East Grove Hills

A story about three teenagers, and tragedy.    by XYZ

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This game reminded me of Photopia.  I probably shouldn't write that in a review, because there are people out there who think "Photopia" was like the Jesus of interactive fiction.  My opinion of Photopia was more neutral.  But let me explain the parallels.

Both are puzzleless and both have a linear game design.  Both games lack a certain amount of interactivity.  Although the game design is linear (the player has no choice what order things happen) the narrative hops around frequently in time and space.
East Grove Hills has some self-referential elements, which I found sort of interesting but other players might find distracting.  The writing is good.  The voice is interesting and consistent.  The story, I thought, is somewhat less powerful than the one presented in Photopia.  (The "Photopia is Jesus" crowd will perceive this game as much less powerful.)

The greatest weakness in East Grove Hills is the failure to change enough of the default responses, and to account for some fairly obvious player actions.  The case that sticks in my mind is that the parser didn't recognize "help Jane" when my sister Jane was dying on the floor.  When I tried to kiss Jane, the parser told me to keep my mind on the game.  I also didn't get any response from typing "about", "help", or "credits".

Overall, I was taken in by the story.  I played through to the end.  But during a competition year with so many other really strong entries, I don't think this one will finish in the top half.