Update: IF and departure

I played more of the interactive fiction from the 11th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition, finishing "Chancellor" and starting "Beyond". That makes "Dreary Lands", "History Repeating", and "Chancellor" played.

Both "Dreary Lands" and "History Repeating" failed to impress me. No, that is prevarication – I disliked them both. In both cases, gameplay issues were the key factor: the former suffered from typos and errors (one of which which caused an entire roomful of objects to display themselves in my inventory and on screen as "currently burning)" or something like that) and from poorly made puzzles, and the latter was caught in the "figure out what question you are supposed to ask" hole from nearly the beginning. Speech interactions with characters in text adventures are always fraught with peril for a game designer.

"Chancellor", on the other hand, was very good. At first I had been skeptical of its qualities (especially after having to resort to the hint guide to escape the introduction), but it didn't take long for the game to show its real worth. It does have speech interactions, as it happens, but they fortunately take the form of "ask about [keyword]", and I was able to deduce the proper keywords before too long. The story is surreal in a good way (and looks to have many cute fortune-cookies for the repeat player).

Right now I'm in the middle of "Beyond". I'll see how that goes.

Oh, and nanakikun took the train to Anthrocon this afternoon, so I'll be keeping his GameCube company for the duration. (Sorry I didn't catch you in the window with the camera, nanakikun! Have fun at the con!)


P.S. Oh, where I said I wouldn't go through and try all of them? I was wrong.

Hey, there's only 28....

Truth or Happiness?

Okay, I can't sleep for wondering how people would answer this, so...

Which do you value more: truth or happiness?

Answer any way you please (though I reserve the right to delete anything obscene).