THE DARK VEIL
(Furillo Productions, 2023)
Interactive Fiction is an odd little genre. It's bit like how there are plenty of indie titles these days in the modern gaming world - a bit of a change of pace and something a little different from the norm. There's a place for all these things and the more Speccy games we get these days the better! They tend to be short stories with multiple choice elements courtesy of the MuCho system, lots of different ways to die and if you're really lucky, some cracking digitised piccies.
Furillo like doing them, that's for sure, and first off in our catch-up is The Dark Veil, a dramatic looking affair which pretty much amounts to escaping from a big spooky house which you've unwisely wandered into. There's some nice descriptive text here which adds well to the spooky ambience and also some decent pictures, though they mostly appear when you've just suffered a grisly death. Oops.
It does tend to get fairly obvious what sort of things might end up killing you. Usually relatively reckless things, but occasionally fairly innocuous activities like looking down a well. Ah, maybe I should have known better... As such it usually takes a few goes to complete, after you've perfected your trial and error technique. Quite fun, this one, if rather standard adventuring fare.
AREA 51: THE ROSWELL INCIDENT
(Furillo Productions, 2023)
Next up is another escapee from the Furillo Asylum, Area 51: The Roswell Incident. I love me a bit of pulpy sci-fi action, so this looks good to me. As a down-at-heels gumshoe you receive a job offer that's very likely to be the death of you - investigating Area 51. Should be straightforward, can't see that presenting a long-lasting problem. You approach, you get shot, you die.
I like this one. It's quirky, silly and there are plenty of nods to '80s and '90s sci-fi staples, such as playing the E.T. or X Files theme tunes now and then. Or chatting to a lady who looks awfully like the nefarious rat-guzzling Diana from V. There seems to be a lot more to this game as well, more locations and more variety of actions. More like this please, o fine fellows of Furillo!
BILLIE NIGHT
(Sequentia Soft, 2023)
A couple of quickies to finish off with now, and ow! Sequentia Soft have made a weird homage to the late king of pop, Mikay Jacksay, called Billie Night. Heehee! Apologies. You play Jacko's girl, "it's after midnight" and you're just coming out of the cinema with him when zombies attack! You have to somehow survive (so you can eventually have the kid who is not his son) which does actually seem rather hard. I couldn't finish it incredibly, in a new low for my adventuring prowess, but it certainly raised a few laughs in an odd sort of way.
JAVI VS. PARRISH
(Furillo Productions, 2023)
Finally those guys again Furillo offer us Javi vs. Parrish, which seems to be an in-joke turned into a quasi adventure. As Javi you have to get your livestream going (I'm too old to know the details, but it seems to be important in some way) but not get so pi$$ed as to be incoherent or get waylaid by the evil-ish Parr-ish. I guess this is how these guys live and you too can share in it! It's short, it's silly, it's not un-fun.
I'm not going to give these titles percentage scores as they're really not your regular kind of gamery and they're not even regular adventures per se. It's mostly the graphics that attract me, as they tend to be very impressive, but there's often some good writing behind them too. I think that if the MuCho system could be used to even greater effect with a broader game and even more choices available, the result could be quite an epic. In the meantime, keep pushing those boundaries guys, it's more fun than many an AGD platformer.
