All Roads by Jon Ingold

Review by niklasalden

Great game. A lot of things going on, the mystery unfolds itself in small pieces. I guess you have to play it many times to understand it all.

I agree with the freedom I felt about doing stuff. Though, one minor bug was that once, a man was both dead and quaking with fear at the sam time... I suppose I failed to see how I should kill the guy before he died anyway:

"He is dead already. The band of gold glitters from his finger like a burial treasure. Time to go.

[the man's name] quakes with fear, you feel his shudders."

Review by Marzipan

All Roads has been around for over a decade and is pretty well known, I think it was controversial at the time it came out because there's a LOT going on and it doesn't exactly spoonfeed what it's all about to the player. You may have to play it a few times and really pay attention to get at what's really going on in this world. You start with your neck in a noose and then...well it's hard for me to even review without getting into spoiler territory.

The author's other work is well worth checking out as well and can be found here: http://ifdb.tads.org/search?searchfor=author%3AJon+Ingold

fake edit: okay apparently not not TOO 'controversial' after all, did a little googling and it swept away the XYZZY awards that year with Best Game, Best Setting, and Best Story, so obviously there were players who liked it a whole whole lot.

Review by Odie_da_Bossé

This is the game that I have been scavenging for.

Storyline/plot - The game only sheds you a few details of the story or settings every few minutes or so; this is well distributed. It lures the readers in to adventure deeper into the game, and find out the whole truth behind it all.

Game size - Without a doubt, this is the game on text adventures with the most effort put into it. Literally every action I can think of, you can do. That sense of freedom proves the amount of time put into this. I bet you that the coding and programming behind this is massive.

Details/Polish - Although it could use a few rough, black and white pictures for that extra bit of professionalism, this game is well written, has a great text style, a proper 'help' page (really detailed too, well done!) and the text was well spaced and distributed, so you wouldn't have to read for a few minutes before reaching the last bit.

Entertainment - All of the above contributed to a well earned 5. I don't know what happened, why there are no reviews, but an amazing game. Even if I haven't finished it, boy, is this a killer game!

This game is my type. Probably many others that play this will think 'Yeuch, what a horrible game!' and 'Who does Odie_da_Bossé think he is, writing full on reviews, he hasn't even published a proper game yet!' but remember, you've got my vote. I will have a look and see what else you have in store for me in the future. Happy game making!