Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina
Jim Aikin 1999
- Language:
- English
- Authors:
- Jim Aikin
- Systems:
- Inform
- Platforms:
- Z-Machine
- Genres:
- Seasonal
- Related:
- 1: Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina, 2: Only Possible Prom Dress, The
- Entered by:
- Hopalong, iamaran, Strident
- Added:
- 15-09-2020
- Edited:
- 03-11-2024
Synopsis
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.
Notes
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[+] Users who have solved this game
This game is wonderful. It is the perfect melding of old school size and difficulty with a modern parser and possesses a genuinely talented author's sensibilities. No teeny bopper without a dictionary or self conscious smart arsery here. Very very few games from the pantheon of text adventures can stand as tall as Ballerina.
I managed to complete this today without any recourse to hints. I was slightly surprised that I managed to drive off with Sugar Toes Ballerina having amassed 184 points - 48 points less than the optimum total. A wonderful game though and definitely not for beginners.