Re: Ah Ha! The Results of the First Annual "Iffys".


09 Oct 1995 14:19:49 GMT

In article <4549ir$n72@news.ox.ac.uk> ct@ecs.ox.ac.uk (ct) writes:

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From: ct@ecs.ox.ac.uk (ct)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.int-fiction
Date: 6 Oct 1995 22:11:39 GMT
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[about Magic Toyshop]

I loved this one! I laughed all the way through it. The noughts and crosses
was hilarious, similarly the gnomon. Boxes was interesting for being totally
different to every other puzzle in the game, and tower of hanoi was just
downright cheating! The final puzzle was a little hard for the 2 hour limit,
though I made it with the help of a computer (I deduced the first character,
(and hence a considerable deal more) and did a brute force search on it! I
later deduced my original deduction was fucked beyond belief :-)

People seem to be interpreting the 2-hour limit in different ways. Some saw
it as a serious flaw in the game if it caused you to exceed the limit.
Others saw it as a practical limit on the judges, and nothing more. For my
part, I was content to give A Change in the Weather my seal of approval,
despite failing to finish it. I think I saw almost all of the game, and
what I saw was good. Likewise, I suspect that most people didn't get the
chest open in 2 hours, but reaching that point in the game means seeing
everything else. If you got stuck on the chest, you were in a good position
to judge the game.

Unlike Library, I thought this had its IF-references in perspective.
I felt the puzzles fitted into the scene quite well, so I voted for this one.

Significantly, the Trinity/Curses material is a purely optional puzzle. You
didn't need to catch the references to win.

(By the way, if anyone out there is familiar with Gnus, how can I set it to
put a '>' in front of quoted lines instead of indenting them?)

Carl Muckenhoupt