IF Comp '08 Review - Gerald Aungst's Recess At Last!
My memory is shit, but there are bits of recess left in it. I particularly remember the day the entire fifth-grade class, queued up to go back inside, started singing “Let’s Talk About Sex,” which might’ve been a sign that we were getting too old for the monkey bars. Y’know, I might actually get some damn exercise if it were swings and monkey bars again. Perhaps this is why people go rock climbing. Or have sex.
Anyway. Recess At Last.
[spoilers start here]
After endless months of indoor recess, an eager student’s plan to try out his brand new sneakers is thwarted by one missing assignment.
Oh no!
Explorer worksheets? What the fuck is an Explorer worksheet?
Blow me, Vasco de Gama.
Oooh, I have Spiderman mittens. I am awesome.
I am at school without a pencil? I am not all that awesome. Oh, no, here it is.
Um. Hmm. Okay. So I open this Vasco da Gama book at random until I find something relevant, and then I write it down? Other than the part where I never learned to read things sequentially, this is a pretty accurate elementary-school-worksheet-doing simulation game. I was one of those uncool kids who rather enjoyed doing worksheets, so this is actually sort of fun.
Huh. I just looked at my worksheet and was told that it “appears to be complete and ready to hand in,” but I am missing question three! This sort of shoddy work will not fly with Mrs. McClintock, buddy! Mrs. McClintock has been known to cut a bitch!
OH NO WHERE IS MY COAT?
Okay, game gets points for multiple solutions to its puzzles, such as they are. It’s nice to know that Mrs. Walker in the office would have loaned me a pencil if I had somehow been too stupid to find mine. Unfortunately, the hint system does not care that I am supposed to get my brother’s homework for him, nor is it willing to help me find my coat.
Oh, Mrs. McClintock knows where my coat might be. And now I have found it. And it is recess. Well, that certainly was… what was it? Short. And light on plot. The environment had more lovingly detailed flavor bits in it than actual functional things, which is sort of refreshing in this year’s competition, but it makes them seem a bit underutilized. (I’m still not sure if I was supposed to get into room 10 or not.) I really did appreciate how many solutions there were to the simple problem of getting my homework done, so that’s a positive, but… how did I make it to the fourth grade without learning how to read books from front to back?
Does what it says on the tin, I guess. Seven.
1 year ago