CASK by Harry Hardjono (A pseudonym, one assumes)
        A text adventure (Inform), part of Disk 1289

                    Review by Bev Truter

This is one of about 35 games (some sources mention 71 games)
entered in the 1997 I-F competition run on the 'Net. The games
were judged and ranked in order of preference 1-24, and Cask was
one of the games that didn't make it to the "Top 24" list. I
decided to check out some of these unranked games, and began with
Cask. The gist of the plot is that you apply for a job to learn
the fine art of wine making. The proprietor punched your lights
out, then locked you in here: "Now you are locked in a small room
with nothing on you, no wages, no money. What a fine mess you are
in, fellow. See if you can get out of here. All you have to do is
go through the front door. Oh, it's locked? Too bad."

Lowering my expectations to rock-bottom, I wasn't surprised to
discover that Cask had only 4 locations, about 5 puzzles, and 0
atmosphere. Spelling was passable, grammar clumsy, location and
object descriptions minimal and the usual bits and pieces of
scenery non-existent. After solving one of the last puzzles you
are congratulated by the phrase "a big relief comes upon me",
which was mildly amusing, but surpassed in entertainment-value by
the horrendous programming glitch of putting a key inside a rat;
and then it's only visible when you put the rat on a chair and
type LOOK - "There is a rat on the chair. (A golden key is inside
the rat))". The author comments on this programming error in his
solution to the game, which made me wonder why he hadn't bothered
correcting it.

The pity of it all is that given the 2 main items in Cask - a dead
rat and a wine vat, I frantically hoped that the game would
develop into a Dr. Zeuss-type story; THE RAT IN THE VAT almost
tops THE CAT IN THE HAT as a story title. But obviously the author
was totally oblivious to this possibility, and the story remains a
dreary unconvincing little 20-minute puzzle on how to escape from
three rooms.

Oh well. From the highly unrealistic introduction (an employer
knocking a new employee unconscious in the winery ... Why???) to
the supremely illogical finish Cask showed hardly any redeeming
features. The best I could say about it was that the noise made
when you open a vat (ZHWOONG!) looked quite good. Yet more silly
programming made dealing with this vat a nightmare, as each time
you type in the word "vat" the game complains, and asks "do you
mean the vat cover, the hole in the vat, or the big wooden vat?".
I would have thought it would be easy enough to program 3
different items for the game called vat, cover, and hole; but no,
apparently not.

Cask showed no evidence of planning, no skill in programming or
writing, and no sign of any playtesting. In short, it's obvious
why this one never made it to the final list-of-24. When I deleted
it from the hard drive and floppy disk, "a big relief came upon
me".  Indeed it did.


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