So I decided to play some of the entries in this year's IntroComp. I've also decided to write a few lines as I play along. Kind of a review. I never reviewed anything in my life. Well, maybe just the choice for a kind of soup in a dinner party once (that wasn't nice), and the dress that a friend of mine brought to a wedding (she never called back); but apart from that, not one thing, not one thing at all.

IntroComp is an Interactive Fiction competition for Introductions to games. It was created by Jacqueline A. Lott. Hands down to such a neat concept! I'm a movie trailer addict, by the way, so I I'll be liking this.

The first one I picked up from this year's bunch was Iain Merrick's Tourist Trap. A random choice, of course, or not so random, since the brain is - I heard - incapable of such . For my next choice I'll give each entry a number and have my TexasInstruments 81 (or something) give me a random output. I'm all for fairness, actually.

So, let us see how well I play this thing.

[oh... by the way, it will contain spoilers, but it's an Intro; how much spoiled can it get?]

Tourist Trap, by Iain Merrick

[1] Oh, Paris. A Paris start is a good start. Mainly when I'm in an... Élevé? What a... Well, I'll have to admit I'm a sucker for very big passages over very big cities. They remind me of an old adventure game called Universe. And of Halo. But I liked Universe better. I was younger. Back to the Élevé. A girl is with me, Emma, a hipsterish gall. I'm a sucker for hipsterish galls. Have you ever heard Pamplamoose? So lovely. A gentlemen is in front of me. Let's talk, shall we?

[2] Well, the conversation with that gentlemen went smooth, very smooth indeed, as smooth as a baby's bottom: I hardly had to do anything at all. Most of the time I had only one option on the dialog, which kind of seemed that I was just pressing any key to continue. There was also no obvious consequence or lost of information in any of the choices, since I was able to go through all of the options given the first time around.

[3] So I restarted it and tried not to talk to the gentlemen, to see what happens. Tough luck: Emma jumped to the dialog and I got (almost) all of the info I got from him myself.

[4] So I'm a Time Tourist! Cool. And there will be Time Customs! Even cooler! And I can't disrupt the fabric of time and space, otherwise... fashion will be off by a century and shrinks from the future will have to be sent? What the hell?

[5] Ok, so the gentlemen is off the Élevé and Emma thinks he was a such a crazy character. Giving the context, I actually found the old man very sane.

[6] Now is our turn to exit the amazing vehicle and the intro ends. I get to read a message from the author, saying that the full game will be like this and like that, but sadly, although the premise is neat and the writing is fine - very formal, but fine - we never get to feel how the game is going to be. The voice of the author promises great chunks of culture and adventure in Old Paris, but the intro itself doesn't really give a scent of such chunks.

Jacqueline wants the voters to vote having this question in mind: How bad do you want to play the full game after this?

So, how bad do I want to play the full game?
I'm not going to loose any sleep over it, but I'm curious as what is to become of this, yes I am, although it striked me as potentially boring and over-the-top descriptive.

[+] The concept of time tourism, as it was presented, was interesting.
[-] The one option dialog was a turn down.

As for voting: I guess I'll wait until I've played some more before I do that. All for fairness, all for fairness indeed.

(TI 81 told me just now that my next pick will be Waker, by Kevin Jackson Mead)



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