Lightiania - part of Disk 1301

     Written by Gustav Bodell, Valbo (WhaleNest Games)

      Reviewed by John Ferris, on PC (will run on any
         machine with TADS run-time version 2.2.6)

Lightania was an entry in the 1998 IF competition and finished
22nd. I should emphasise that, along with several entries, this
game requires the latest 2.2.6 version of the TADS runtime
program. If you have yet to upgrade, I recommend you do so as
soon as possible.

You play the part of Gikot Krank, inventor who finds a crashed
purple-coloured UFO while out walking. The aim of the game is to
get it working again.

After a brief examination of the ship, I went back home to see
what sort of equipment I could find that might help me fix the
broken ship. Despite working in advanced robotics, the solution to
the problem was surprisingly low-tech. Careful examination of the
area around the ship produced a missing item that I had spent a
long time puzzling over. Getting the ship to fly was then very
simple, but I never did meet the aliens.

It is obvious from the outset that the author is working in his
second language as the spelling and grammar throughout this game
is somewhat unusual. Please don't misunderstand, his command of
the English language is way above my five words of French and
three of German (Eine bier, bitte) and so I do not mock him. But
what the text of the game needs a good going over by a competent
English-speaker to correct the numerous errors. These go from
mixing "which" and "witch" to awkward grammar. I do forgive
American spellings these days, but only if the English spellings
are catered for. Those players out there who are really annoyed
about bad grammar should sedate themselves before playing.

The implementation of the game is really quite good with lots of
objects mentioned in the descriptions responding to examination.
I did get the feeling that this could have been a longer, more
complex game. I came across at least two potential puzzles that
were not implemented. There were problems though. Somehow the
ladder to the alien ship is referred to as a bridge and this made
me miss an important item. Doing X to a ladder wasn't really
logical, but doing it to a bridge was. A few extra synonyms would
have been nice as well.

In summary, a reasonably competent game which is let down by an
obscure puzzle and dubious spelling and grammar. I would hope the
author does release an updated, larger version of the game in
future as he does show promise.








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