Unfortunate
is a parser-based puzzle by Jess
Elizabeth Reed that was entered into IFcomp 2021.
I loved the premise of this game — it puts you in a short,
repeatable scenario as an accretive PC (something similar was used for last year’s The
Copyright of Silence), and you use your knowledge to make predictions as a
fortune teller.
After three runs through Unfortunate, you have enough information
for completely accurate predictions. It poses an interesting question: should you
predict misfortune and then passively watch it unfold? Or do you want to take action
for more positive results?
Unfortunate is an ambitious work, and that ambition may have
created some implementation issues. I found exits that became inaccessible and descriptions
that referenced non-existent objects. And I couldn’t
predict misfortune and passively watch the results, because two characters
completely disappeared from the game.
I would have appreciated it if Unfortunate set out its initial expectations
more clearly; I approach puzzles differently when it’s clear that they’ll be a
repeating sequence. This entry was fun, but more playtesting would have
improved the experience.
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