IFComp09 reviews: Rover's Day Out
For a linear plot, this is an incredibly complex game. There are three stories going on at once:
- The "real" story, which is about a space race between Earth and one of its breakaway colonies, and about the relationship between two of the people involved in it.
- An AI who started as a scan of one of the two people, interacting with a limited environment that looks a whole lot like her apartment, going about her daily routine. Which would be horrible and boring except that...
- Each of these morning routine actions is tied to an important function of the starship that the AI is (only partially knowingly) commanding.
The plot begins with you having to repeat various actions to get your morning routine correct, and to allow the designers to beta-test the software. This serves both as tutorial, and as a mechanism to let the outside plot progress; their differing reactions to your routine are part of the plot.
(Important side note; in this part, a lot of dialogue that was supposed to appear apparently did not do so in Spatterlight or Gargoyle. WinGlulxe and Zoom both showed it fine though. Be warned.)
Once the program is tested, you're sent out to do your mission in earnest, and, as one might expect, Things Don't Go Entirely According To Plan. This is where the game starts to really shine. You have an entire ship's worth of systems at your disposal, there are vast numbers of alternate solutions that you can deploy in sequence, and you understand the systems because you'd been paying attention to all three layers in the beginning.
However, your interface remains the "in the apartment" interface, even though at this point you are getting information in a more "AI controlling a ship" sort of way. This means that you find yourself saying things like "Oh, no; I've got to hurry; all will be lost if I cannot BRUSH my TEETH in time!"
Once the story is concluded, the AMUSING text then grades you. I did fairly well (3/4, 3/8, for those keeping track at home), and I didn't ever really need hints, either. So I thought the difficulty was well-pitched.
Highly recommended, but this isn't a game to pick up lightly. You'll need to pay a lot of attention.