorporating it and
graphics. I've known that music has a big influence emotionally, but have
never had the opportunity to experience that firsthand in a game until now,
since I could never really play video games. That's probably why this is so
important to me.

The conversation system took me some time to get used to. Again, since I'm
blind, the placement of the menu on the right made it somewhat of a pain
because not only did it wrap around, but it made me have to keep scrolling
up and down to see what options I had. It sort of broke the flow of the game
text, too, because as I read, I had to pause mentally and resume at the
lines that the conversation menu intruded on, which could sometimes be quite
a lot of the text. I don't think the system itself was bad, especially
because I could choose to click an option or type the number, and I have a
preference for conversation menus anyway. It just could have been laid out
better, like below the prompt or something. I suppose the menu could
sometimes get very long, with 9 or 10 items, so the side option had been
chosen because of that, but it still made talking more tedious than it
should have been. Paul O'Brian's "Earth and Sky" series had conversation
menus, though, with the options all listed without intruding on the scenery
text, and it worked fine.

The PDF files were an unusual idea. I've never played a game where the
in-game text was presented as reference material, but it worked out. I
needed to refer back to the book especially and that would have been
insanely long if it had been in the game itself. I thought the poetry was
too fancy, but that's just me. It sounded pretty, but took too much effort
to decipher and was rather too long. Thankfully, the poems weren't needed
for puzzles, either.

I enjoyed the gameworld and the spellcasting. I appreciate that the
worldbuilding was detailed and an attempt made to explain how the magic
worked, which aids a lot in believing in it. One oddity I did spot was that
the falk lord is a lord at all, and not a queen or lady, since the falks are
supposedly matriarchal.

Despite my complaints, I enjoyed this game and I think I'd replay it as
well. I found it entertaining and interesting enough to complete, which is
not as common a thing as I'd like. Sometimes I've completed games simply
because I felt obligated to, having gotten so far in them. I guess it pays
to trawl through the genre section of Baf's Guide.

Andrie

P.S. What exactly do people mean when they say a game is linear? What's so
wrong with that? I think I prefer linearity. I want to be told what the
author means and the story the author wants to tell, not create my own
story. Heck, if I wanted to do that, I'd write a fanfic or something
original. In any case, I don't replay a game to see if I can make something
turn out differently; if I replay, it's to relive the experience or for the
sake of exploring more things I didn't get to see.

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 17:02:52 -1000, "Andromache"
<Andromakhe.DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote:

>The PDF files were an unusual idea. I've never played a game where the
>in-game text was presented as reference material, but it worked out. I
>needed to refer back to the book especially and that would have been
>insanely long if it had been in the game itself. I thought the poetry was
>too fancy, but that's just me. It sounded pretty, but took too much effort
>to decipher and was rather too long. Thankfully, the poems weren't needed
>for puzzles, either.

18 pages of pdf in a script font that's hard to read is a bit much.
I'm on page 12 and I'm not sure if I want to continue.