You are a djinni, discovered and summoned by various masters, whose wishes you strive to grant in one way or another--but you also have your own purposes that are only somewhat compatible with those of your masters. The nature of your existence is such that you can't stray far from your "container," the vessel where you reside when you're not about your business; indeed, the beginning of the game functions mostly as an introduction to the rules of your world. You learn, for example, that the tendency of wishes to come with unfortunate side effects isn't simply djinni contrariness; rather, it's because they don't (generally) have the power to accomplish the change by their own will, and have to harness the power of another "undercurrent" with somewhat different effects. You also learn that some djinni derive power from sources other than their summoners, and seek to gain enough power to act independently. The defining measure is known as "Purpose," here expressed as a number, and maintaining Purpose, one way or another, becomes your overriding goal. What emerges is an imaginative portrait of djinni ethics, as it were: the djinni that you play aren't bound by any particular ethical norms as such other than the desire to gain and maintain purpose. Arguably, those djinni that aren't bent on destruction serve their masters' wishes not out of any sense of loyalty, but simply because they derive no advantage from acting independently. (The anterior question, why some djinni are one way and some are another, isn't addressed, but the game is complex enough; there's no need to introduce another layer of cosmology.)

In a sense, the path of the game is fairly well defined simply because the character's powers are limited; the player can't really expect to be able to wander away, since that causes the game to end promptly. The wishes of your masters also define your goals most of the time, and when they don't, the game spells out your personal objective. And yet figuring out your motivations at any given point can be complicated, particularly if you assume that you feel some inherent responsibility to your master--and it's not until about halfway through the game that you learn what you're really doing, so to speak. Once you understand the larger plot, it's intriguing; the only problem is that you don't have much part in influencing where it'll go, other than figuring out the command that will move things along. The linearity factor actually serves the purposes of the story--the whole point is that your powers are limited, and your ability to influence events doesn' t go much beyond your master's interests--but it might also be a bit more satisfying to be able to affect how the plot turns out, not just whether the one possible plotline progresses.

The end of the game suggests that the point isn't simply to devise an inventive mythology of djinni and how they work and what motivates them; rather, the behavior of the djinni suggests something about human nature and the ways that these particular spirits (with their own motivations) choose to manipulate their masters. In that respect, portraying the details of djinni existence serves some of the same function that C.S. Lewis's elaborate bureaucracy of hell did in "Screwtape Letters": to describe the spirit world in order to provide a context for the way those spirits tempt and manipulate humans. Obviously, this is a little different, since the relationship isn't entirely adversarial--you need your masters to accomplish your purposes, which doesn't exactly describe Screwtape--but the message is related: suitable manipulation of our baser instincts can turn them into enormously destructive forces, and the game suggests that the less noble impulses are considerably more powerful than altruistic ones (since the djinni that serves a master with relatively unselfish goals doesn't seem to accumulate much Purpose).

As a game, apart from the theory and theology that might underlie it, Djinni Chronicles works reasonably well. As noted, picking up on the rules takes a while, and the limitations on the character are initially frustrating when you're used to a great deal of freedom--but it doesn't take long to adjust and to appreciate your new powers. (For instance, walls are no hindrance.) The game is quite linear, true, but to some extent that's inevitable if the author wants to tell a particular story about the spirit world and human nature: if the player has the power to put a different spin on the relationship between the PC and its masters, the result is no longer what the author set out to tell. This sort of thing might not have gone over well just a few years ago, but linearity, I think, has come to be viewed as the inevitable price of more story-oriented IF, and when the story is as intriguing as this one, it's a price worth paying. There's another advantage to the linearity: the puzzles are well integrated into the plot, rather than artificial constructs that distract from the story. That's a feature not directly related to the breadth of the game, of course, but it's inevitable that a game with a large field of options doesn't really sustain much of a story, since the author can't exercise much control over how the game progresses--and by restricting the options, Djinni Chronicles ensures that the task at hand is always part of the story. Moreover, the linearity factor restricts the amount of things that can go wrong; this is a technically solid game, in part, perhaps, because the nature of the game prevents players from doing outlandish things that could violate the game's expectations. The only real fly in the ointment is a lengthy section that's written in not especially inspired verse; it doesn't serve an obvious purpose in the game, and it distracts the player from what was otherwise highly competent writing.

The main flaw in Djinni Chronicles, at the end, is that it leaves the player wanting more--more plot, more character development--but there are worse sins, I suppose. It's an imaginatively told story--intelligent enough to earn a 9 from me.