Ailihphilia

This is Andrew Schultz, isn't it? It's all there, from the rather heavy wordplay to the general game aesthetic of "Shuffling Around" and "The Problems Compound". If it isn't, then someone's gone through a lot of trouble to pay him homage, and I hope he's flattered.

If you've played any of Schultz's wordplay games, you should know what to expect. The world is knit together from anything and everything that can be made from a specific form of wordplay; in this case, palindromes. It can get a bit hard to wade through at times, though, given some of the convolutions involved just to make a palindrome work. One rather wishes the author (who may or may not still be Andrew Schultz) had eased up a bit on the palindromes, applying them to items of significance rather than to every single presented (or forced) opportunity.

The story, naturally, takes several seats behind the wordplay conceit. But not all of one's actions depends on wordplay; in fact, I think the majority of the puzzle actions depend on basic adventure game shenanigans rather than wordplay cleverness, though all the extra "Last Lousy Points" are gained through palindromic actions. I said earlier that a little less wordplay in the environment might be a good thing, and here the sentiment is the other way around and I think a little more wordplay in the gameplay might be preferable. Still, I've definitely seen worse.

In the end, it was a decent little puzzle fest, and I did feel compelled to play it to its end. As a breakfast, it's like granola cereal with mixed nuts -- dependable and plain but with a nice crunch -- followed by a malted milk drink like Horlick's that almost blends into the flavour of the cereal itself.