IFComp: Gleaming the Verb

I’ve been playing some of the games from the 2009 IF Comp. These are text-adventure games, arty to various degrees, meant to be be judged in under two hours of play. The games can be found here. My reviews will be categorized under “IFComp.”

This is a review of Gleaming the Verb which can be found here or played online via Parchment or Java.

Several people — well, everyone who’s reviewed it (here’s review central) — have pointed out that this is a minimal word puzzle that doesn’t need to be in the form of IF at all. That’s true. On the other hand, at least it works as a word puzzle. (I think here I had an advantage over people who play a lot more IF and were expecting something more IFfy.)

Which is to say I could do it all. There’s one biggish problem, which is that there’s no way to get the cube to repeat its messages (so if they’ve scrolled off the screen you’re done); and it’s annoying that there’s no partial hint system or way to progress if you’re blocked. (Maybe the cube could give you another message with the same characteristic?) But hey, at least I could do the puzzles, perhaps because

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
I’m the kind of guy who automatically looks at the first letter of every word in a sentence if it seems at all funny. Even when I’m reading philosophy papers.

It would’ve been a lot cooler if the verbs had been things it makes sense to do to a cube; I’m not surprised that some people got off the train at “titrate,” and I can’t blame them.