Beyond El Dorado
By Laurence Creighton
Published by Zenobi Software
Release Year: 1995
Version Played: ZX Spectrum
Some astute readers with actual reading comprehension may have noticed that the previous two reviews were older reviews: Meltdown! from July 2018 and Eclipse from Thanksgiving 2018. But I had to publish them before reviewing my next game, Beyond El Dorado, or else readers wouldn't understand why this review seemed so biased, as if it were written by a bitter asshole who has never learned how to let go of a grudge. Some readers might now be thinking, "Hey dumbfuck. Why keep playing Laurence Creighton's games if you have such an anti-hard-on for him?" And I would answer that non-existent and moronic reader with this: "The games are chosen randomly for me by Random.org. And for some fucking reason, the random number generator at that site wants to see my head explode. I'm beginning to suspect it's mother was that Commodore 64 I fucked when I was sixteen."
Oh come on! I didn't really fuck a computer! Although do you remember how beefy those disc drives were? And slow! No way they were optimally programmed just for reading discs. I'm fairly certain they were the fleshlights of the 80s.
The one page instruction sheet that came with this game ran a competition for Zenobi Software fans. In the description setting up the premise, a bunch of inventory items were mentioned. The first person to send a letter documenting what game each item was from would win a ten pound note! It's almost like Laurence understood that everybody who purchased his games deserved a fucking refund. I've only played two of his previous games but I'm pretty sure four or five of the eleven objects named came from Meltdown! and Eclipse. I wonder if anybody won that ten pounds? I should send in a letter!
By Laurence Creighton
Published by Zenobi Software
Release Year: 1995
Version Played: ZX Spectrum
Some astute readers with actual reading comprehension may have noticed that the previous two reviews were older reviews: Meltdown! from July 2018 and Eclipse from Thanksgiving 2018. But I had to publish them before reviewing my next game, Beyond El Dorado, or else readers wouldn't understand why this review seemed so biased, as if it were written by a bitter asshole who has never learned how to let go of a grudge. Some readers might now be thinking, "Hey dumbfuck. Why keep playing Laurence Creighton's games if you have such an anti-hard-on for him?" And I would answer that non-existent and moronic reader with this: "The games are chosen randomly for me by Random.org. And for some fucking reason, the random number generator at that site wants to see my head explode. I'm beginning to suspect it's mother was that Commodore 64 I fucked when I was sixteen."
Oh come on! I didn't really fuck a computer! Although do you remember how beefy those disc drives were? And slow! No way they were optimally programmed just for reading discs. I'm fairly certain they were the fleshlights of the 80s.
The one page instruction sheet that came with this game ran a competition for Zenobi Software fans. In the description setting up the premise, a bunch of inventory items were mentioned. The first person to send a letter documenting what game each item was from would win a ten pound note! It's almost like Laurence understood that everybody who purchased his games deserved a fucking refund. I've only played two of his previous games but I'm pretty sure four or five of the eleven objects named came from Meltdown! and Eclipse. I wonder if anybody won that ten pounds? I should send in a letter!
Let's begin a Laurence Creighton adventure the way I begin all Laurence Creighton adventures: by tearing his premise a new plothole.
First off, the tribal chief must be a fucking idiot because I've never solved a Laurence Creighton adventure in my life! I don't think I'm the guy he should be pleading to to save his "impoverished people." I'm not even sure I should help this chief and his people. If the key to a fucking treasure vault has been missing for "eons," maybe break a hole in the fucking wall. Hell, if I take his statement that "eons" have passed seriously, he could have simply left a hose running on top of the treasure vault and erosion would have opened it up for him. There, asshole. I solved your problem! Next!
Second off, now I need to come up with a second off because I began the last paragraph with "first off." Oh! I have one! This game begins in the protagonist's living room. If I fucking have to book tickets with a travel agent and pack all the correct gear in a suitcase that's too small (thus creating a boring inventory management puzzle) after which I'll arrive in the unnamed country which will be a maze I'll have to navigate before even getting to whatever exciting ruins hide the Golden Key of Klef, I'm going to fucking not be surprised at all!
