CGDC #7 – Brooks Reeves’ Party Foul!

And now for the game with the longest blurb!

You’re cornered, trapped. There seems to be no escape. You aren’t in a jail cell. No, you’re in the cocktail party from hell and only by using your wits and luck are you going to get out of this suburb alive.

Forty-one words, handily beating Into the Open Sky at thirty-six and Escape in the Dark at thirty-five.  I like the premise.  And the little cartoon.  Got a lot of those little pink hearts, too.  I am Expecting Great Things.

Later:  That was really good!  Go play it before spoiling yourself!

[spoilers begin here]

Nice, optional tutorial mode!  Newcomer-friendly IF is the Wave of the Future and the Pulse of the Now.  Plus it’s not just for life, it’s for Christmas!

“Hey,” Frank says, grasping your arm, “Where’d you think yer goin’, huh?  I’m jess gettin’ to the good part!”
“Well, see a bunch of the fellas and me were goin’ to Lost Vegas fer a weekend, and we got waylayed in Utah on account of this blizzard, see?” says Frank.
> knee frank in the junk
That’s not a verb I recognize.
Damn.

Enjoying this so far.  Seems like there are multiple obstacles in the way of me leaving this party, i.e. multiple puzzles I can work on in any order, which is a fun setup.  The NPCs are nice and active, too.

“Do you know if it’s going to be a boy or a girl?” asks Sandy.
“Nah,” Barb says, “I’d rather be surprised.  Course, with my luck it’ll be a freakin’ hermaphrodite.”
Good old Barb.

Yay, ruined football for my husband!  Now I just need to get Frank off our coats and Barb off my casserole dish.

“Well, all right, Mr. Party Pooper,” she says,  “But nobody is leaving until we play a party game!”
Dear God, what hath I wrought?

“You know there’s no escape,” says Ron, looking at you seriously, “The cocktail parties never end.  You know, tomorrow we’re hosting another one.  Another One!”
Noooooo!

“Dude,” says Chuck to your husband, “were you just twiddling your thumbs?”
“Uh, yeah,” Mark replies.
“Whoa, bro, who does that?”
Awesome.

Okay, managed to spread peanut butter on Frank.  Think I might need to keep Abbey busy so the dog has time to get to his face.  (I absolutely love that this is a puzzle solution, by the way.)

Hmm, Abbey didn’t care when I dropped my cocktail in the kitchen, but dropping it in the living room did the trick.  Lucky for me I have no problem leaving a trail of spilled beverages through her entire house!

“Give me a singapore sunrise,” you say
“Really,” he asks, “Are you going to spill this one on the carpet like you did the last one?”
“Umm…” you stammer.
“Never mind,” he says, putting down his glass, “Why else am I behind this bar?”
I like an NPC who knows his place.

Oh, Barb wants an Ants on a Log.  Well, there’s celery in Ron’s drink, I know where the peanut butter is, and a lot of things look like raisins.

…oh, there are actual raisins in my bag.  That’s not quite as much fun.

>–> The scene change machinery is stuck.
That sounds broken.

Yay!  I won!  That was a good game.  Puzzles were fun and really well-clued, plus the NPCs were nicely active and responsive and always seemed to have something new to say even in old situations, which is pretty damned impressive really.   I was driven just a tiny bit nuts by all the commas in the dialogue that I am pretty sure should have been periods, but that is a minor nitpick and the game as a whole was just very goddamn well-done.