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by David Welbourn

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Charming

by Kaylah Facey profile

Fantasy
2018

(based on 16 ratings)
2 reviews

About the Story

Potions shattered on the floor, pages torn out of books, a demolished statue... These are a few of the magical messes you will have to clean up before Enchantress Igmenta arrives for your coming-of-age test tonight. Unfortunately, you've never been much good at magic, and it will take all of your determination to learn enough of it to set the Pentacle Chamber to rights--and pass that test!

Charming is a short, light, puzzly game. Writing it began around September of 2015; two programming language switches, many hiatuses, a college graduation, and two missed IFComp deadlines later, Kaylah Facey is thrilled to finally release it to the public. She very much hopes you enjoy her debut interactive fiction game.


Game Details


Awards

Nominee - Arthur the cat, Best Individual NPC - 2018 XYZZY Awards

24th Place - 24th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2018)

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Member Reviews

5 star:
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4 star:
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3 star:
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Number of Reviews: 2
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A fun, light-hearted game with somewhat intricate puzzles, November 20, 2018

In Charming you play as an apprentice witch who has destroyed several magical items and must repair them. This requires solving a series of puzzles, often with multiple parts. Unlike, say, Dynamite Powers vs. the Ray of Night!, though, the gameplay isn't linear. After you solve what amounts to the initial puzzle you can work on a few different tasks at once. Normally having multi-part puzzles simultaneously going on would be a lot to keep track of, but the game includes a very helpful TODO command which will tell you what tasks are available, what tasks you've completed, and what tasks remain.

The puzzles themselves require a lot of consulting the various magical books for information. You really have to pay attention, and there's a lot of extra information that you don't end up needing. But I found this to be a plus; it provides background for the world that you're in, making gameplay feel more immersive. It also makes the puzzles more interesting; you can't just go through the magical books and say "O.K., what information have I not used yet?" in order to solve the puzzles. Some of the information can also be used to perform actions that later show up in the "For Your Amusement" list, increasing the game's playability.

One thing I found particularly satisfying was (Spoiler - click to show)creating a crystal ball. Structurally, it wasn't much different from the other multi-step puzzles, but something deep in me just really appreciated the act of constructing a fabled magical item that I've seen in dozens of stories and games.

One thing a player should be aware of going into the game is that some of the magical book topics only trigger on the entire phrase, whereas some will trigger with the entire phrase or the right keyword. However, the game does includes a shortcut READ verb, so that you can, for example, READ [a topic] instead of always having to CONSULT [a particular book] ABOUT [a topic].

Overall, I think Charming lives up to its name. I found it to be a fun, light-hearted game with somewhat intricate puzzles, and I would recommend it to fans of such. It's particularly impressive that this is the author's first work of IF. I hope she continues making games!

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A sometimes-tedious spell-based parser game with a nice setting, March 12, 2019
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 2 hours

I had an earlier review for this game that I deleted on accident.

Charming uses a spell system similar to the Enchanter series. In the long tradition of spell-based parser games, you must use a series of more and more complicated magical spells and techniques to recover from a series of magical mishaps that occurred before play began.

The one problem I had with this game was its gating of information. After a short but repetitive opening puzzle, you are given 4 books, some with ten or fifteen or more entries. It's absolutely overwhelming.

This could have been overcome by using the system in Curses (where you have books without indices and must look up names which lead to other names) or the even better version found in Zarf's room in Cragne Manor (where there is an index that only lists pages you've already discovered).

If this info dump could be ameliorated, this is actually a lovely game with some intricate puzzles and descriptive writing. Recommended for the patient and thorough.

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Charming on IFDB

Recommended Lists

Charming appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Best fantasy games by MathBrush
These are my favorite games that include some sort of magical or fantastical element. Games with mostly horror or sci-fi elements are on other lists, as are surreal games, fairy tale/nursery games, and religious/mythological games. I've...

My new walkthroughs for July 2021 by David Welbourn
On Friday July 9, 2021, I published new walkthroughs for the games and stories listed below! Some of these were paid for by my wonderful patrons at Patreon. Please consider supporting me to make even more new walkthroughs for works of...

Easy Puzzles by Jonathan Verso
This is my attempt at creating a player's needs focused list of puzzles. Puzzle games at approximately the same difficulty will be grouped together, so that someone who plays one game on this list will be likely to enjoy other games on...

See all lists mentioning this game

Polls

The following polls include votes for Charming:

Games with "recipe puzzles" by Denk
Any game where "recipe puzzles" are a big part of the game, whether it is alchemy, potion brewing, cooking etc. I came to think of this as I am currently playing "According to Cain" and realized the puzzles reminded me a lot of the...




This is version 7 of this page, edited by KaylahFae on 17 November 2023 at 7:29pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page