In Meltdown!, Laurence created a new verb so "look inside" would become just one word, "lin." Because he didn't do that for "look under" or "look behind," he completely fucked me. As an interactive fiction author, you don't set the rules for the game — in the case of Meltdown!, two word "noun-verb" statements — and then suddenly accept a three word statement of "look under trolley" unless you're an unrepentant twat. Why the fuck would I type "look under trolley" when Laurence implied pretty fucking heavily with his stupid "lin" verb that his program couldn't accept three word commands?! Well, he must have realized he was being a complete asshole because now he's invented two new verbs for this game, "lund" and "lind." Those stand for "look under" and "look behind."
Second off, now I need to come up with a second off because I began the last paragraph with "first off." Oh! I have one! This game begins in the protagonist's living room. If I fucking have to book tickets with a travel agent and pack all the correct gear in a suitcase that's too small (thus creating a boring inventory management puzzle) after which I'll arrive in the unnamed country which will be a maze I'll have to navigate before even getting to whatever exciting ruins hide the Golden Key of Klef, I'm going to fucking not be surprised at all!
In Meltdown!, Laurence created a new verb so "look inside" would become just one word, "lin." Because he didn't do that for "look under" or "look behind," he completely fucked me. As an interactive fiction author, you don't set the rules for the game — in the case of Meltdown!, two word "noun-verb" statements — and then suddenly accept a three word statement of "look under trolley" unless you're an unrepentant twat. Why the fuck would I type "look under trolley" when Laurence implied pretty fucking heavily with his stupid "lin" verb that his program couldn't accept three word commands?! Well, he must have realized he was being a complete asshole because now he's invented two new verbs for this game, "lund" and "lind." Those stand for "look under" and "look behind."
My god, I hope the playtesters put Laurence in his fucking place. I might actually beat this game!
The game does not begin in the protagonist's living room. It begins like this: "You are standing at a crossroad of paths." Well fuck. That's a bit too far in the opposite direction, Laurence. How the fuck did I get here?! Are the paths in the jungle? In a park? In an underground tomb?! I have no fucking context!
I also have nothing in my inventory. I know the game said that I'll be going on this adventure with nothing but my wits as my inventory but I didn't think it would be serious. No, no. I knew it would be serious. Adventure games almost all stick to two major tropes: the protagonist suffers from some kind of memory loss and the adventurer begins the adventure ill-prepared. The first trope sort of explains the second trope. Why aren't I prepared for this adventure?! I guess it's the same reason I have no idea who I am or why I'm on the adventure! But when the protagonist purposefully sets out on an adventure, he could at least bring along a few fruit roll-ups.
When I head north, I discover a rusty turnstile that impedes my progress until I find a coin. There's nobody about but the protagonist still won't hop it. I guess my alignment is lawful idiot. Also, I'm fairly certain this rusty turnstile is in a jungle because if I head east, I discover a witchdoctor making a potion. He has a bone in his nose because Laurence Creighton was born in an imperialist country (England) and then moved to an even more racist one (South Africa).
Just in case you were wondering: no, you can't fuck the witchdoctor.
The first rule one must follow when trying to defeat a Laurence Creighton boredventure is to examine every single noun mentioned in his room descriptions. But you can't just stop there. You have to also search every noun. And since Laurence made up three new verbs, you must also lin, lind, and lund them too! After doing this in every location and discovering a knife and a pacifier and a swatter and a piece of flint and a wick and a broom and a spider and a grappling hook, Laurence decides to make this comment in his game:
I also have nothing in my inventory. I know the game said that I'll be going on this adventure with nothing but my wits as my inventory but I didn't think it would be serious. No, no. I knew it would be serious. Adventure games almost all stick to two major tropes: the protagonist suffers from some kind of memory loss and the adventurer begins the adventure ill-prepared. The first trope sort of explains the second trope. Why aren't I prepared for this adventure?! I guess it's the same reason I have no idea who I am or why I'm on the adventure! But when the protagonist purposefully sets out on an adventure, he could at least bring along a few fruit roll-ups.
When I head north, I discover a rusty turnstile that impedes my progress until I find a coin. There's nobody about but the protagonist still won't hop it. I guess my alignment is lawful idiot. Also, I'm fairly certain this rusty turnstile is in a jungle because if I head east, I discover a witchdoctor making a potion. He has a bone in his nose because Laurence Creighton was born in an imperialist country (England) and then moved to an even more racist one (South Africa).
