Baf's Guide to the IF Archive

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The Tempest

Author:Graham Nelson
Writer:William Shakespeare
Genre:Adaptation>Literary
Released:1997
Review:

An adaptation of the Shakespeare play by one of the latter-day demigods of IF. While ample intelligence and creativity went into the making of the game (unsurprisingly, with Graham behind it)--the parser is completely hacked to make all the responses Elizabethan--it doesn't work very well as a game. You get long chunks of the play as cut-scenes, and the game amounts to figuring out what to do to trigger the next cut-scene--but some of the actions are so obscure that having the text of the play on hand doesn't help. Worse, you can't speak to any of the other characters, since that would presumably violate the confines of the play. The Elizabethan responses are amusing, but they're probably the best thing about this game.

Rating: ***

Reviewed by Duncan Stevens (02 Jul 2000)

Competitions/
Awards:
25th place, rec.arts.int-fiction competition 1997
Winner, Best Use of Medium, Xyzzy Awards 1997
Play Online:Play it at ifiction.org: Release 3
Related Links:SPAG reviews
Downloads:
tempest.z5 (152.00 KB)
Z-code 5 executable (version: Release 3)
tempest.sol (892 bytes)
Walkthrough


Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive
Copyright © 2012 Carl Muckenhoupt
All reviews included in this site are copyright © the credited author of the review.