I remember playing a couple of Andy Phillips's games way back when. I seem to remember (it's been a while) some very edgy dramatics coupled with some very specific object manipulation and/or actions. Well, this tribute has that sort of puzzling, but the edgy dramatics are more a matter of humour than life-and-death. Basically, our so-called friends have trapped us in our room while they go out cavorting with their dates, because they have social lives while we are the biggest geek who ever geeked. Seriously.
I think a big part of what makes this game is just how much of a geek our main character is. The game world and the prose is littered with expressions of his fandom joy. On the one hand, it feels hilariously over-the-top; on the other hand, it's relatable in the sense that some of this really does sound like a cool thing to have/do if one were a fan of something.
The central puzzle isn't terribly intuitive. I mean, it's not something I'd guess as a potential means of escaping our predicament, and more something that just seems indicated by the materials at hand. The fact that it works at all seems like a matter of luck more than anything else. But that's not exactly a new thing to IF, and I think I can forgive it that much.
As a breakfast, it might be a single helping of Eggs Benedict with a very highly flavoured Hollandaise sauce. It looks complex and it's a bit fiddly to eat ... but in hindsight, it's basically a breakfast sandwich smothered in Hollandaise, isn't it? This one is small enough that you can be done in a jiffy, and then we've got grapefruit juice to help cut the richness.