Persistence of Memory

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs

GAME DESIGNER:Jason Dyer
GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware
GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware
Copyright 1998, Jason Dyer

One of the most compelling, “experimental” entries in the 1998 Annual IF Competition, Persistence of Memory is an evocative game that takes place in only one room for the whole game. You play a soldier, separated from your unit and lost in enemy territory– or are you? The introduction scene in the game– which I will leave for you to find out– is very well written, and justifies the game’s one-room-only approach very well.

Because of the game’s one-room limitations, the puzzles come to you in this one. Each puzzle must be solved, often within a certain number of turns, if you are to survive. Luckily, all of the puzzles make sense and have intuitive solutions, though in some of them it’s not clear what the deadly moment is until it arrives, which means a save-and-restore tactic is necessary sometimes to overcome the game’s strict time limit. Overall, Persistence of Memory is one of the better one-room games ever written, although it feels as if the designer felt more constrained by this limitation than challenged to create ingenious puzzles to overcome it. Recommended for the high experimental quotient that almost paid off.