GAME: The Fiendish Revenge of Baron Von Glockenspiel
AUTHOR: Girion
PLATFORM: TADS 3 http://www.tads.org/
SOUND: no
GRAPHICS: no
REVIEWED: 29th May 2007
WALKTHROUGH: n/a
DOWNLOAD: http://newsletter.aifcommunity.org/minicomp2007.zip


Now *this* is more like it. *This* is what an AIF game should be like (but unfortunately seldom is). You play the part of Gerald Manley, Victorian gentleman, who has just been captured by the evil Baron von Glockenspiel who plans to murder you by means of the globe suspended above your head reaching full capacity and exploding, killing you and your lovely assistant, Cynthia. Think Sherlock Holmes with sex and you'd be on the right track.

After indulging in a little last-minute-because-we're-about-to-die passion with your assistant (definitely one to remember if I ever find myself in such a predicament), it becomes apparent that the globe's potential for exploding is diminished whenever you become aroused. In short, the more excited you are, the more it calms down. As excuses to get it on with sexy blondes go, this was certainly an original one.

What follows is pretty much a standard AIF game - though much better written than usual and with a genuinely decent idea lurking in the background - in which you try different things with Cynthia in an attempt to prevent the globe exploding. With the potential for death hanging over you at every moment, this adds a distinct edge to the proceedings.

Unfortunately, the game isn't without fault, though I'm sure a couple of these are flaws in the system itself and not down simply to writer error or sheer carelessness. When attempting to strip off, I figured that, instead of disrobing one item at a time (an exercise in tedium), I'd go for a simple DROP ALL. Bad idea. I was then hit with, literally, 4 screens of text when the game tried to drop not just all the items I was carrying and wearing, but every single item in the game. Even ones it was not possible for me to carry, including various parts of Cynthia's body (her breasts and pussy are, apparently, carry-able items) and the scenery. The same problem hit with REMOVE ALL as well. There was also a strange error message - [Runtime error: nil object reference] - displayed in the room description when I'd dropped everything that could be dropped.

Still, the errors weren't terrible in themselves and the game itself was a delight. If only more AIF games were like this.

Arousal: fit to burst.