Review: Resistance
By Andy McDermott, 2019
Strangely enough, there are few text adventures for the Spectrum set in WW2, a potentially endless source of inspiration. It is worth noting, then, that Andy McDermott's Resistance not only takes its subject matter from the most tragic period of world history, but also gives the player the opportunity of impersonating a really unusual alter ego.
It is 1943 and the protagonist is Mari Roux, a French 17-year old girl living in a small village, whose father was killed during the Nazi invasion. Her mother died of grief soon after; her older brother was forced to work in Germany, and has not been heard of for a year. No wonder, then, that she developed a deep hatred for the invaders.
Offering herself to help the local Resistance, Mari receives one day a note from a man called Jean Agreste, the leader of the local undercover freedom fighters. Agreste will assign her several missions of sabotage and counter-propaganda, such as covering Nazi posters with Resistance ones, exposing a Nazi informer, and even stealing the Nazi flag from the town hall and throwing it into a public toilet! After each mission, Mari has to meet Agreste again, who then assigns her another mission, until something very bad happens...
The game is then divided into several sub-adventures, and the player, as Mari, will have to perform the assigned tasks without being discovered by the ubiquitous Nazi thugs and their local bootlickers, against which she will even have to fight for her life.
The game is authored with The Quill and text-only. It is not very difficult, so it can be suitable for beginners. Puzzles are linear and do not require an excessive amount of ingenuity. Veterans, on the other hand, will appreciate the unusual and intriguing setting.
Review by Alessandro Grussu.
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