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Untold Riches

on ifcomp-2015
Interactive fiction competition 2015 is over. There were 53 games and you can see their results here. But the games are still worth discussing so let's do it.

This article has a non-spoilery game map.

Author: Jason Ermer. Play online

I actually had to make notes for that. And a map, because I can’t remember all these rooms and items. And I learned IFM for that.

Game map (no spoilers)

You are an unnamed assistant to the great professor adventurer who got away from some pirates while searching for the Greatest Treasure Never Told About. Or something like that. It’s a treasure hunt!

So I think the game was exactly what it aimed to be: it was a simple adventure. The writing is a good mix of stories about an eccentric adventurer and its nameless gender-neutral adventurous sidekick. The puzzles are light and obvious enough and they have only one solution: the boring one. It has the standard problem of an adventure game: you would have a hard time locating the active objects among the scenery, but the hint system provides for that.

I think it would be good as your second or third IF game. It’s peppered with staples and tropes but it embraces them with a bit of a lighthearted humor, so it’s interesting enough for an adventure fan. At the same time it would be very hard for the absolute novice who doesn’t know you’re supposed to type words in, because he won’t be examining every detail. Perhaps the HELP command should be expanded for these players.

Oh, and I saved my partial transcript, if you’re interested.