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Adrift-O-Rama Reviews
Author: Mystery
Date: 2003
ADRIFT 4.0
Reviewed by Duncan Bowman
ADRIFT-O-Rama is a special type of game, a sort of
community in-joke featuring members of the ADRIFT Forum. It's less an
interactive fiction and more an interactive creative non-fiction (even if ICNF
is a clunky acronym that sounds too much like “I sniff.”), so that's how I'm
judging it. As far as I can tell, the first of this type of community-based
creative non-fic in the modern IF Community is Adam Biltcliffe's Are You a
Chef? (2000). ADRIFT-O-Rama is not the first of its type in ADRIFT,
either, being preceded a couple months by Woodfish's Forum (a comment in
ADRIFT-O-Rama seems to suggest that Woodfish might have gotten the idea
from Mystery). But where Forum is ultimately a work of fiction that just
name-drops a few 'DRIFTers and ties its adventure together with a couple
community in-jokes, ADRIFT-O-Rama goes the whole nine yards as creative non-fic,
presenting its author's personal view of her contemporaries through the lens of
a mock game of miniature golf.
I think the great thing about these sort of time capsule games like
ADRIFT-O-Rama is that, as historical documents, they arguably become more
valuable with age. It is especially gratifying not just to see ADRIFT authors
represented (it's an 18 hole course, 17 for authors and 1 for Guess the Verb),
not just to show how their works are perceived (each hole is modelled after a
single author's forum persona or oeuvre, with no shortage of commentary), but to
have them situated in the specific context of another 'DRIFTer's viewpoint
(i.e., Mystery's). It's a really neat glance back into the community and into
what being a member of it and author with it is (or was) like, especially from a
member of one of the oldest cohorts of 'DRIFTers.
Particular actions in ADRIFT-O-Rama are very juicy: hitting different
objects with the club, hitting them with your hands (while holding nothing--
yields different responses than clubbing), hitting the ball, and throwing the
ball can produce several different, amusing responses in each room of the game.
These actions all have variable responses controlled by randomized numerical
values and ADRIFT 4's text replacement system, ALR (Alternate Language
Resource). According to the ALR, most of these actions throughout the game can
yield anywhere from 5-15 or so possible responses. Consider that that's
stretched over 18 holes (19 rooms, counting the ball room), with several
implemented scenery objects to act upon in each, and you'll understand what
makes this game so deceptively deep. What Noah Wardrip-Fruin calls the
Tale-Spin Effect (describing “works that fail to represent their internal
system richness on their surfaces”) is at work here, hampering the full
experience of this piece while the parser mediates that experience.
On a typical playthrough, one might experience the game as something like a
quick short story. It's possible to just go through, hitting the ball in every
hole and scoring a hole in one every time, so that one might see none of the
>hit %object% responses, none of the throwing responses, and only one response
for sinking the ball per course. One trouble with the game is that because the
responses are randomized, it's impossible to figure out how many responses one
should expect for a given action without looking at the game's code.
On an attempt at a deeper play, however, the amount of effort and soul that went
into this game is plainly evident. The replacement text from the ALR file alone
is over 17,000 words long; after adding room and object descriptions, the game
approaches novel length. It's a shame the process for uncovering these scriptons
in the game is randomized, but the game's amusing writing does reward
persistence. Perhaps a better strategy for reading ADRIFT-O-Rama is to
play through the game once and then read the ALR file itself to catch everything
you missed.
The tone of the game is generally zany and a jokingly abusive of the player. The
text is very self-aware, and shows an erudition with not only the ADRIFT
community, but also the platform itself. For example, the game often spoofs the
ADRIFT 4 parser's standard responses
(“You hit, but nothing happens. Heh- thought you wouldn't get that response, did
you?”). In one section (after trying to
hit things
in the Ball Room), the author makes one of many write-in appearances. In
this one, she threatens to lecture the player on the importance of beta-testing.
Upon continued abuse, she makes good on that promise-- only with a spelling
error early on in the response that I can't help but think has to have been
typed in with a wink.
Mystery trades in insult humour for much of the game, writing in her own
satirical visions of other ADRIFT authors and community members, many of whom
are gone now. It's safe to say that these authors were also intended to be her
audience at the time, thus much of the abuse taken by the player character can
also be construed a sort of imaginary, playful abuse to fellow 'DRIFTers.
Especially in the early '00s, this sort of abuse was commonplace on the ADRIFT
Forum-- consider the importance of the Forum's most active and longest running
thread (2 Aug 2002 - 28 May 2006), the Smacking Thread. Mystery appears in-game
to smack the player character around quite often, which I believe other 'DRIFTers
would've recognized as a sort of good-natured and wacky playfulness (in fact,
smacking was also a primary verb for the player in Forum).
But there are some more brutal portrayals in the game, as well, where Mystery
makes no mystery of her opinion on some authors. If Don Rickles had written an
ADRIFT game, it would look like ADRIFT-O-Rama. One hole on the course is
dedicated to the takedown of David Whyld, comic roast-style
(“Did I mention he despises Mystery too?” the game informs us). In
another instance, DuoDave (i.e., David Good) appears
to call Mystery an “anal control freak” and scoff at her beta-testing
suggestions. Another Forum member is shown as a feckless pothead in a
cloud of smoke, while yet another has a course adorned with “Shit-on-a-Stick™.”
There's a current of brazen honesty, bitterness, and a disillusionment with
elements of the community that runs throughout the game, which seems somewhat
common in even current members of ADRIFT's sometimes claustrophobic-seeming
community. Had this been made a few years later, I think it's likely it would
have included the 'DRIFTing community's most feared and hated phrase, “ADRIFT is
dead.”
Of course, Mystery doesn't exclude herself from her own roasting. She has a hole
on the course, too, whose primary feature is a maze (referencing her game
ADRIFT Maze). Upon trying to hit the ball, Mystery might make another author
insert appearance to tell the player, for example, that
"Selma's
Will was a fluke." I say “might” again because of the randomized
nature of the game's responses. Read the ALR-- it's in there.
At times-- and perhaps including the previous comment-- the text waxes
confessional. Especially at Mystery's hole, the writing of some segments either
directly addresses the author's grievances
("If you'd
behave yourself you wouldn't need a [forum] moderator. I wasn't sure if
moderating was something I wanted to do. People expect you not to have opinions
when you are a moderator...I guess it isn't really funny, just sad." She lowers
her head and returns to the darkness whispering, "I was a Drifter first.")
or through more generalized expressions that exemplify her frustration, which I
won't include here because I can't just spoiler tag everything
(Yes I can)
and you should read this thing for yourself.
This is a game that offers an incredible insider's view of ADRIFT to the rest of
the IF Community, and it is one that certainly no 'DRIFTer should go without
playing. This is the heyday of ADRIFT 4 with all its personalities caught in
Mystery-tinted amber, a bold, inventive piece of writing that will make you
laugh, scorn, think, and putt.
Highly recommended.
Reviewed by Cannibal
ORIGINALITY: [6] PLAYABILITY: [7] MECHANICS: [5] ENTERTAINMENT [6] Comments:
Humour abound with this entry from Mystery. Within a moment I am in Bob the Newbie's hole and hallucinating about Davidw!
The first of two tongue in cheek games in the summer competition and an absolute better from Mystery. The "game" is very simple and highly amusing and does have replay value.
The individual "holes" of Drifters are well worth visiting!
Recommended.
GAME 2 - 24/40
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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