Just in case you were wondering: no, you can't fuck the witchdoctor.
The first rule one must follow when trying to defeat a Laurence Creighton boredventure is to examine every single noun mentioned in his room descriptions. But you can't just stop there. You have to also search every noun. And since Laurence made up three new verbs, you must also lin, lind, and lund them too! After doing this in every location and discovering a knife and a pacifier and a swatter and a piece of flint and a wick and a broom and a spider and a grappling hook, Laurence decides to make this comment in his game:
Oh fuck you, Laurence.
What kind of fucking attitude is that?! The only puzzles in his stupid fucking games are finding items hidden behind search, examine, lin, lind, and lund commands! How dare he fucking take a shot at me because I'm playing his game by his rules and his lack of fucking imagination! I swear to God if I knew where to find Laurence Creighton right at this moment, I'd go punch him in the fucking mouth! I swear to fucking Christ! How dare he?! So far in this game, I've been to a cottage which is generally thought of as a location. If you want to look behind the cottage, you would use compass directions to go behind the cottage. But not in this game! In this game I "looked behind" (that's what "lind" means if you need a refresher!) the cottage to find a fucking besom. What's a besom? An old fashioned broom, apparently. So why the fuck wouldn't I "lin" the fucking kennel even though you've purportedly told me everything that was in the kennel?! I can't fucking trust you! I mean, there was an oil lamp in the cottage as well that I had to "lin" to find the wick. Was I fucking desperate then too, you asshole?!
What's really annoying is that I was thinking last night (I've played this game a little bit every day for the last few days), "Normally when you walk away from a text adventure, you spend a little bit of brain power thinking about the puzzles you might be able to solve with the inventory items you've discovered. But when you walk away from a Laurence Creighton text adventure, your brain keeps asking things like, 'Did you look behind everything? I mean EVERYTHING! And don't forget to search everything! Even the road if the description says,"You are in the middle of the road." Because there might be some roadkill that Laurence didn't mention. And don't forget to search that too!'"
But wait! I'm not done hating Laurence Creighton and myself! Because check out this shit:
What's really annoying is that I was thinking last night (I've played this game a little bit every day for the last few days), "Normally when you walk away from a text adventure, you spend a little bit of brain power thinking about the puzzles you might be able to solve with the inventory items you've discovered. But when you walk away from a Laurence Creighton text adventure, your brain keeps asking things like, 'Did you look behind everything? I mean EVERYTHING! And don't forget to search everything! Even the road if the description says,"You are in the middle of the road." Because there might be some roadkill that Laurence didn't mention. And don't forget to search that too!'"
But wait! I'm not done hating Laurence Creighton and myself! Because check out this shit:
Oh double fuck you, Laurence!
I got stuck for a little bit and I was beginning to think, "Am I unable to solve one of Laurence's puzzles?!" before I remembered there was probably still some things to look behind or look inside. And the jar I got from the witchdoctor had some gum in it! Well, that meant I was nearly through the turnstile because everybody knows that coins can be recovered from deep holes with chewing gum on the end of a stick! And there was a convenient hole in a tree where the game would respond, "Good thinking, but how do you grip whatever's there?" whenever I typed "insert wire." Well, with the sticky gum, of course! I'll be past that turnstile in the amount of time it takes me to type "attach gum" and then probably "to stick" or something!
Who knows how the fuck much time has passed since I declared I would soon be through the turnstile but fuck me if I can figure out how to get this Goddamned gum onto the end of this fucking wire! While I was trying to come up with the correct verb/noun combination, I decided to type "Hello Laurence" into the command line.
Who knows how the fuck much time has passed since I declared I would soon be through the turnstile but fuck me if I can figure out how to get this Goddamned gum onto the end of this fucking wire! While I was trying to come up with the correct verb/noun combination, I decided to type "Hello Laurence" into the command line.
I don't think I've ever discovered an Easter Egg on my own before!
Of course the next thing I had to try was "fuck ellen." That wasn't an Easter Egg.
