Shuffling Around

This was a pure puzzle-fest, very nicely put together. The story is entirely subservient to the puzzles, so much so as to nearly disappear. Well, some people enjoy puzzles, and for them this is a well-implemented collection of puzzles along a wordplay theme. The writing, too, supports this: it seems as though every third word is an anagram of the fourth. Which may seem like just a cute little detail, but the extent to which it is carried out speaks of some major effort on the part of the author here.

That said, I must confess that I thought the whole thing went on for rather a little too long. Most IF has some sort of variety to its puzzles; here, by the very nature of the game's premise, all the puzzles involve essentially the same matter of scrambling anagrams. Granted, there are other steps that must be taken, which vary from puzzle to puzzle, but it is the anagramming that takes one's attention, and that is what creates and perpetuates the illusion of homogenity. And then just when I thought I could rest on my laurels, it turned out there was a whole section of endgame yet to complete...!

From a game design standpoint, I can see the necessity of that endgame sequence: nominal though the story was, it did talk about a villain that needed to be vanquished; given the division of the main game body into discrete sections, that could not happen without a final sequence that the discrete sections would all funnel into. Still ... there are only so many anagrams one can unscramble in one sitting.

For someone who loves playing with anagrams -- or else someone who is playing this slowly over the course of several days -- this is a fine collection of puzzles. I would not advise trying to rush through this in one sitting, as I did.

Four eggs, scrambled, and a selection of meats grilled to perfection, followed by a large mug of coffee stirred with a sausage.