Aisle By Sam Barlow, Inform

                Reviewed by John Ferris (PC)

I might be correct in saying that every form of literature or
expression has its own avaunt guard movement. Those exponents who
wish to push the boundaries of their chosen media a little
further. They who are not afraid to experiment, nor afraid to
fail.

The world of adventure games (alias Interactive Fiction) also
attracts its own fair share of experimentation with notable
successes.  The game with one location is the first to come to
mind as a success. One idea that never saw the light of day was
the "Aural Adventure", based on sound alone.  Another interesting
idea came along with "The Space Under the Window" where the player
progressed by typing in words from the description that they
believed had significance. The plot either progressed or didn't.
Not everyone's cup of tea but still a great new concept.

More controversial is "puzzle-less IF", adventures without problem
solving. The entertainment is derived from "being there", perhaps
not that different to "The Space Under the Window" in essence, but
much more acceptable to the conservative.

"Spider and Web" set the newsgroups alight. A game played in part
as the results of the player's interrogation, in flashback if you
like.

What does this have to do with Aisle? Well simply put, Aisle is a
one-turn game. Yes, the player has exactly one turn with which to
interact with the game.  Your character has stopped by the pasta
section in a supermarket aisle. In front of you is a woman filling
her own trolley. There's a short description of the location and
that is it. Hmm, what to type?

     x trolley (your trolley)
     The trolley is a small cage of steel with bent rubber wheels.
     Full of your shopping: meals for one, drinks for one (well,
     drinks for several, but hey, who's counting?).

     Gnocchi for one wouldn't really work. You settle for
     spaghetti and continue on to the next aisle.

     Another story over. But then...

The game then restarts after a pressing a key. So, from the
location description I know my character has some affinity with
Rome. He lives alone and appears to drink too much. He didn't used
to live alone.

So I played on and slowly built up a picture of the main
character, one move then restart.

As a traditional adventure game it doesn't work because it is not
supposed to be a traditional style adventure game. As a one-turn
game it almost works but is inevitably thwarted by the fact you
play the same scene over and over again each time with a different
input.

However I found it compelling to play. Each move I discovered a
little more about the character, his story unfolded little by
little until I ran out of inputs to type, by which time I knew a
lot of the story.  But I had to know the story. I did find one
command with which the game finishes with a satisfactory
conclusion for the player character, but you won't find it without
playing the game a number of times.

The writing is very good, evoking an atmosphere that I readily
took part in. There were responses to all the inputs I tried, even
to some that I typed simply because they always provoke a stock
response from the game. My advice is to try as many ways getting
information about the story as you can. Put yourself behind the
trolley and into his shoes. Beware, I found some responses a
little disturbing.

I enjoyed playing Aisle; the only puzzle was to think up of inputs
to type in to provoke the character to reveal his story. I doubt
that adventure purists would go much on the game, but I did and
would class it as a successful "experiment." It had a curiosity
value, similar to when you tune into a radio or TV programme
partway through but you don't turn over, you need to find out how
it ends.

Aisle demonstrates the difference between what makes an adventure
and what counts as interactive fiction.

Aisle is available on ftp.gmd.de and on this issue's disk.

@~See also Bev's article on puzzle-less games this issue ... Sue









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