The description for this game reads, and I kid you not, “this is honestly a great game”. My, but I love an author who is modest. So then, is this a great game? Honestly?

Well, here’s the description for the first room. Read it through and see if you think it’s “great”:

YOU ARE IN LIVING ROOM.
YOU CAN GO NORTH, SOUTH, EAST OR WEST.
YOU ARE IN THE LIVING ROOM.
THE DEATH BEARES HAVE TRAPPED YOU IN.

Hmmm… twice I'm told I'm in the living room. Then I'm told that the “death beares {sic}” have me trapped. Death beares? Are they similar to normal bears only deadlier on account of the extra E? Total mystery to me, I'm afraid. Despite the aforementioned death beares having me trapped, they can’t be examined, or fought, and don’t seem very inclined to start attacking me. That’s quality game testing right there and no mistake.

But wait! There’s more! I decided to play around and see what else I could do in this “honestly great” game. The room lists four exits, so I tried each of them, expecting to be moved into another location (this being generally what happens when you move in a direction). But not here. Oh no. Here we have:

> W
YOU SEE A PICTURE ON THE WALL.

> E
THERE IS A RADIO.
ON THE ARIAL IT AHS A NOTE SAYING:
TURN 180*

> S
YOU SEE A SMALL TAPPESTRY.

> N
YOU SEE A BARRED AND LOCKED WINDOW

So… in this game the directional commands seem to work like an examine command. Probably just as well really as the author, in his infinite (lack of) wisdom hasn’t seen fit to include descriptions of most items. Then again, the text is littered with so many spelling errors that trying to examine things would probably have me in tears anyway.

If all that wasn’t bad enough (and yes, it is definitely bad enough), there’s the game’s habit of telling you what to do next. You talk to the safe and a key appears. The game advises you to take it. You take the key and the game advises you to use it. Really takes the fun out of solving these “puzzles”, doesn’t it?

That was it. That was all I could take. To say the game was bad would be the understatement of the year. To say it was a steaming pile of camel droppings would be… well, an insult to steaming pile of camel droppings. It’s just *so* bad it’s a mystery that even the author could think it was worth releasing, let alone describing it as a great game.

Oh, and did I mention that the only capital letters used throughout the entire game are the ones included by Quest by default? Yep, the author apparently doesn’t think capital letters are worth including himself. Then again, he didn’t include a storyline or anything resembling gameplay either so I guess capital letters where they're needed was perhaps expecting too much.

Avoid this one like the plague.

1 out of 10

Of the googolplex of sword masters games in the archive, I actually could not find this one in reference. EDIT: I discovered you probably are referring to "escape 2"...haha.
I'm glad you posted this however for a few reasons. One, to save us the time of playing it. Two, the sheer humor of it all. But more personally, as coincidence would have it, emojo decided to rate my own game, Get Out of the House, leaving the thought-provoking message "I can't get out of the living room" and scored it a 3 (which I suppose could always be worse). I wasn't going to mention it in here but the title of this thread struck me. I have this message for people who play the games and can't solve puzzles:

emojo,
Couldn't get out of the living room?
The rating system is intended to rate the quality and design of a game. You should not post a bad rating because you cannot figure out a puzzle that no one else has ever had a problem with. I'll give you the answer. Since you start the game SITTING on the couch, try to STAND first.

Why do I mention anything about how people rate my games? I care about the players of my games. I have a sense of pride in my work. All in all, I guess it doesn't matter. Enjoy.

I've been going through the Sword Masters games and rating them on textadventures and emojo actually replied, telling me to go away because I'd never made a game and therefore didn't know anything.... And his reply had no capital letters either. Here's how it went:

Comment by DePaw
3 Jan 2008

Once again no capital letters and a new line after each sentence. A room where all 8 exits go to the same place, then bit of moving around and you've finished the game. With lovely descriptions like "well done you have killed drak. walk in any direction." And many forgotten full stops, total of 5 rooms. For a game that claims to be "brilliant", I was disappointed.

Overall: 1/5. Tips: Remember your punctuation, more descriptions, more involved story line.

Comment by emojo
4 Jan 2008

dude.
you havent even made a game so shut up and get off everyones back.
i went to the review part of the main page and found that you have written the
most reviews and most are negative.

Comment by DePaw
5 Jan 2008

I'm allowed to post negative reviews if I feel the game is bad. You really should try to write things properly if it's a text game. I've been using quest for 3+ years now, I've made many games just not put them on here. I'm making a online rpg which is about 150kb big so far, can you say the same?

Comment by emojo
5 Jan 2008

i can say the same and im only on lite version.

That last comment made me laugh...

I've often found that the really bad game writers (i.e. the ones who secretly know they stink) take criticism the worse. Someone who has confidence in his/her game writing and receives a bad review of a game just takes it in their stride as they realise that bad reviews are part and parcel of the game writing process. No matter how good a game is, someone somewhere will hate it. Bad reviews are just something you have to accept.

On the other hand, the awful game writers are the ones who take every bad review as a personal insult to them. If you tell them they made some spelling mistakes in their game, they act like you've just insulted their mother and start mouthing off about it. Maybe emojo will realise this and actually try and improve, but I suspect not. He doesn’t take criticism well and, considering the state of his games, criticism is just about all he’s going to get.

And, emojo, just because someone hasn’t released a game themselves doesn’t mean they can’t comment on one of yours and point out its many flaws. Most film critics have never acted or directed a film, yet you don’t get the big buck actors giving them grief because they gave a film a negative review.

And finally, emojo, please, please, please, fortheloveofgod stop describing your own games as “honestly a great game” and “brilliant”. You're just asking for people to knock them because no one like someone with an over-inflated opinion of themselves. I only played this game because I saw you'd described it as “honestly a great game” and couldn’t resist the urge to see how “honestly bad” it would be.

Im pretty sure God placed the Sword Master games here purely for us to make fun of.

Thanks God! Reading these reviews about them makes me laugh!