It was at this point that it all fell apart. The game, my life, my mental state. Everything just tanked. Because once I get stuck on a game, I remain stuck for as long as I can, trying all sorts of stupid things I know won't get me any further (often repeatedly, as if the program has a line that ignores your command the first twelve times it's typed before responding, "Oh, you mean to stick the gum on the wire! Okay, yeah, we can do that!" Although that's not as ridiculous as it sounds since Laurence uses that tactic a number of times in this game). So you must be thinking, "When you're stuck on a text adventure, all you need to do is find that one thing you were missing and then you can get back on track, right?" And that might seem like a reasonable thing to think. And it might actually be true if the problem you're stuck on has a reasonable answer. After finding out the answer to the problem, you would think, "Aw fuck! Why didn't I think of that?!" And then you just continue the game solving all of the problems logically and rationally.
But that's never how it goes. In this game, I was stuck in a few places: there was a dog on a parchment I needed, there was a patch of quicksand I couldn't pass, and there was a hole in a tree whose contents I couldn't manage to extract. So I figured if I scan the walkthrough, I'll get to the first of these that needs solving, feel a bit bad for needing a clue, and then continue on with the game in the same state of mind I'd been in before. That is, not fucking irrationally angry. But that wasn't the case. It's never the fucking case, is it, Laurence?
Let's talk about the dog. It's sleeping on a parchment. You can wake it and then it seems to be waiting for something. Perhaps the bone in the witchdoctor's nose? I gave up on that fairly quickly because the game didn't really seem to acknowledge that the bone was an actual object in the game. So I thought, "Maybe the hoop? Dog's like distractions like fetch and hula hooping, right?!" So I tried throwing it and dropping it and rolling it but nothing worked. Because, of course, what you needed to type was "show hoop."
It was at this point that it all fell apart. The game, my life, my mental state. Everything just tanked. Because once I get stuck on a game, I remain stuck for as long as I can, trying all sorts of stupid things I know won't get me any further (often repeatedly, as if the program has a line that ignores your command the first twelve times it's typed before responding, "Oh, you mean to stick the gum on the wire! Okay, yeah, we can do that!" Although that's not as ridiculous as it sounds since Laurence uses that tactic a number of times in this game). So you must be thinking, "When you're stuck on a text adventure, all you need to do is find that one thing you were missing and then you can get back on track, right?" And that might seem like a reasonable thing to think. And it might actually be true if the problem you're stuck on has a reasonable answer. After finding out the answer to the problem, you would think, "Aw fuck! Why didn't I think of that?!" And then you just continue the game solving all of the problems logically and rationally.
But that's never how it goes. In this game, I was stuck in a few places: there was a dog on a parchment I needed, there was a patch of quicksand I couldn't pass, and there was a hole in a tree whose contents I couldn't manage to extract. So I figured if I scan the walkthrough, I'll get to the first of these that needs solving, feel a bit bad for needing a clue, and then continue on with the game in the same state of mind I'd been in before. That is, not fucking irrationally angry. But that wasn't the case. It's never the fucking case, is it, Laurence?
Let's talk about the dog. It's sleeping on a parchment. You can wake it and then it seems to be waiting for something. Perhaps the bone in the witchdoctor's nose? I gave up on that fairly quickly because the game didn't really seem to acknowledge that the bone was an actual object in the game. So I thought, "Maybe the hoop? Dog's like distractions like fetch and hula hooping, right?!" So I tried throwing it and dropping it and rolling it but nothing worked. Because, of course, what you needed to type was "show hoop."
Why shouldn't I have expected this to happen? The dog showed all the signs of being a trick dog: growling, biting, killing me! Of course it was just waiting to somehow escape the kennel as soon as it had the opportunity to leap through a hoop! Fucking brilliant solution, Laurence!
I would have used a sarcasm tag on that previous sentence but I'm all out of them. Also, every sentence would probably need one. What I should do is just tag the sentences in which I'm being earnest! It would be a lot less work.
I suppose I should have gotten this solution but I just haven't gotten back into the right state of mind for text adventures. My rules for exploring text adventure worlds should be on a huge poster right next to my computer. And one of those rules should be "show everything to everybody." It's just as important as examining and searching everything. But it was enough for me to think, "Fuck this! What's next?!"
