Nightmare Adventure

Those of us who've been around for a while remember the trepidation with which we approached homebrew parsers in the comp. But there have been quite a few pretty decent homebrews now, so perhaps we've forgotten that old wariness. "Nightmare Adventure" reminds me again.

We've gotten used to certain things in IF. We're used to typing "I" to access our inventory, for example, or "L" to look around. We're used to typing "N" to go north. So when a game comes along and demands we type out, in full, "INVENTORY" or "GO NORTH", we might feel a little resentful. Maybe it's not so bad for people who are new to IF and don't have any frame of reference, but for us old fogeys, it's a bit of a red flag. It suggests a lack of familiarity with the medium.

Anyway, it seems that we've come home to find that everyone's fallen fast asleep where they were standing. Head out, and we see a friend fall victim to the same mysterious ailment, which seems to be connected to the town clock. Mysterious! The only way we can go from here appears to be south to the wizard's tower; perhaps the wizard will have some answers. And then we find a ruby amulet that we somehow can't do anything with even though it's clearly part of the key to going forward and, well, I have to stop. Because there's clearly no way to go further than this, and I haven't even managed to get engaged enough to overlook the homebrew inconveniences yet.

It's like homemade bread for breakfast. Homemade anything can be wonderful if it's done even halfway well, but if you've somehow managed to leave out the yeast, then the great question is why you're trying to reinvent the wheel.