The City review Part of the charm of the IF competition is that it brings out interesting ideas, ideas which might not be suitable for a full- length game but do something interesting that contributes to the IF oeuvre in one way or another. The converse, however, is that having a forum for short games may discouraging authors from developing stories as completely as they might. Sam Barlow's The City is a case in point: it has an interesting idea, but in its present form, there isn't much more than an idea, and the result is rather unsatisfying to play.

The premise, though suspiciously reminiscent of Delusions, is reasonably well done. You're trapped in a room with no way out and a video recorder and tape on hand; the tape shows a man taking a pill; you accept a pill from a handy assistant, take it, and black out; repeat. The man in the tape is, of course, you; your goal is to break out of the loop and see what you find. Unfortunately, you don't find much, and you certainly don't find much that's surprising, and it isn't clear that anything you do goes to accomplish anything. (Being trapped in a nightmare laboratoryish sequence is starting to feel a little familiar as an IF premise; the IF world may be getting overloaded with bizarre dystopias, though that certainly isn't Mr. Barlow's fault.) Now, if a sense of futility is the point here, IF is ideal for conveying that. Ain't nothin' more frustrating than IF that goes in circles. However, as noted, Delusions already did that pretty well, even if the resolution was different. More importantly, sheer futility generally does not a satisfying experience make, IF experience included. Likewise, there's a point toward the end where there's only one action available, and it's fairly obvious that you don't "really" want to take that action--but there's no way around it. (Piece of Mind, from the 1996 competition, did something similar--but, IMHO, much more satisfyingly.) The game keeps you from doing plenty of obvious things without explanation, which certainly hits the frustration angle--but it's frustration with the mechanics of the game, not with the situation depicted. (Okay, you can argue that it's all one. But merging the character's frustration with the player's does not produce a fun game.)

The problem is that, really, The City doesn't do enough with its premise. The backstory never really shows up, and backstory is what might have distinguished this from its many predecessors; if there were some interesting story behind how things became how they are, the game might stay with the player for more than a few moments after playing. There's painfully little to do once you _do_ break out; the "outside" world isn't any more interesting than the "inside." The futility idea might be more interesting if there were a stronger illusion of control, but there isn't much; you can't get very far, and you can't get anywhere appealing. The City needs to be about twice as long as it is in order to involve the player in the story; as it is, it ends almost as soon as it starts. Moreover, whereas Delusions mixed its futility with a sense of urgency owing to frequent and short time limits, The City eschews all time requirements--in other words, you are never required to take a pill--which means frustration is mixed with, if anything, boredom.

Technically, everything works well enough, apart from the failure to provide logical choices at certain points. The author disabled undo and save/restore to no particularly vital purpose, as far as I can tell; if the idea was to remind us that we're at the mercy of other folks and can't do much about our own fate, well, we weren't likely to forget, save/restore or not. Still, there are no technical problems to speak of, and in fact one rather complicated aspect of The City is handled well: the tape that records you actually does play back whatever you did last time around, and describes your actions reasonably well. (On the other hand, there's not a lot you can do anyway.) There are some other odd features--none of the rooms have names, for some reason, though they are distinctly different rooms. (Perhaps the idea was to suggest that you can't really get anywhere, but it's rather confusing at first.) There's no status line, no opening title, no compass directions, etc., and the minimalism doesn't distract much from the game; in that respect, The City works well enough.

Still, there isn't much here that anything could distract anyone from, and besides a few gripping moments--on the roof, notably-- it's a rather frustrating experience. It's technically sound enough that I gave it a 7, but it doesn't make much of what might have been an intriguing game.