They say if you fold a thousand paper cranes, you'll get your wish. They also say that if you're an intern and you tell your boss about your great origami idea for Kenyan-Japanese relations, your boss will take all the credit and leave you impotent with fury at a cold, lonely desk. (It's a very old legend. Look it up.) Without even a computer to play solitaire on, it's Monday, 16:30, and time is standing still. Maybe with the help of the office gnomes you can beguile your true love in the tower next door with mime and paper airplanes? (Also an important part of the legend. I think it's one of the Icelandic sagas.)
Monday, 16:30 is a work of interactive fiction, so you use a text parser to interact with the game. The game uses typical IF text commands, such as l/look, x/examine, go to, z/wait, i/inv/inventory, and so on. In conjunction with the themes of the game, the game also uses some unusual commands such as "fold" and "mime". In general, when you get to the first use of an unusual command, the game explains it to you. If you're a total newbie to IF, you might try a game with a tutorial first, like Party Foul, or check out Brass Lantern's excellent beginners' resource center.
Analysis: Monday, 16:30 is one of the most ambitious games entered in JayIsGames's own Casual Gameplay Design Competition #7. The author, Mordred, is clearly as bursting with ideas as the player's avatar. In most IF games, the game designer is content to give you some evocative description, a compelling plot, and some clever puzzles. Easter eggs have a long tradition in IF, but Monday 16:30 takes it to the next level. You can find 6 cliches of the escape the room genre, 13 footnotes (including a footnote with its own footnote), and there are a number of hidden mime commands you can unlock as well. The final puzzle has three possible solutions, and on the way there you can try a surprising amount of avenues for such a limited and boring space. Most of them won't get you anywhere, but you'll almost always be rewarded with a witty comment.
However, this ambition and wideness in scope perhaps took up all the time and energy and made the parser suffer a little. You can "tear" a paper, but not "rip" it, for example. At one point when I was standing near someone else's cubicle, I was attempting to return to my own desk. "Go to desk" sent me to that person's desk. "Go to my desk" didn't work. "Go to intern desk" didn't work. I was stuck, helplessly typing commands. I finally managed to get out of it by going to an object near my desk and then typing "go to desk". Playing guess the verb is always frustrating in an IF title because if what you're doing isn't working, you don't know if it's because you don't understand the puzzle, or because you're not phrasing it in the right way.
If you type hint to use the game's hint system, the game mocks you and insists that you type gimmegimmeahintaftermidnight to get a hint, and every time you ask for a hint the game mocks you again. If you've been trying and failing to solve a puzzle, and after looking at the hint you realize you're doing the right thing but somehow you're not phrasing it correctly, the insults can be very frustrating since the game just repeats the same hint over and over until you advance. The use of mime may also be a source of frustration to many players. Trying to guess what someone is miming is difficult enough when you're actually looking at them in person. Trying to guess what a person is miming via a text description of the miming (especially when the text parser doesn't accept what turns out to be a synonym of the right answer) can make you want to go back in time and smack around Marcel Marceau.
The game could also have included a seventh cliche of the escape the room genre: coincidental instant motivation for escaping. At the beginning of the game, your character falls in love at first sight. Is it destiny? No, what a ridiculous superstition. Evolution did it. And something about neurons. Behold the man of science!
But the flaws of Monday, 16:30 come from an attempt to do too much, which is always the better error to make in IF than trying to do too little. The writing follows that kind of intellectual zaniness of Terry Pratchett and Lewis Carroll (both of whom get their names dropped in the game). The game finished a respectable 7th in the competitive field of 30 in the JayIsGames Casual Gameplay Design Competition #7, and it certainly deserves the recognition.
Walkthrough Guide
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Walkthrough:
Choose a number. They all have the same effect.
And another number.
Alright, now the game has started for real. You just have to survive the last half hour or be bored stiff.
You need two things. The game tells you about one of them.
Fresh Air
Let's open a window, shall we?
"open window"
"look" 5 times
A footnote! You can collect these as a 'feel-good bonus.'
"look" 3 more times
Enough staring. You need to ask her out.
Coffee
Examine the room.
You have a desk, but no cubicle (unlike those ingrates you work with).
Go to it.
Take the glue.
Examine the trash.
Search through it.
Pencil Get!
This triggers another 'collectible': escape-the-room cliches.
Examine the coffee machine.
"push button"
Do it again.
And again.
Once more.
Another footnote.
Push the button again.
The gnome wants to play charades with you.
"say box"
"say left" ("say right" also works)
"say look"
Two footnotes!
You're not done with the gnome.
Push the button twice more.
"say a3"
"say a3 paper"
"say fold"
"say tear"
"say a4"
Speak to the gnome one last time for an important miming action.
Push the button twice.
"say eat"
"say paper"
0.o A paper-eating gnome... Moving on!
At this point, drinking more coffee will summon the gnome, but he only wants the coffee.
Remember that girl from the window? You'd love to ask her out, but must get her attention first.
The gnome told you to examine the copier. Go over to it.
The gnome said there was something on the left side you needed to see.
Nothing special about it?
Flip the switch.
Now you can use the copier!
Pushing the button gives you a sheet of white paper.
"open lid"
"open cover"
"disconnect lamp"
"close lid"
Pushing the button again gives you black paper.
Do it again. You need a spare sheet of black paper.
Shred the black paper.
Examine the shredder and take the black shreds.
Asking the girl out:
You could throw something at her.
You can't throw the glue stick. How about a paper airplane?
Glue your two sheets of paper together, then tear it in half and fold the result into an airplane.
Do this BEFORE you go to the window or the paper will be lost and you will have to make a new one.
You can only glue two sheets together, and one of them MUST be black. The girl won't notice a white plane against the building.
A3 paper is too big and A5 paper is too small.
Go back to the window.
Hey! She noticed!
But you can't talk. You must ask her on a date through miming.
You can only do one action at a time to form a string of three words.
Use the words 'eat,' 'me,' and 'you.' The order does not matter.
Getting out of the office:
Just wander around to kill some time. Eventually the phone will ring. Answer it.
Again, your choice doesn't matter.
So now we have to make a small origami zebra (donkey). But you don't know how to make one, only a crane and a plane.
Nick has one at his desk.
All you can see is junk and a computer.
You can toy with the computer, but it doesn't do anything.
Maybe it's IN his desk?
His drawer is locked.
So is Adam's drawer. His desk is empty. His computer is locked.
Go to Susan's desk.
It is covered with photos. Didn't she go on a safari last year?
Her drawer is unlocked. Open it and take the key.
Go to Adam's desk.
Unlock the drawer and open it.
The key vanishes, earning cliche #3.
Susan's key isn't necessary, but you can take it anyways. Nick's key is the one you want.
If you take Susan's key, you must be specific when using a key because you have two.
Go back to Nick's desk.
Unlock the drawer and open it.
Another cliche. You should have 4 now.
Take the origami and unfold it. Now refold it. You know how to make a donkey!
Go back to the copier.
Push the button.
If you get a black paper, open up the copier and connect the lamp.
Glue your black paper strips to the white paper.
You can't fold it.
Put the striped paper into the copier and push the button.
Adam told you to make a small zebra. Tear your striped paper twice.
You can't make A6 paper
Fold the striped A5 paper into a donkey.
Put the donkey on the desk.
Leave!
I obtained 12 miming actions:
you, me, bye, thanks, eat, rock, paper, scissors, fold, tear, box, look.
Did I miss any?
Also, I was unable to be late.
I am missing several footnotes and cliches.
Posted by: SkylerF
|
August 11, 2010 5:04 PM