The Adventure of Esmeralda and Ruby on the Magical Island

I'm not entirely sure that this wasn't written by a child. The command of language is very odd ... there are phrasings and structures that sound very childlike, at least to me, accompanied by some phrasings that feel a little more adult. Perhaps it is an adult endeavouring to reproduce the effect of a story as told by children? Or perhaps it is simply a language issue ... or some combination of the above. Bottom line is, the writing is all over the place in terms of grammar and vocabulary.

Structure-wise, this isn't really much of an interactive fiction at all. What we do get is three chapters of a story that may be approached in any order, but the chapters themselves offer no further interaction aside from what boils down to a "turn the page" button. Once you've read all three chapters, a new option opens up for the final denouement, and that's it on to the end.

I'll give it a point for the childish whimsy, I suppose. Behind the language difficulties, there's a pretty decent storyteller who's probably a hit with the kids at bedtime, like a late-night snack of warm milk and a cookie. But it's also a bit like having that warm milk and cookie for breakfast: it's not entirely qualified for the job, and there's a certain something lost in the translation.