Stuga has somehow triggered the tiny, obsessive, over-caffeinated cartographer in my head. I'll wager it's the most disorientating game space in text adventures, with a map that is quite simply a nonsense. It's been understandably described as the third circle of mapping hell and yet that is like holding a red rag to bull, or maybe an OS map. It may take months but I want it mapped. I'm a fan of pencil and paper for these tasks and have scanned some of my earlier attempts and gradual tidying up (see below). Let's start with an example. | The loft leads up to the basement which leads up to the loft and spirals into an Escherian nightmare. Amongst the numerous staircases, escalators, holes in the ground and the ceiling and the wall, there is a lift to nine different levels. Although it's hard to define what 'levels' they are as I'm sure the lift moves sideways and the exit to the fifth floor delivers you underwater in the lake. To be fair to the authors it does seem Stuga was originally designed as a bit of fun for themselves and they kept adding to it bit by bit. That really does show. Bizarrely after a while of heading left, south, right, up, west, backward, and so on, I actually remembered loosely where things led. This is after hours of circling of course. One bonus is that you're never that many moves away from most locations (a guiding principle of web design) so perhaps there is a modicum of sense in that.  
Stuga uses your common-or-garden two word text parser. It's not overly concerned with breaking new ground but has some nice features. When you ride the lift it will actually count the floors out as you go. In fact there are a number of these little pauses throughout the game. When you find a phone and call the operator they ask you to 'hold the line' and the game literally moves to a blank line and after a short wait the text continues. One of my favourite moments was this. | Long pause. | If you try to interrupt the pause you get a message: | It's a nice little parody that makes me think of getting lost in Adventure's windy passages. There's plenty of surreal humour throughout, including a location I have resorted to calling 'Tomato' because it exists solely as a moment where you find yourself holding a tomato that quickly vanishes. Some of the oddness exists for a reason. The developers often got feedback from players confused by elements, such as randomised exits leading to different locations, asking "is this a bug or a feature?" In response they added a new 'feature' to the games shore area that occasionally appears at random. A person jumps out of the bushes, shouts 'HELP! I don't know if I'm a bug or a feature." and jumps into the lake.  With all this endless wandering it took a long time until I found any idea of the games objectives. One of the last locations I discovered was a house south of the lake where you drop treasures. The treasures could be anything and there is a kind of shopping list that shows wanted items and how many points they will score you. I've hardly touched on this yet because there are other puzzles and a few game characters, Thorvald and Osvald, which imply an endgame of some sort is out there.
A refreshing difference to other games is the limited use of death. And even when you die it hardly matters because you get reincarnated in a grave in the cemetery, still carrying your possessions. Unless I find a drawback dying can be used as a quick path to the cemetery area. I've also not found any limit on how much stuff you can half-inch and put in your pocket. Making Stuga a generally more relaxed game to play. I guess if you had all that crazy mapping AND a strict limit on your inventory AND limited lamp fuel so you had to optimise your route AND frequent deaths that remove your treasures, it would be a nightmare of a game. So thumbs up for that choice and it's a very early game to take that approach.  Puzzle-wise I've not gotten very far yet. There's a fair few obvious clues like words written on a wall ('Sesame' in the loft can be used elsewhere like a magic word), once you find the telephone directory there's some simple obstacles to overcome by talking to the operator. More difficult is the knocking on a high window that I can't reach by ladder and haven't found a way of breaking it. It all might be down to an object I still haven't found or a leap of logic I've not made. There's a telephone repair man who comes around taking sockets out of the wall, which makes no sense - as usual. One of the oddest puzzles happens when you stumble upon Fozzie Bear (of Muppets fame) down a dark passage. Then a scene plays out where the muppets want you to perform to an audience and you are offered simple options like PERFORM or RUN (screenshot right). You can tell a story which is randomly generated in some way; I've done three different ones so far and they are as strange as anything else. If you choose a specific route you'll receive another item/treasure.
There's lots of other little details I could mention but I hope that gives a flavour of this curious old game. Mapping heaven or hell? Each to their own. I think it's good fun but have no expectation of completing it.
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Stuga: Mapping Heaven or Hell?
Comments:page revision: 10, last edited: 26 Jun 2012 17:51
Sounds like nightmare to me! Although the randomness does sound a bit more engaging than some of the text adventures I have played.