IF Comp Review: Untold Riches

Hello, all and sundry! We're in the final stretch of the IF Comp judging period, so I'll be reviewing one game a day until Saturday, November 14th. (That's an extra 4 reviews!) Up next, it's Jason Ermer's Untold Riches.

Untold Riches is a short puzzly game starring an adventuring professor's teenaged sidekick who has to find an island's ancient treasure (as well as a way off the island) after accidentally getting stranded there by the professor. It's a light, snack-break game that doesn't do much set itself out from the crowd. In fact, the author deliberately made it as simple as possible so that his middle school students could use it as an example game for learning Inform. As school games go it's very pleasurable, and I can definitely see a bunch of middle schoolers enjoying the heck out of it. (Although what they'd think of the ending, WHICH IS TOTALLY NON-CANON, I can't really say.)


There were a couple issues with the descriptions (I found the description of the water wheel and the junk surrounding it more confusing than it should be), and some of the running gags grew a little stale, but these faults don't detract from the game's charms. It's a nice game to play to wind down.

Conclusion: ( Click for verdict )

Aaaand that's a wrap! For the full length IF Comp reviews, anyway. I hope to post some capsule reviews (plus a general IF Comp 2015 summary) sometime tomorrow, but we'll see.