Review scoopings 3/5 · Nov 5, 2021
Clever, fun, ahead of its time -- but I can't claim to be a huge text adventure fan
Play: 8/10 This grew on me. Sure, it's very derivative of Colossal Cave Adventure, but undeniably innovative for being from Sweden, for how young the creators were, and for all the humor and variety. I never fully beat it with max score, like Colossal, but after mapping from a few playthroughs, I enjoyed it. I can't claim to have the …
Play: 8/10 This grew on me. Sure, it's very derivative of Colossal Cave Adventure, but undeniably innovative for being from Sweden, for how young the creators were, and for all the humor and variety. I never fully beat it with max score, like Colossal, but after mapping from a few playthroughs, I enjoyed it. I can't claim to have the patience to solve all the puzzles, map the whole place, or figure out that darn Guard.
Feel: 8/10 I love the backstory of the game and how it was created. I also enjoyed the "plotline" of the game, its humor, and the silly cameo of the Muppets, etc. It definitely seemed to diversify the mechanics and gameplay of Colossal Cave Adventure. When I first started playing I felt lost (like I did with Colossal), but especially bad due to the English translation only existing since 2009 and the lack of guides/maps. I mapped a lot myself, which was fun, but it got to be a bit dry and overly confusing. I liked that there seemed to be no RNG factor, but turns out there is the robber rng like in Colossal, death rng, a time factor, and more. Indeed, death is frequent, from trying to enter the device/drop room to the lift dropping. I am already nostalgic for the dwarves and whatnot from Colossal Cave more than this game, but at the same time, Colossal Cave's RNG factor was certainly more blatantly frustrating. I didn't much care for the lift factor in this game, but it's thoroughly clever, funny, and well-made for its time and context.
Attachment: 7/10 Despite all the fun, and my desire to get through to the game, I probably would rather solve Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork more than this one. Possibly more so because there are available maps and guides for those, but I like to think it's also because those seem tighter with their setup. This is excellent for how young the creators were, the time it was released, and its story (I love love love the story that they originally had it planned as an arcade setup where you could pick from the 3 possible arcade games, until they discovered it was more fun to walk around the arcade setting than actually play the arcade games ha). In some ways, interactive fiction/text adventures are growing on me, but as I chronologically start doing more Atari games and whatnot, I think I am going to be far more excited for graphic adventures and games heh.