Andromeda Awakening by Marco Innocenti

I quite enjoyed Andromeda Awakening though it definitely wasn't without its flaws. It's a game by an Italian author who clearly has a far better grasp of the English language than I do of Italian, but at times certain phrases just stopped me in my tracks and I had to read them again to make sure I'd read them right. 'Squatter around like mad rats' and 'a cold blade cuts your whole in half, at kidney's height'? I can figure out what the first one means but the second is kind of baffling.

Some aspects of the game I found frustrating. It seemed to be one that requires you to play it the exact way the author intended, with no leeway given for other things you might want to try. I met a man on the train and he was reading a newspaper. I decided to examine the newspaper and was given a message that made me believe the newspaper wasn't at all of interest to me. So I engaged the man in conversation and found myself asking him about the newspaper that I'd just been told was of no interest to me. Not long after this, the train crashed and the man was trapped under his seat. Attempts to free him or lift the seat off him failed (the game calmly informs me that I can't see any such thing when I try to examine or move the seat). The only option seems to be to abandon him (or if there's a way to save him, I never came across it and it's not included in the walkthrough).

At times I found the style of writing to be good, at others it seemed far too overblown for my liking. At its best, it was very good indeed.

Some puzzles seem to rely on repetition. Try an action once and you might get nowhere, try it again and you succeed. A few times I only figured this out by sheer chance - trying something I'd already tried not because it occurred to me to be a good idea but simply because I'd forgotten I'd already typed it. I suppose it's not unreasonable to expect people to try things multiple times but it might be a nice idea to clue them into the fact that another attempt is required.

The game's biggest flaw was its liking for mentioning a multitude of items in room descriptions that can't be examined or interacted with in any way. The 'inside of the hut' was especially bad:

"Inside the hut

Darkness gets thicker in here. Shelves line up along the interior, but they are all empty. An old wire dangles from the ceiling with no lamp on it. The only exit is south, to the warehouse.

A blade of light comes from the back of the hut, to the north, where it penetrates a cut in the plastic case.

>x case

You can't see any such thing.

>x hut

You can't see any such thing.

>x blade of light

You can't see any such thing.

>x back of the hut

You can't see any such thing.

>x back

You can't see any such thing."

Didn't any of the testers try to examine these items?

Not only that, but attempting to take the plastic mentioned in the room description allows me to take an item that I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be able to take. Being told I'm carrying 'a cut in the wall' was amusing. Though not half as amusing as, following the walkthrough because I was becoming increasingly stuck by this point, I was able to use the metal bar on the wall and open up a previously hidden exit from the hut... whilst in an entirely different location!

Negative points aside, I did enjoy Andromeda Awakening. It might have its problems, but it's certainly one of the better games I've played in this year's IFComp.

6 out of 10