Well, the battle for GOTM this month was majorly between two games: Knightt's final remake of Stupid RPG (entitled Stupid RPG Disc One Complete), and Jojoisjo's Four. My choice fell on the latter. Stupid RPG, even though it is a remake (and people must know my attitude to remakes by now :), is a really good game which really "adds" something to the original game, and therefore deserves a honorable mention here before I start with the actual review of Four.
Four, made by Jojoisjo - who I consider one of the most talented members of Lame Game - is a game I've never seen before in ZZT. The storyline of the whole game is wrapped in mist - In the beginning you get the feeling that there isn't a story at all, but gradually you begin to disover what's happening, the entire thing stays unclear till the end, though.
Like I said before I've never seen this type of game done in ZZT. Then, what kind of game is this? Well, this is an adventure game, only totally different from most adventure games; This is a first person game. Not like the (mostly not too-good) 3D games we've seen - but more like old PC games like Sierra's "Rise of the Dragon". Every screen is a different location where several things can be done - looking at things, using items, etc... This is all controlled by a cursor, moved around by using the keyboard as usual, but (and that's also something new!) after some practice it works even better when using the mouse (and the speed set a bit faster). The entire game is very much item-based - that means a lot of picking up/using items. All items which the player has in position are shown in the right half of the screen, a handy feature because the "?+i"-typing in the usual adventure to see your inventory can get really annoying.
The graphics of the scenes in the game are a bit on the mediocre side, I must say. I'm personally not too happy with the fact that the screen looks so dark too. Some improvements of the graphics wouldn't be uncoming in this game's planned sequel. There's also not too much music, which is too bad because Jojo is really good at composing. Aside from these two flaws, Four makes a really great game. The originality and gameplay have made this one a competor for game of the year. So everybody, download it if you haven't already!
