Zero Sum Game is in my opinion one of the most underrated games of the IFComp. It's a fun, original, and well-designed game that deserves better than the 11th place in the competition. The capsule review at Baf's Guide to IF Archive says it all about this underdog: "Savagely funny--a sort of anti-fantasy. You've reached the end of a hack-and-slash fantasy quest, but your mother's found out, and she orders you to set everything right. The joke, in part, is that you wreak a lot more havoc trying to fix things than you wrought in the first place, but there's lots more going on, and most of it is extremely amusing. The humor is very dark, however, enough so that some objected to what they considered pointless cruelty. Your feckless sidekick Maurice is immensely amusing--he's packed with silly repartee--and the AMUSING file has lots of extraneous but funny material. Some of the puzzles are quite difficult and require some major intuitive leaps." Highly recommended! Reviewed by: Underdogs |