To Hell in a Hamper Reviews
Author: Jason Guest
Date: 2003
ADRIFT 4.0



Score: 5 Otters

Reviewed by David Whyld

The winner of the Adrift Spring Mini-Comp 2003, To Hell in a Hamper is the best example yet of just how good really small games can be. Then again, it's not really a small game as such - only one room, true, but there's a fair sized game in there and one quite a bit larger than several "proper" games that have made their way onto the downloads page over the past few years.

The storyline follows the efforts of one Professor Pettibone who is an "eminent Victorian balloonist" determined to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon. Off he sets, accompanied by a single companion, the strange and quite demented (not to mention bizarrely-named) Hubert Booby. Problems soon become apparent as the balloon seems to have great difficulty attaining the necessary height to pass over an erupting volcano, leading you to the sneaking suspicion that your companion might well have smuggled aboard several heavy items in his ever-expanding overcoat.

Every bit as strange as the writer's first game Goldilocks is a Fox, To Hell in a Hamper is, if anything, even better. I have to admit that I wasn't sure whether a one-room game would be much of an entry in the competition but this proved me well and truly wrong (it beat my game as well, but any between-the-lines insults are purely coincidental). There are enough ideas packed in here for several games and the seriously over-the-top humour is always top notch. In particular, Hubert Booby is the sort of character who is just crying out to have a game written about him.

Despite being confined to a single room, To Hell in a Hamper isn't an easy game by any means. It's fairly straightforward making a little progress here and there but problems soon hit when you get a further and have to discover new and ingenious ways of getting Hubert to relinquish his remaining items - killing him, alas, isn't an option. Nor does murder work on his Aunt Gertie despite her nasty habit of constantly whacking me with her cane.
Several amusing features add to the replay value and show a definitive flare for the imaginative: throwing the Egyptian mummy out of the balloon results in an ancient curse being activated; get rid of the dog and it climbs back into the balloon (quite a feat for a dumb animal though not one I appreciated at the time considering the hassles I had gone through to get rid of it in the first place); throwing Hubert's troublesome Aunt Gertie out doesn't work well either as the canny old bird grabs hold of the anchor rope and climbs back inside.

As far as one room games go, it's hard to imagine a better one that this coming around any time soon. Indeed, it's one of the most amusing games I've ever played and will probably take some beating in the comedy stakes.

Logic: 6 out of 10
How logical a balloon risking being destroyed in an erupting volcano due to your travelling companion smuggling a vast horde of items - including his Aunt Gertie, a dog and an Egyptian mummy among other things - under his coat is I'm not sure, but then this was never meant to be a logical game and I don't think it suffers for it at all.

Problems: 9 out of 10 (10 = no problems)
Nothing major but some of the tasks seemed overly complicated - the one involving the ear-trumpet and the dog in particular.

Story: 7 out of 10
There's an amusing little back story at the beginning of the game which sets the feel for the adventure well enough. A one room game is never going to have - or need - a lengthier storyline and this one did its job.

Characters: 9 out of 10
Three, although Hubert Booby takes the cake. I tried hitting him with just about every item I could lay my hands on just to see if I could get another of his daft responses.

Writing: 8 out of 10
Very good indeed.

Game: 8 out of 10
Definitely the best one room game I've ever played and more than a match for quite a few of the full size games.

Overall: 47 out of 60

Reviewed by J. Robinson Wheeler
Review appeared in SPAG #36 March 16, 2004 http://sparkynet.com/spag/backissues/SPAG36

This is a short game with a good amount of wit and charm to it, and it shows that it is possible to make a one-room, one-puzzle (albeit a layered, Babel Fish type puzzle) game that's entertaining.

The situation is that you are Professor Pettibone, eminent Victorian Balloonist, on his attempt to circle the world in a balloon. Your traveling companion has been replaced at the last minute by a Mr. Hubert Booby, a rather shady character with a suspiciously bulging overcoat. The puzzle of the game involves throwing enough weight out of the balloon to clear an erupting volcano, and you have to prise items one at a time (or sometimes, a half-dozen at a time) from Mr. Booby.

I turned to the walkthrough rather soon, just to get the game moving, and relied on it a bit too much thereafter, worried that I was going to do something out of order and make the game unwinnable. In fact, the author was sometimes careful in this regard, and made it so that you couldn't toss some items you still needed over the side. (But some you could.) I had a few challenging guess-the-verb moments, including figuring out the syntax for throwing things overboard, and the rather dodgy necessity of using the non-standard verb 'MAKE' at a crucial late-game step.

Having gotten that far, I decided to play the rest of the game without looking at the walkthrough, which turned out to be the one time I should have used it, because the ultimate turn of the game is a win/lose scenario. I typed "PULL ROPE" instead of "PULL GAS VALVE ROPE," and I lost. Since I hadn't saved the game, I had to start all over again and replay the whole thing just to see the winning outcome, which was irritating.

There were a couple of spelling errors, including one in the concluding text of the winning scenario, and there were some odd tussles with the parser on occasion:

> cut buttons
[...] finally, with a great rending sound the coat bursts open, spilling a multitude of diverse objects onto the floor of the basket! These items consist of a large framed painting, an enormous carpetbag, a bundle of twigs, a boomerang, an ear-trumpet, a toy donkey and a sleeping Saint Bernard dog...

> throw twigs out
I'm afraid the meaning of your words escapes me. Could you possibly rephrase that?

> get twigs
Take what? 

> get bundle
I pick up the smudge stick.

> x it
(the smudge stick)
A bundle of cedar twigs and sprigs of sage bound together with coloured thread. [...]

> throw twigs overboard
I'm afraid the meaning of your words escapes me. Could you possibly rephrase that?

> throw stick overboard
I don't understand what you want me to do with the smudge stick.

> throw stick
I don't understand what you want me to do with the smudge stick.

> throw smudge
I'm afraid the meaning of your words escapes me. Could you possibly rephrase that?

> throw smudge stick
I toss the smudge stick over the side of the basket. After all I can't imagine what I might have needed it for...

I enjoyed the pop-up introductory picture that set the scene. The dialogue of the game was very funny, as was the surprise of one of the last items to be revealed hidden about Mr. Booby's person. If I had run across this game in the Competition, I probably would have ranked it a 7 or an 8, depending on how charitable I was feeling. Overall, nicely done.

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