And the next thing I needed to do was to "insert hand" into the hole in the tree which caused me to look up the word "apoplectic" to see how it was spelled before using it in this review. It's possibly the second worst thing about text adventure games (after the authors): not completely being able to visualize what is being described. The hole in the tree was described as a "small hollow." I guess a hole the size of a person's fist can be considered small. But then I'd also expect the protagonist to not say "Good thinking, but how do you grip whatever's there?" when I suggest inserting a wire into it. Rather, shouldn't the protagonist say, "Why don't I just stick my hand inside it, if that's what you're fucking getting at?"
The next thing on the list was that I had to "sweep ashes" with the "besom" to find a pencil which, in any other non-Laurence game, would have been a reasonable puzzle. But Laurence offers so many ways to search things already that I often forget that, sometimes, Laurence hides items in regular text adventure game puzzles. After realizing that, I now had to learn what level of anger and frustration comes after apoplexy.
But that's not all! After getting past the quicksand, you have to dig. But you can't just dig once! Remember how I said Laurence hides some actions behind typing the same command over and over? Well, you have to dig three times! But not only do you have to dig three times! You have to dig three times before leaving the location or else you're fucked. So when I went back to dig some more because, knowing Laurence, he forces people to type the same shit more than once (like when you find the knife in the junkyard by searching junk a second time after being told "You don't find shit, dick."), I couldn't find the calumet. Why would I think, "Maybe I needed to dig all at the same time?" Oh, that's right. I should have thought that because this game was written by my nemesis, Laurence Creighton!
By the way, he uses the dig more than once trick again a bit later. And that's the main problem with Laurence Creighton games. Far too much of the game is simply tricking the player into missing hidden objects. First off, there's the "examine/search/look in/look behind/look under" wall of commands that you'd better try on every noun Creighton put into the game. Then there's hiding things behind commands that don't seem to work on the first try but sometimes work on the second or third or fourth try (or more! Like finding the spider under the rock which is totally random if it ever shows up after lunding the fuck out of the rocks!). His games are generally 5% puzzles that need to be solved logically and 95% simply finding every fucking item in its hiding place. In the first half of the game, I'd say the only puzzle Laurence actually created was the one where you have to squeeze oil out of the wick to lube the rusty pocket knife open. And maybe the parchment map but that one just seems obvious once you've found all the items. His games really are just a scavenger hunt.
Anyway, I'm going to take a little break from this game before attempting the second half without clues. First I should probably get a physical to make sure I'm not going to give myself a stroke from playing text adventures. If I die while playing this, I hope Laurence Creighton can be brought up on charges of manslaughter.
Okay! It's a new year and I'm back at it with a new kitten on my lap. Stupid fucker probably won't even have any good suggestions for solving the two puzzles I'll probably encounter in this second half of the game. She's just going to hang there on my arm sleeping and stretching occasionally and making me think, "How the fuck did I get so lucky to exist in a universe with fucking kittens? FUCKING KITTENS, MAN!"
The second half is far easier than the first. It's linear so you know to solve any puzzles, you have to use the few things you've found along the way. Once again, that means a hunt for items. The main trick Laurence pulls on this half is making a lot of timed situations. You have to discover the proper move before the ledge breaks or the rod runs out of power or the canoe sinks. This would have been a terrible inconvenience on the Spectrum when you'd have to load and reload the cassette tape (although this game had a RAM SAVE command that would have helped. But it still wouldn't have been as fast as quick saving on a Spectrum emulator). The only place where Laurence almost had me pulling out the hints was when I hadn't discovered the black rod by the time I needed it (as seen in a vision). But I just went back to the Beating a Laurence Creighton Game Playbook. I revisited every location and searched, examined, looked inside, looked behind, and looked under every noun mentioned. The rod was hidden on the dusty path you walk down to get to the shrine. I guess the fact it was "dusty" was the hint to search it.
