The Little Ugly, Evil Guy On My Shoulder’s Verdict:
I was personally rooting for my character to starve. Also, is this guy’s name seriously Dick Tucker?
The Little Nice, Handsome Guy On My Shoulder’s Verdict:
I love quirky puzzle games!
My Verdict:
The best interactive fiction combines challenge with story. This game does not do that.
Game Information
Game Type: Inform
Author Info: Richard Tucker wrote the original Tube Trouble in 1988 for the BBC Micro, but he didn’t quit there. In 1995, he decided to release more or less the same game under the same name but newly rewritten in Inform and enter it into the first ever Interactive Fiction Competition. For that reason alone, his place in the history books is assured, but I still wonder what might have been. In an old SPAG interview, Tucker mentioned he was working on another game which would feature a “guess the noun” puzzle (the poor chap sounded like he thought that was an original idea). This doesn’t seem to have ever been released, presumably because the author didn’t name it Tube Trouble. If I were Tucker, I’d have entered a new game called Tube Trouble written using a different development system into each yearly competition. That’s probably why I’m not Tucker.
Download Link: https://ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/tube.z5
Other Games By This Author: Tube Trouble (1988)
I like to think of myself as being a person who can appreciate a good puzzle. When I play a game, I genuinely don’t want to have everything handed to me. I want that sense of accomplishment that only comes from overcoming adversity and solving problems. I actually like having to think and struggle a little! When a game doesn’t feature any puzzle/obstacle/challenge at all, it starts to not even feel like a game to me. On the other hand, a game that is JUST puzzles and doesn’t have much of a story or atmosphere or anything to really draw you in can be quite tedious in a way that’s just as bad as a game that offers no challenge. If you doubt me on this, I need but say two words in my defense: Tube Trouble.
I had a feeling Tube Trouble was going to be a trying experience fairly quickly. Because the game’s intro invited me to type “info” to get more information about the game, I did just that as my first action in the game. Delightfully, it warned me that I could expect to be killed without warning. Some games like that are fun, and I resolved I would try to get myself killed in as many different ways as possible. I soon discovered an empty electrified track that was described as “high voltage and extremely dangerous.” Sounds promising, right? I tried to jump on the tracks and the parser pretended not to understand me. I tried to touch the track and the game told me that would be extremely stupid. You can’t even have sex with the vending machine — I thought this was worth a try considering how my cousin Charlie met his untimely demise. RIP, Charlie…I hope you and that shortstack Frito-Lay machine are still together somewhere up there. The fact is that it’s easier to die in real life than in this game, and Senor Tucker should frankly be ashamed of the false advertising.
At least there’s always the specter of starvation following you around throughout the game. You see, the premise of the game is that you’ve been trapped in this tube station for days, possibly weeks, and you haven’t eaten anything in all that time. Don’t expect this to lead to any sort of intense race against time in which you’re battling every moment just to stay alive, though. In fact, if you solve the first puzzle you do receive some food. If you try to eat it, however, an official tells you can’t eat in the station. In response, you do NOT tell the official to go to hell and proceed to devour the chocolate in a single bite. Instead, you’re supposed to just accept this and go off and solve another puzzle. Is mindless obedience a side effect of starvation? Is our hero a man or a mouse? I just can’t relate to this tube man at all. He doesn’t seem to care if he lives or dies as long as there’s another puzzle to solve. As it turns out, I don’t think you can really die from starvation in the game either…the worst that happens is that you get knocked unconscious.
I found myself particularly annoyed by the repetition in the game. There’s a tramp who’ll go through his script a million times if you let him. There’s a vending machine (the same one you can’t make sweet love to) which will give you an unlimited supply of chocolate and pound notes except for the fact it will also magically eliminate every existing chocolate and pound note you may have in your inventory or have attempted to hide in another location. There’s also a guy who will buy your hat as many times as you like, and he even lies about how much he’s going to pay each time. I suppose Herr Tucker wanted to give players extra chances if they screwed something up, but I felt like the game was just telling me, “Hey, don’t forget you’re supposed to be solving a puzzle right now,” over and over again. The repeated events and scripts broke all sense of immersion for me. There’s definitely no soaking in the atmosphere or messing around in this game. You’re either going to be solving a puzzle or the game will be nudging you to solve a puzzle the whole time you play.
Perhaps a game that really was just puzzles might still be fun if the puzzles were unique and engrossing. That’s not what we’re dealing with here. In Tube Trouble the puzzles are rather silly and while not necessarily all easy I can’t say I felt any better about myself after solving them. Instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment, I had more of a sense of resignation as I plodded my way through the game…there’s just not a lot of joy or adventure to be found here. Instead, there’s just puzzles, and to be honest there aren’t even very many puzzles either. That doesn’t mean you’ll finish the game quickly. I personally had a particularly hard time with the second puzzle just because I thought the game had already told me that this one item was off-limits. Turns out it wasn’t really off-limits, and you had to actually mess with it in order to advance. C’est la vie! Richard Tucker does not do foreshadowing.
The game is functional, but not really noteworthy in any way. The parser is not very responsive and one puzzle arguably forces you into a guess the verb situation largely because Richard Tucker also does not do synonyms. As for those of you inclined to gaze at walls, you’re going to find out that absolutely none of them have anything special about them. No, not even the southeast wall…I couldn’t believe it either. The writing is minimalistic, with very limited descriptions throughout, but I thought Tucker did manage to at least give the tramp some personality.
If I had to say one thing good about this game, I suppose I’d mention that it does require you to observe and experiment until you win. In the world of the game, creativity and perseverance are rewarded (mainly perseverance, though). So I suppose this experience isn’t so much about having fun as it is gaining valuable life skills. For that reason, it might not be a terrible first text adventure for a kid or life dropout to play. No, I suppose it actually would still be terrible even for kids and life dropouts…terrible but useful at the same time. Just like Richard Tucker!
Disclaimer: any criticism of Richard Tucker implied in this review is offered only in a spirit of good-natured ribbing. After all, Richard is one of the best friends I have whom I’ve never met nor otherwise ever interacted with, and no negative review could ever change that. The man deserves credit for porting a BBC Micro game to Inform — he did his part to preserve our interactive fiction history. Plus, he helped playtest Curses which is a fantastic game.
Simple Rating: 3/10
Complicated Rating: 17/50
Story: 4/10 ( I think you COULD have an interesting game about being stuck in a subway station. Theoretically, anyway.)
Writing: 4/10
Playability: 3/10
Puzzle Quality: 3/10
Parser Responsiveness: 3/10