Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina

"Ballerina" was my first serious attempt at writing interactive fiction. Or perhaps "quasi-serious" is a better description. The game got favorable reviews, but the criticism levelled against it was perfectly accurate: It's an "old-style" game, in which all of the action is devoted to solving various puzzles. Although there's a fictional setup that provides a rationale for the setting and the goal, there isn't much of a story.

You can download it here. To play it, you'll also need an interpreter program for your computer OS. For details, see the how to play page.

In "Ballerina" you play the part of a harried parent who is faced with a seasonal shopping emergency. I can do no better than to quote the intro of the story verbatim:

It's Christmas Eve. Rather late on Christmas Eve.

Just this afternoon your darling 7-year-old daughter Samantha announced that fully a week ago she mailed a letter to Santa Claus asking for Sugar Toes Ballerina, the unbelievably sought-after, impossible-to-find fad doll of the decade. Unwilling to see little Sam heartbroken on Christmas morning, you frantically phoned every toy store in town. Miraculously, you found a shop that claimed to have a Sugar Toes Ballerina in stock!

But that was two hours ago -- before the flat tire. Now it's getting dark, and icy weather is closing in. The address you were given, on the outskirts of town, has proven to be that of a dilapidated and disreputable-looking shopping center -- not a modern chrome-and-neon strip mall, either, but a hulking two-story structure that looks to be the ill-favored offspring of a fairy castle and a canning factory. The shopping center is tucked well back from the street among brooding skeletal trees. Other than a few dim yellowish lights that show no trace of holiday spirit, the building is shrouded in gloom, and yours is the only car in the parking lot.

The quest, as should be obvious, is to get Sugar Toes Ballerina from the toy store. You'll be able to see it through the window, but the door is inconveniently locked. In your quest to find a way into the toy store you'll meet a security guard, a homeless man, and (in keeping with the Christmas theme) both Santa Claus and one of his elves. You'll have to pilfer something from every single store in the shopping center -- "Ballerina" is not a game for folks who have qualms about breaking and entering.

The puzzles are varied, but be warned: There are four mazes. In my own defense, I had no idea at the time that seasoned IF players detest mazes (though authors seem to like them). But here's the good news: "Ballerina" contains a complete built-in help system. It's literally impossible to get stuck, because you can always ask for hints.

Somewhere in the back of my mind (well, actually, on a hard drive) is lurking an idea for a sequel to "Ballerina." The main reason I haven't tackled it yet is that it's bound to end up at least twice as large and complex as its predecessor. Whether anyone would ever have the patience to play the whole thing is very much open to debate, but if you'd like to return to that creepy shopping center one more time, do shoot me an email. Samantha is now 17, you see, and tonight is the night of her senior prom, but her little brother has spilled ink on her prom dress, and even though it's Saturday afternoon most of the stores in Stufftown have closed early, for reasons that are only a teensy bit far-fetched. So this time you're in quest of a replacement prom dress, but first you'll have to deal with Ollie the Octopus and Betsy the neurotic shop girl....