If Laurence had given me access to more locations and given me all the objects at once, I would have had a much tougher time with the back half of this adventure. Was it entirely logical that I had to kick the football under the ledge so that it would dislodge the boulder which would roll down to the river and block it so I could cross? Not at all! But since I couldn't cross the river and all I had was a single football boot and the ball, it was easy enough to accidentally figure that out. I think maybe Laurence ran out of steam on the second part of this thing. Although he did allow Ellen, the secret message girl, a cameo! Realizing there's a slight chance that I might come off as a chauvinistic pig, I won't wonder aloud if Laurence at least scored a handy for his efforts.
I suppose I should have gotten this solution but I just haven't gotten back into the right state of mind for text adventures. My rules for exploring text adventure worlds should be on a huge poster right next to my computer. And one of those rules should be "show everything to everybody." It's just as important as examining and searching everything. But it was enough for me to think, "Fuck this! What's next?!"
And the next thing I needed to do was to "insert hand" into the hole in the tree which caused me to look up the word "apoplectic" to see how it was spelled before using it in this review. It's possibly the second worst thing about text adventure games (after the authors): not completely being able to visualize what is being described. The hole in the tree was described as a "small hollow." I guess a hole the size of a person's fist can be considered small. But then I'd also expect the protagonist to not say "Good thinking, but how do you grip whatever's there?" when I suggest inserting a wire into it. Rather, shouldn't the protagonist say, "Why don't I just stick my hand inside it, if that's what you're fucking getting at?"
The next thing on the list was that I had to "sweep ashes" with the "besom" to find a pencil which, in any other non-Laurence game, would have been a reasonable puzzle. But Laurence offers so many ways to search things already that I often forget that, sometimes, Laurence hides items in regular text adventure game puzzles. After realizing that, I now had to learn what level of anger and frustration comes after apoplexy.
But that's not all! After getting past the quicksand, you have to dig. But you can't just dig once! Remember how I said Laurence hides some actions behind typing the same command over and over? Well, you have to dig three times! But not only do you have to dig three times! You have to dig three times before leaving the location or else you're fucked. So when I went back to dig some more because, knowing Laurence, he forces people to type the same shit more than once (like when you find the knife in the junkyard by searching junk a second time after being told "You don't find shit, dick."), I couldn't find the calumet. Why would I think, "Maybe I needed to dig all at the same time?" Oh, that's right. I should have thought that because this game was written by my nemesis, Laurence Creighton!
By the way, he uses the dig more than once trick again a bit later. And that's the main problem with Laurence Creighton games. Far too much of the game is simply tricking the player into missing hidden objects. First off, there's the "examine/search/look in/look behind/look under" wall of commands that you'd better try on every noun Creighton put into the game. Then there's hiding things behind commands that don't seem to work on the first try but sometimes work on the second or third or fourth try (or more! Like finding the spider under the rock which is totally random if it ever shows up after lunding the fuck out of the rocks!). His games are generally 5% puzzles that need to be solved logically and 95% simply finding every fucking item in its hiding place. In the first half of the game, I'd say the only puzzle Laurence actually created was the one where you have to squeeze oil out of the wick to lube the rusty pocket knife open. And maybe the parchment map but that one just seems obvious once you've found all the items. His games really are just a scavenger hunt.
Anyway, I'm going to take a little break from this game before attempting the second half without clues. First I should probably get a physical to make sure I'm not going to give myself a stroke from playing text adventures. If I die while playing this, I hope Laurence Creighton can be brought up on charges of manslaughter.
Okay! It's a new year and I'm back at it with a new kitten on my lap. Stupid fucker probably won't even have any good suggestions for solving the two puzzles I'll probably encounter in this second half of the game. She's just going to hang there on my arm sleeping and stretching occasionally and making me think, "How the fuck did I get so lucky to exist in a universe with fucking kittens? FUCKING KITTENS, MAN!"
The second half is far easier than the first. It's linear so you know to solve any puzzles, you have to use the few things you've found along the way. Once again, that means a hunt for items. The main trick Laurence pulls on this half is making a lot of timed situations. You have to discover the proper move before the ledge breaks or the rod runs out of power or the canoe sinks. This would have been a terrible inconvenience on the Spectrum when you'd have to load and reload the cassette tape (although this game had a RAM SAVE command that would have helped. But it still wouldn't have been as fast as quick saving on a Spectrum emulator). The only place where Laurence almost had me pulling out the hints was when I hadn't discovered the black rod by the time I needed it (as seen in a vision). But I just went back to the Beating a Laurence Creighton Game Playbook. I revisited every location and searched, examined, looked inside, looked behind, and looked under every noun mentioned. The rod was hidden on the dusty path you walk down to get to the shrine. I guess the fact it was "dusty" was the hint to search it.
