Home of the Underdogs
About News FAQs Contact HOTU GoogleGroup Music Manuals
Category Applications Action Adventure Education Interactive Fiction Puzzle Role Playing Games Simulation Special Sport Strategy War




Support the EFF
Welcome How you can help
Browse Games
Welcome Random Pick
Welcome By Company
  Welcome By Theme  
Welcome By Alphabet
Welcome By Year
Welcome Title Search
Welcome Company Search
Welcome Designer Search
Recommended
Welcome Freeware Titles
Welcome Collections
Welcome Discord
Welcome Twitter
Welcome Facebook
Welcome File Format Guide
Welcome Help: Non PC Games
Welcome Help: Win Games
Welcome Help: DOS Games
Welcome Recommended Links
Site History Site History
Legacy Legacy
Link to Us Link to Us
Credits Thanks & Credits
Abandonware Ring

Abandoned Places

dungeoncrawlers.org

Creative Commons License


Game #5206
Hall of Belated Fame Inductee  Whom the Telling Changed    View all Top Dogs in this genre
Interactive Fiction   Story-driven

Rating: 7.25 (4 votes)

Whom the Telling Changed box cover

Whom the Telling Changed screenshot
Whom the Telling Changed is a well-deserved first-place winner in the 2005 Spring Thing competition. Dan Shiovitz's concise review says it all:

"This was the last game I played of this year's spring comp, and it was an extremely satisfying note to close on. It's always nice to play something a little experimental, and especially if it actually works, and Whom the Telling Changed totally does. The concept is sort of like The Space Under the Window, but in ancient Sumer, hearing one of the tales of Gilgamesh. Isn't that awesome?

Normally I'm a little suspicious of games with conversations where the key words are highlighted, but I thought it really worked well here (though if you don't care for it, you can turn it off). Probably this is helped along by the occasional presence of a third option not listed – even though a lot of it is effectively menu choices, you don't forget that this is a game with a parser. And the 'menu' system definitely doesn't fall into the exhaustively-try-every-option trap that Andrew Plotkin has complained about in the past: when you make a choice, the story moves along, and you can't just go back and try option B to see what it would have done.

Naturally, even though I really liked Whom the Telling Changed, I do have a few gripes. One is that it's not always clear what effect a particular word is going to have: while that doesn't matter in The Space Under the Window since it's just an art piece you're exploring, here it seems like you're nominally participating in some kind of moral/philosophical argument, and you ought to know what statements you're making before you say them. The other is, well, this was good, but now I want more. Lately I've been really interested in IF games that let the player make a few serious choices that have real consequences – this feels like it does that, but the basic plot seems to be pretty fixed. There is one significant change you can make, but it's predicated on a choice you have to make early on and without understanding the implications. But, yeah, these are relatively minor complaints. Whom the Telling Changed is an excellent game, well-crafted and innovative, and I absolutely recommend it."

Reviewed by: Underdogs
Designer: Aaron Reed
Developer: Freeware
Publisher: Freeware
Year: 2005
Software Copyright: Aaron Reed
Theme:  
Multiplayer:  
None that we know of
System Requirements:  
Where to get it:
Related Links: Official site
Links:    
If you like this game, try: Space under The Window, The, Blue Chairs, Tapestry

© 1998 - 2024 Home of the Underdogs
Portions are copyrighted by their respective owners. All rights reserved. Please read our privacy policy.