Two Swallows

IFComp 2010: Aotearoa

The Interactive Fiction Competition is an annual event that’s been running since 1995 (this is the 16th iteration). Anyone can participate, whether by submitting a game or by voting on the entries. I’m doing the latter.

There will be spoilers in the following review; consider yourself forewarned.

Game: Aotearoa (IFDB, IFWiki)
Author: Matt Wigdahl

The “last place on Earth where dinosaurs still roam”? I like this game already. I was mad for dinosaurs as a child. First steam trains, then dinosaurs. So, when I read in the introductory documentation that there was a “name” verb – that you could name dinosaurs – and later a “ride” verb… it took me back to those halcyon days when my fondest dream was to have a pet velociraptor on which I’d ride to school. Sigh. This comes across very much as the best of childhood fantasies made into a game, and I bet kids would get even more of a kick out of it than I did. It’s an old-fashioned Adventure, a Willard Price novel with dinosaurs rather than animals.

At the start of the game you can choose to enable some optional features: tutorial mode, and keyword highlighting (à la Blue Lacuna). Room exits are listed in the status bar, and are highlighted if you haven’t used them yet. I appreciate this very much, and the rest of the game shows the same thought and care. Having just played a game where the puzzle solutions were occasionally mind-boggling, and the hints very sparse, it’s also a pleasure to have a progressive hint menu that you can just dip into if you need a little push.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that this is very much like Willard Price: there’s a plucky young protagonist trying to survive in a land that’s foreign to him, exotic animals/dinosaurs, and poachers. Not to say that it’s a knock-off (it certainly isn’t), but it has all the elements of excitement I would expect in a work of that genre. I liked Tim Cooper’s admiration of Maui, its fauna, and its people; his enthusiasm was infectious. I liked Eruera, and since I thought Tim would often call him on the radio for reassurance, I did too. He was a father figure/information giver/plot device all rolled into one, but I thought he was given enough personality to be a believable character.

The puzzles mostly involve item collection and exploration. They’re fair and not too hard – I needed a nudge from the hints for the bridging of the stream, but otherwise had no problems. I didn’t find any bugs. The writing is, again, exactly what I’d expect from an adventure story: fun, earnest, and very much from Tim’s perspective. I think it’s pitched at the right level, because I enjoyed it as an adult and think that children would like it even more.

Two areas could be been better. One was when Maui’s spirit communicates wih Tim, or Tim feels a connection with Maui. This could all be in Tim’s head, of course, but then Eruera talks about him having a gift with the animals, and how special that is, and I thought this was a just a bit twee, as if Tim was some kind of chosen one. I much preferred the idea that he just had a passion for the place/people/creatures, and given the practical nature of the puzzles and the general goals of the game, I thought the hints of mysticism were unnecessary. It didn’t stop me from enjoying the game, but it was a little niggle.

Two: more dinosaurs, please! There weren’t nearly enough. I wanted herds of the things. The epilogue was a nice touch, but I wished those events had happened in-game. Having said that, it’s the perfect length for IFComp as it stands, and this is probably my inner seven-year-old talking.

Conclusion: it’s solid, it’s finished, it’s well-written, it may be pitched a little young for adults but if you’re anything like me then you like that kind of game once in a while (especially after playing One Eye Open, phew), and it’s a wonderful adventure. Also, you get to give amusing names to dinosaurs, and what’s not to like about that?