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
(find
out more about our grading system)