REVIEW: Blue Kitten (by Suzanne M. Ferree)

[Olivier Leroux]

Halloween Contest Results
Judged by Susan McKinney

You three have made me make a very tough decision. All three modules were FANTASTIC!!! I'll describe each separately and then I will present my results.

First I played Four Evils by James Neal. I have not yet played any Rascyc module. This was an interesting take on the vampire redeeming himself storyline. I personally am a Vampire-o-phile, just ask Don. The storyline was very straightforward and interesting. I'm trying not to give anything to big away for those who want to play it. I loved the text file with information available to the player. The hacked spells were great!! I think the way you changed them worked very well for the game. The artifacts were very nice and useful too. The pics were very well done and so were the icons. I ran into a problem running the game on my poor little computer in Windows. My combat with the Spider Queen kept freezing up while it was playing the music. Once I played in DOS only, it was fine.

Second, I played Harvest of Sorrows by Dan Crawford. This was a fantastic original game from the get-go. The music was so spooky that I turned the sound off with the alt-t key when I went to bed. (I'm in the habit of leaving the module open at a save spot when I'm tired) The border was very nice, a little bit hard on the eyes after a while but very Halloweeny. The story line flowed from point to point while keeping the player guessing at what was really going on. I particularly like the East Woods events, very spooky indeed.

Thirdly, I played Blue Kitten by Suzanne Ferrare (Sorry if I misspelled your name). What a hilarious little adventure. I LOVED the brooms as arrows and the pumpkins as sling bullets. I also thought the graphics you did for the program were very nice (I am no artist). I played through the adventure a couple of times to get to the different options. The running commentary between characters reminded me of my *real* gaming group.

Something all three of you did was change the background for the combats with features and neat stuff like that. It made the games very cohesive and I personally like little details like that.

Like I said earlier, you made it a very difficult choice, but here is my tally: BTW, John V. these numbers are my rankings for the module list as well...

1ST Place - Harvest of Sorrows 9
2ND Place - Four Evils 8
3RD Place - Blue Kitten 7

BTW, Please don't throw vegetables at me!!

[Olivier Leroux]

Blue Kitten
by Suzanne M. Ferree

Reviewed by hans

I finally got around to playing "Blue Kitten" (bluekitt.zip) by Suzanne M. Ferree. It had been on my list of "mods that I most want to play" for a very long time (since right after I played Suzanne's "Worm's Eye" (wormseye.zip), actually), but that list grows faster than I'm able to play 'em.

What I'd loved most about "Worm's Eye" was Suzanne's originality and sense of whimsy. "Blue Kitten" offers an equal feast of such unpredictable wonderment. It was a real delight to play!

The storyline at first seemed rather too short for me, but that was only after playing it through *once*. You see, like "Worm's Eye", "Blue Kitten" has multiple endings --and many paths to reach them! The dimensions of the "Blue Kitten" world grew as I replayed it over and over again. I spent an enjoyable couple of hours, all told, with the design.

The original artwork is rougher than Suzanne's later creations, yet fits perfectly within the mod's tone. Her ideas are marvelously inspired and visually full of charm.

One thing I found myself wishing there was more of was the snappy banter between the pregenerated characters. Brier Rose and her companions are as fresh and beguiling as the mod they find themselves in. It would be a pleasure to meet them again.

"Blue Kitten", like Suzanne's later "Worm's Eye", is a unique work of art. It is reflective of Suzanne, herself, rather than some assemblage of gathered fantasy clichés. That quality alone gives it value, -- but it's swell fun, as well!