Dictionary

"Dictionary" is a story-heavy adventure game made for the IGMC 2014. It can be beaten in about 30 minutes.
In a wizard world Merv is living the most boring life he can imagine, and finding a book about things that do not exist (in his world) was too alluring.

The bad good thing about being a magician is that he can teleport right into a world with these properties. A world of "Art", since that sounds like a real interesting, beautiful world. Too bad he came at the worst time to go sight-seeing.


Why, I would like to read about that


When I heard "World of Art", I immediately thought of Okami. Who wouldn't? But instead of a colorful world which's every inch is eyecandy, we get a desolate place overrun by monsters. The story was kept rather to basics.
Atmosphere-wise, it was a strong contrast between the expectations and the reality of it (the music and story did remind me of Okami's desolate parts, though). The bonfire, "the Wanderer" and other characters have surely been inspired by the Souls series. The feeling we get is certainly similiar, and similiarily intriguing. The simple, calm music and the simplistic hand-drawn maps made it all the more enjoyable.



But while the overall atmosphere is fittingly grim and bare, the narritive is light-hearted and makes light jokes inbetween, as you could already see in the first screenshot. The game breaks the classical format of your great sword-wielding hero and makes fun of the classical villain.
It isn't intruding and doesn't distract from the plot, it lightens the mood a little bit and is a great addition to the game world.

A weakpoint of this game is its combat. It is a simple button masher, with spells as ranged attacks and a mace for close combat. In addition you get a flask which can heal our health in exchange for mana. Combat really isn't hard enough to use much of this system, though. Simple attacking will do perfectly fine.
Run to the enemy, press enter repeatedly, win.

It came in handy that it was seemingly impossible to lose, as I did not save other than before traveling out and did not have a chance to save before the great raid.

Combat in itself, though, is merely filler. But it didn't harm the experience, either, as it was kept rather short.
It is a little bit of a shame that the world was so small, more to discover would've been really nice. There is basically just one area in which you are able to interact with NPCs.
Worse, you did not get to see anything of the beautiful world you just restored, either. While the ending is very good, that aspect should definitely have been included . Having warm, friendly areas for the ending would also have allowed for a change in atmosphere which would then benefit the positive tone of the ending.



There were very few minor typos such as hearts instead of heart or some odd punctuation inbetween. Considering that English isn't the native language of the creator, he did an amazing job. The dialogue is light-hearted and simple.


This game creates an engaging atmosphere, is a joy to play, but has definitely flaws and room for improvement. It would certainly benefit from a larger world and a longer journey.
But it is a beautiful short trip nevertheless and I hope to see more from its creator in the future.