[Home] [Act of Misdirection] [Frozen] [Cheeseshop][Caffeination]
After trying the gaming spectaculars of "The Act of Misdirection" and "Frozen" I decided to dedicate a large chunk of my time to something more fruitful and less mind boggling. "Cheeseshop" turned out to be a nice retreat from the mazes of my previous two encounters with interactive fiction.
According to the heading, the story is based upon Monty Python's Flying Circus program cheese sketch. Because the only Monty Python I have watched is the famed and beloved, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I thought I would give it a try.
While the theme is supposed to be funny, I just found myself wondering what the scene looked like on screen, instead of focusing on the characters and actions at hand.
The actions were much easier than the last two games I played. "Look" and "examine" commands were used in a much more frequently. In this dearth of commands that I seem to have, I decided to search out some commands that I could use, instead of making this my excuse in the next game I would play. In my searches, I found two variations on how to command. With this newfound vocabulary, which is rather simplistic (I must silence my inclination to use a thesaurus), I hope to find my next experience with interactive fiction a more agreeable one.
This game was rather funny. I kept typing in these long names of cheeses, and getting sad and rather elaborate responses from the cheese man working the counter. No cheese, I discovered was in the case. What sadness! This game takes one's preconception that this is a cheeseshop and turns it around on the reader/user. I experienced something like this with "905". Just like in "Cheeseshop," the user assumes things, and in that, the user is tricked. Wonderfully tricked.
I think I figured out that "Cheeseshop" was similar to "905" when I started writing very long cheese names. After about three or four of them, I knew something was up, and my carpal tunnel hands were beginning to ache. I decided to try something else, and go after the singers and dancers in the corner.
When I did that, going north to try to pursue them, the game ended, terminating my experience in the cheeseshop. Instead of picking up on the singers, who made a lot of noise throughout the game: "doo daa doo daa," I was thwarted by the door. Apparently the game was as disappointed in my performance as I was in my inability to buy cheese in a cheese shop, and decided to make me leave the shop. C'est lavie. :-)
Updated by Amanda Cochran on 11-10-04.