The Golden Wombat of Destiny

The puzzles are difficult, often unfairly so — one requires some Shakespeare knowledge, another requires a realization that two machines on opposite sides of the city are linked somehow, and most require startling leaps of logic. The walkthrough in the solutions directory on GMD is handy. On the other hand, there is a certain elegance to a few of the puzzles — at one point, careful study of the geography of the city is rewarded. And the parser, for the most part, is good enough to recognize a variety of syntaxes, so “guess-the-verb” is never an issue. For a homemade parser, Golden Wombat’s is fairly effective — full sentences are handled well (though not pronouns or undo, irritatingly), and there are no disambiguation problems that I encountered. And the writing, while hardly flowery, is competent — important events are thoroughly described, while ordinary rooms are simply treated as ordinary.