Review Pantomime Developer: Robb Sherwin Publisher: N/A Genre: Text Adventure (I.F.) Release Date: 2006 Platform: Review by Ricardo Pautassi July 6, 2006		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

The game we’ll be discussing was one of the four entries that made their way into the 2006 Spring Thing, an annual competition for interactive fiction created in 2002 by Adam Cadre. You can download this as well the remaining entries directly through the competition’s web site: http://www.springthing.net/2006/index.htm.

Pantomime is Robb Sherwin’s seventh interactive fiction (IF) game. Most of this author’s previous games -- i.e A Crimson Spring -- have been greatly appreciated by the IF community. Moreover, in my humble opinion, his last offering – Necrotic Drift – easily makes into the top-five IF games of the last years. So, it is no wonder that I had high expectations for his new offering.

First the bad things: I really missed the photographs. I mean, previous Sherwin´s games had plenty of photographs and/or drawings that really helped improving the gaming experience. This is not the case of Pantomime. Sure, I admit that it is not the case that the game lacks something in itself, but I really have to say that I missed them.

On the other hand, if there’s something I admire from this particular author is the ability to create a world of his own in each one of his creations. Each one of them has a creative, unique and atmospheric setting that literally sucks you in. I have to admit that first I was sort of disapointed because Pantomime does not take place in New Haz, the imaginary city where most Sherwin’s games roll, but his Phobos –yes, one of Mars moons— its full of funny characters, colorful locations and inmersive plot.

Specifically, the game sets itself in the near future. Cloning has become a widespread possibility for both commercial and private purposes. You can even have your own clone (also coloquially reffered as Pantomime) for private use –not only a replica of you but from other human beings as well – provided you have the money to pay for it and no DNA copyright is infringed. The game starts when one of these clones is murdered just before he was to announce that Phobos was to crash in Mars surface soon. Most important, another clone is murdered in the event, one very close to your heart. Hence, your character decides to delay his return to earth till he discovers both the author and the rationale behind the murders. Yes, I know, you can’t shake out the feeling that you are playing a sort of Blade Runner’s spin off. There’s something true in that statement. Nonetheless, that cannot account for the sheer size of originality displayed in the game.

Pantomime relies heavily on dialogs. In them you will have several choices regarding tone --from polite to sarcastic to inquisitive or empathetic—and subject. And it is not the case that you can try all the options, rather you have to make options, and certainly they will affect the course of the game. According to the author, it’s impossible to put the game in an unwinable state. I have no doubt that’s true, but this reviewer tried many combinations and I have to say that some of them, mainly when treating people disrespectfully, will put you in a bad position in order to wind up the game. So, kudos to Sherwin for creating a dialogue system that actually works, serving both plot progression and the puzzle department. Moreover, it is particularly interesting how well the dialogue system and the exploration of the environment blend between themselves. At some moments some dialog commentary hints you toward some part of the environment or, vice versa, dialogue options are enriched after having carefully combed the enviroment. Sometimes I even feel like I was interacting with the whole environment like I would do in the real world, the best example when entering into the morgue and talking with the robot. The writing is top-notch throughout the game and is offered in the exact amount.

Pantomime is heavily scripted, meaning by that there’s many narrated flashbacks, interludes and scenarios shifts, all of them triggered at particular moments and/or after specific actions. This feature works really well. First, it helps the development of the story as well as the character’s personality. At first you know almost nothing about Raif, but soon you will notice that most of his behaviors can be explained a a function of his prior personal history. Moreover, by using this story-telling devices the game becomes sort of compartmentalized, that is, there are just a few scenarios to explore at each time. Is that a good or bad feature? Personally, I think that in Pantomime works fairly well since it allows the player to focus in the available elements of the environment and incites his/her to think in terms of how to make use of your inventory items. Another good point, it also helps reduce the difficulty of the game.

At a certain moment, the story starts rushing itself. It feels like the author decided to go for a shorcut when originally he had hoped for a long story. More specifically, while first story and characters unfold bit by bit, suddenly the pace changes abruptly leaving behind many holes, specifically in regards to the motivation underlying your Nemesis's actions. This holds particularly true for the very end scene, which satisfactory as it is also feels underdeveloped.

Puzzles are a mixed bag, too. Even when they are very well combined in the pace of the story, tough. That is, you shouldn’t feel that they are obstacles or required additions but rather logical tasks that your character has to do in order to achieve its final goal. But, at the same time, more often than not they are either too obscure or rely in an “parallel way of thinking” that make them appear sort of far-fetched. Let’s consider an example (warning, major spoiler ahead): at a certain moment you have to break into a mansion and only a fence separates you from it. Well, after being stuck for hours and having tried almost everything within my grasp, I just typed “jump fence” and... voila. There is an explanation, though. You are in Phobos, where gravity is far less than the earth, so allowing you to jump higher than you would do on Earth. You are not satisfied with the solution? Me neither (end of spoilers). On top of that, I faced some “guess the verb” or “syntax” moments, which can be very frustrating since there’s no walkthrough or on-line hint system available.

In summary, Pantomime has some drawbacks –obscure puzzles, a sudden change in the pace of the story -- and is clearly inferior to its author’s previous creations. But even when considering these cons the game stands in good shape, mainly by the richness of its prose and the originality of the story and characters depicted throughout it. I can easily recommend it, not only to cyberpunk fans but to anyone interested in trying a modern and very well written interactive fiction game. Pantomime is graded B by this reviewer.

Final Grade: B
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