May 11, 2011

Love, Hate and the Mysterious Ocean Tower

I suppose it's uplifting. It's got a zeppelin, after all. - Carolyn VanEseltine

I never thought I would enjoy a game where you could only carry one object as much as I did this one. - Colin Sandel

Literally blood-drenched. - Roger Carbol

I'm not sure whether the anachronisms are deliberate or if it's just that the author is astonishingly ignorant. - David Fletcher

Imagine a great ancient tower among the waves. Imagine zeppelins. Imagine flamboyant scholars of arcane languages. Imagine playing a game that brilliantly fits the above blurbs, and then give C.E.J. Pacian's brief story of love, romance and cosmic horror a try. It's an exquisite interactive vignette by the Lair's favourite crafter of text-driven entertainment, that -besides being freeware- is incredibly easy to play (yes, even for people that have never seen a piece of interactive fiction before) and will most probably feel like playing through a most imaginative short-story.

Now, to actually enjoy the brilliantly written and happily branching Love, Hate and the Mysterious Ocean Tower (for this is the thing's title) you could follow this very link and download as many copies of the game as you fancy. Then again, you could give it a try online without having to leave the comfort of your browser. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Love, Hate, etc. was written for the Speed IF Jacket 4 event.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

14 comments:

  1. Will most definitely give this one a try, as soon as possible. Sounds interesting.

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  2. It looks very interesting! I'll certainly give it a try.

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  3. @ Ithmeer: I sincerely hope you'll enjoy it my friend. I know I did.

    @ Tethoril: Have fun and cheers for the comment! Εξαιρετικό blog!

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  4. Ευχαριστώ gnome, αλλά το δικό σου blog είναι ακόμη καλύτερο!
    Keep up the good work ;)

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  5. Δεν θα το έλεγα, αλλά να'σαι καλά. Ευχαριστώ θερμά!

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  6. Ah, I quite enjoyed it. If there was a good ending, well, I couldn't seem to find it. I found the game both funny and surprisingly touching at times. Pacian did an excellent job as always.

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  7. Ah! Found it. I thought I'd found the solution earlier but I typed it wrong or left out a crucial word. Worth it though.

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  8. I think I've gotten around to seeing, uhm let me think now, five endings. Apparently the puzzlier one is the best. Oh, and I fully agree on the quality of Pacian's games dear Ithmeer. The man is brilliant!

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  9. Five endings, you say? Let's see... I found four, and only one of them was a real ending in the sense that it didn't let me undo my last command. I probably didn't use every answer combination.

    But a fine piece of IF indeed!

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  10. I might have a horrible headache dear David, but I'll give it a try: a) you run, b) you stab yourself, c) you stab your partner, d) you get him to stab you and e) you kill the good undead lady. Still, you are right. An fine specimen indeed! Oh, and that's a jaw-dropping blog you've got there.

    Oh and I'm really sorry for the deletion of the comments everyone, but Google/Blogger apparently went down and they all got lost! Same thing with a few drafts I had saved. Argh!

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  11. Well, as a movie writer would say: I would kill her... but she's already dead! But seriously, I shall let her live. I'm sure taking her down requires much more IF culture than the other endings.

    And I take that compliment about my blog with special joy. Assuming you cannot read the original version of it, this is the first time someone suggests my English isn't a completely incoherent Google-Translate-like grammatic abomination.

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  12. Then again David, taking her down is the way to get to the good finale. Oh, and I'm glad you appreciated the compliment. Cheers!

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  13. Made it! I'll have to thank you again, dear gnome, since I wouldn't have made it without knowing it was possible. (Although a really good form of expression, IFs are really hard for a stranger to the language.)

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  14. Well, truth be said dear David you really don't sound like a stranger. No more than me at least. Oh, and congrats!

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