One of the nice things about fantasy IF is that it's so malleable; rarely will the player complain that he couldn't suspend his disbelief enough to allow the author's innovation to work, because just about anything goes. As such, the fantasy setting serves Paul O'Brian's Wearing the Claw well, as it allows the author to incorporate some interesting experiments with the feel of traditional IF--and while the result isn't flawless, it's certainly good enough to be worth a look.

The main innovation at issue is the replacement of the traditional point-based scoring system with something that actually relates to the plot. Specifically: your mission is to rid your homeland of a curse that has turned people's body parts into animal parts, and your own left hand has turned into a wolf's paw. As you overcome significant obstacles in your quest, however, your hand turns more and more human (and, conversely, when you screw up or otherwise get farther away from your goal, the wolfish part of you grows). The changes, one way or the other, are marked by a "tingling" or an "itching" in your hand, and the effect--to keep the player on course without the artificiality of points as a reward--is accomplished nicely. There was one time, however, when my hand became more wolflike even though I had just made progress toward my goal--but it's a minor flaw in a well-conceived experiment. It's true that, since the game was released, other IF has been released with more dramatic revisions of the standard scoring system--Sunset over Savannah, Little Blue Men--and still other games have abolished scoring systems entirely, among them Spider and Web. To my knowledge, however, Wearing the Claw was the first to rid itself of points as an indication of progress, and the author deserves credit for that.

The other innovation that the author mentions was to weave the puzzles seamlessly into the plot, rather than having soup-cans-in-the-pantry sort of puzzles that don't fit into the narrative. This, likewise, succeeds, though it should be noted that there aren't all that many puzzles, and what there is isn't all that tricky. Still, given how most IF--then and now--simply tosses out puzzles to solve, with the implicit promise that the game will bestow something useful or interesting as a reward for solving the puzzle, a game that consciously avoids that path is a welcome change. It should be noted, however, that such an approach probably wouldn't be possible in a significantly larger game; it's difficult to provide a predetermined reason for overcoming every obstacle, particularly things like locked doors, other than that you feel a strange compulsion to explore your surroundings as thoroughly as possible. It would, at least, be interesting to see a longer work of IF that attempted to do what Wearing the Claw does in this regard.

As mentioned above, Wearing the Claw isn't all that difficult; there is one logical leap toward the end that takes some thought, but most of the game flows by rather quickly. This was an entry in the 1996 Interactive Fiction Competition, meaning that it had to be short enough to be finishable in two hours--and it does, in fact, fit well within that limit. Though what's here is of high quality, the game does seem to end just as it gets going, and the player may be left wishing for more to do. (The "amusing" list is quite extensive, though.) There are quite a few rooms and objects (in proportion to the size of the game, at least) that play no part in the plot, which helps the game seem larger than it is--but, that aside, this shouldn't take anyone very long to finish.

The find-the-McGuffin fantasy setting itself is nothing new, though it does allow the author to work with some of the hoary IF tropes--and there are a few twists at the end that do test the player's expectations somewhat. Moreover, the writing is good enough to sustain the game even when the plot feels familiar: room descriptions are economical and vivid, though the style of the conversations owes more to Tolkien than to everyday parlance. (Sample from the protagonist's mother: "I fear for you, dear one, but perhaps you can find on your quest some means of restoring prosperity to our village, which has been too long poor.") It also helps that the plot is largely free of glaring inconsistencies or incongruities, hardly a given even in fantasy settings.

Those who genuinely dislike fantasy probably won't make an exception for Wearing the Claw, as it doesn't really push the boundaries of fantasy all that much. As fantasy IF goes, however, it's both thoughtful and imaginative, and manages to entertain consistently--and for those who weren't around for the 1996 competition, it might be worth going back to check this one out.