Poor Zefron's Almanac review Poor Zefron's Almanac is one more of many entries in the 1997 competition whose appeal hinges on the player appreciating certain bits of humor; if not, it's just another game. For myself, while I found this competently programmed, I never really got into the jokes, and the gameplay problems I encountered held down the rating somewhat--though, I must admit, I now think I should have rated it higher.

You are apprentice to a wizard named Zefron who has mysteriously disappeared, and left you with a problem: a dragon is attacking the town. The duke has commanded you to do something about it, though there isn't exactly a lot of pressure, seeing as he retreats into his room and never comes out again. And so you set about doing something--and I must admit that the puzzles do fit into the story reasonably well, much better than many entries. The game even features a spell or two, one of which appears to have been snatched directly from Infocom's Enchanter trilogy, though it's no less welcome and funny for that--and represents some impressive coding into the bargain. Along the way, some things get resolved--and about halfway through or so, the entire thing takes a sharp left turn and turns into science fiction. I won't give away what it does, but I will say that it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Though my enjoyment level wasn't all that high throughout, it took a dip after the switch into science fiction--perhaps because I'm not a huge fan of the genre anyway, and partly because the puzzles became rather frustrating. It isn't entirely cool, admittedly, to ask for a coherent plot in a humor game, but somehow I felt put out when there wasn't one...perhaps, because of the unexpected nature of the story, I was expecting one and was disappointed when it didn't come. Moreover, something rather significant happens when the change comes--but no one seems to notice it but you. For that matter, no one even seems to notice you.

What gameplay problems are there here? Well, for one thing, there's a _very_ low inventory limit that requires some creative juggling of items, since at one point you effectively go through a one-way door--not that it's foreseeably so--and if you leave anything behind, woe is you. Moreover, some of the items you need to bring with you do not have obvious usefulness, so the unsuspecting player might figure he has everything he needs when his inventory is full. (Several items are red herrings, unfortunately.) A cute puzzle in the latter stages of the game becomes annoying because of the exactness of the sequence required. A required action carries with it a randomized chance of death. Inconvenient characters essentially disappear after they've served their function. An NPC is protective about an item one moment but then forgets about it. None of these are unique to this game, certainly, and none are fatal to its enjoyment--but they did reduce the fun factor for me, and this game needs a strong fun factor to succeed.

The writing is near-flawless, admittedly, and the game is often quite funny. The ending is _very_ amusing, all the more so for its poke-in-the-ribs subtlety--and other moments, like your encounter with a guard, are at least mildly amusing. Little gags are sprinkled throughout the game--for example: 

You smell charred flesh and fear the dragon is coming closer, but then realize
this smell is normal so close to the kitchen.
There are other moments, though, where the game seems as if it's trying to be funny and doesn't quite succeed, particularly in the last half; the various messages associated with a certain NPC who dominates the last part of the game just didn't work for me, somehow (again, perhaps I'd appreciate them better if I read more science fiction). And though most of the writing is sufficient to convey the scene, the room descriptions become rather terse toward the end--oddly, considering that the most unusual rooms are at the end.

All this aside, though, Poor Zefron's Almanac more often than not works as planned, as a "cross-genre romp"; combining the two genres lets the author make fun of both, in a sense. The puzzles work well, though one in particular is a bit silly; the various uses of the cluple spell are genuinely clever. Though the last puzzle irritated me a bit, it did build the suspense quite well. (As I recall, I didn't like it because it caught me off guard initially and I had to go back to an old save position.) The charm of the "cross-genre" aspect is that the author can conflate common elements of the genres for the humor value, and he does that very well; the initial assumption of the NPC about who you are is both funny and just right for the genre shift. And it is to the author's credit that the genres remain crossed to the end, in a sense, in that you still have your sights set on being "master wizard" even after the player has left fantasy behind.

Though flawed in several ways, Poor Zefron's Almanac isn't a bad diversion...and I will admit that I don't know why I rated this one so low. (My guess is that I reached the end of my two hours in the middle of inventory struggles or some such thing and took it out on the rating.) Though I gave it a 5, I would likely give it a 6 or a 7 were I to rate it now.