If Laurence had given me access to more locations and given me all the objects at once, I would have had a much tougher time with the back half of this adventure. Was it entirely logical that I had to kick the football under the ledge so that it would dislodge the boulder which would roll down to the river and block it so I could cross? Not at all! But since I couldn't cross the river and all I had was a single football boot and the ball, it was easy enough to accidentally figure that out. I think maybe Laurence ran out of steam on the second part of this thing. Although he did allow Ellen, the secret message girl, a cameo! Realizing there's a slight chance that I might come off as a chauvinistic pig, I won't wonder aloud if Laurence at least scored a handy for his efforts.
Proof that I beat the game! Well, I beat three-quarters of the game, I guess!
SCORES
Game Title: Evocative of an exciting location to adventure in but ultimately misleading. Who knows where I was, really. By a lake near an old abandoned amusement park where some kid lost his soccer cleats and ball, I suppose. Although the quicksand makes me believe I was in a jungle. But then the junkyard and kennel make me thing I was in an urban environment. Although the witchdoctor and tribal chief were probably proof that I was somewhere exotic beyond El Dorado. But then I ran into Laurence's friend Ellen, so what the fuck conclusion am I, ultimately, supposed to draw?!
Puzzles: Laurence came up with one puzzle that I feel was reasonably logical and difficult: using oil on the rusty pocket-knife. It was so logical and complex that I never would have figured it out. Laurence's games dumb me down to idiocy as I just go from location to location simply examining and searching and lining and linding and lunding every stupid word he uses.
Gameplay: Typical Speccy text adventure. If you've watched Bandersnatch on Netflix, don't believe that anything as complex as the game Bandersnatch was ever fucking programmed on a ZX Spectrum. But it was nice to see the kid using that awful squidgy little keyboard.
Graphics: None.
Concept: It was so postmodern! The protagonist was actually the protagonist from all of Laurence's text adventures! Which means the world of this game is one where England almost went nuclear and the planet was once invaded by an alien species that tried to block out the sun. That also means that prick that kept trying to destroy the world for the sake of the last cheese sandwich is still out there somewhere. Fucker.
Fun Time: I don't know. Zero minutes? Just reading the name "Laurence Creighton" spoiled my mood from the beginning. I suppose I enjoyed the time spent with a kitten on my lap.
Game Title: Evocative of an exciting location to adventure in but ultimately misleading. Who knows where I was, really. By a lake near an old abandoned amusement park where some kid lost his soccer cleats and ball, I suppose. Although the quicksand makes me believe I was in a jungle. But then the junkyard and kennel make me thing I was in an urban environment. Although the witchdoctor and tribal chief were probably proof that I was somewhere exotic beyond El Dorado. But then I ran into Laurence's friend Ellen, so what the fuck conclusion am I, ultimately, supposed to draw?!
Puzzles: Laurence came up with one puzzle that I feel was reasonably logical and difficult: using oil on the rusty pocket-knife. It was so logical and complex that I never would have figured it out. Laurence's games dumb me down to idiocy as I just go from location to location simply examining and searching and lining and linding and lunding every stupid word he uses.
Gameplay: Typical Speccy text adventure. If you've watched Bandersnatch on Netflix, don't believe that anything as complex as the game Bandersnatch was ever fucking programmed on a ZX Spectrum. But it was nice to see the kid using that awful squidgy little keyboard.
Graphics: None.
Concept: It was so postmodern! The protagonist was actually the protagonist from all of Laurence's text adventures! Which means the world of this game is one where England almost went nuclear and the planet was once invaded by an alien species that tried to block out the sun. That also means that prick that kept trying to destroy the world for the sake of the last cheese sandwich is still out there somewhere. Fucker.
Fun Time: I don't know. Zero minutes? Just reading the name "Laurence Creighton" spoiled my mood from the beginning. I suppose I enjoyed the time spent with a kitten on my lap.
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