Dream: The Bare Rump Club
by the skullkitty (7th June, 2007 @ 8:57 pm)
You know, innovation is a funny thing in Furcadia. The skullkitty has seen some brilliant dreams in her travels, and she’s seen some terrible ones. But every now and again something comes along that somehow manages to straddle the fine line between both; we last saw it here in the review of the Twilight Chateau which managed to be sterile and uninspiring at the same time as being aesthetically appealing. In a lot of ways, the Bare Rump Club is the exact opposite; aesthetically uninspiring it nevertheless hides some dreadfully clever ideas… though you’d be totally excused for missing them.
Ostensibly a bar, the initial entry rooms to this ‘club’ are only really inspiring by their size; or rather lack thereof. In a place where gigantic, labyrinthine mazes are the norm, on initial inspection the Bare Rump Club only appears to consist of three rooms; an entry foyer, bathroom and the quintessential bar. While this is not a bad thing in itself, it hardly warrants a full review. Nor is the patching here anything to write home about; while some effort has obviously been put in to create an array of original and semi-original objects, the overall style means that a visitor could be forgiven for not noticing the difference from Furc’s default patch set. This is not necessarily a criticism in and of itself… unless, of course, you don’t happen to particularly like Furc’s default style which — as regular readers of F!W will know — I don’t. And while that might seem petty, it’s nonetheless going to be a turnoff for many otherwise potential regular visitors.
In fact, there’s only one clue given to the visitor that there might be something else going on here, when bumping into the portrait beside the fireplace in the bar brings up a most enticing emit. Those of you who’ve ‘figured out’ Furc!Wank’s official digopile dream, The Grotto, would be forgiven for getting the impression that the skullkitty is a bit of a fan of old-fashioned text-adventure games.1 She’s also quite disappointed that this genre is not more well-represented within Furc, especially since the simple item-puzzle commands tend to fit in quite nicely with DS. Lest this review give the wrong impression, let it be said that the Bare Rump Club certainly doesn’t feel like it’s made by Roberta Williams. But the fact that following the portrait’s instructions leads to a kind of secret room is refreshing in a way that most of the — let’s face it — fairly brain-dead dreams of Furcadia really aren’t.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the tour ends there, and in a way it does; while there is a large second portion to the dream, it’s currently not accessible via anything other than a DS command. The skullkitty has been reassured that the dream is still ‘in progress’, however, and eventually the two halves will link together for easier public consumption.
The second half of the ‘club’ is not actually a club at all, but rather a large, sprawling homestead. The skullkitty was pleasantly surprised to note that — unlike every other ‘home’ she’s ever visited in Furc — this home actually felt like, well, a home. The bathroom was blessedly free of fluffy pillows and no room felt overly large, or overly useless. Overall the place has a particularly meticulous air about it, and most rooms have been carefully crafted with the kind of clever eye for detail that is easy to overlook in its understated skill. To put it another way, the house works on a micro level, not just the ‘macro’ patching that is so common in Furc.
The dreamweaving itself is tight and neat, with no obvious clipping errors or other annoyances, but it’s in the DS that the Bare Rump Club really starts to shine. To whit; it’s brilliant. It’s brilliant without even being particularly ostentatious; one of the most impressive effect is the way all closed doors open when a furre steps in front of them. This is so obvious, really, but this level of detail is so rare in Furc that it deserves a special mention. The discovery of a second ’secret passage’ meant randomly bumping into items has never been so fun. But if there was a single effect that impressed more than all the others combined, it was the inclusion of a ’staff panel’ hidden in the skin and activated by a spoken command. This is a brilliantly devious idea and one this particularly reviewer has never before seen used in a dream. 2 Check the screenshot and mark it well, dear readers, because the skullkitty is getting the distinct impression that we’re going to be seeing more of these in the future…
Overall, I’m not quite sure what to say about the Bare Rump Club. It’s certainly not the most trendy dream in FurN, but it does hold a collection of brilliant ideas and the kind of loving attention to detail that we always tend to praise highly here. I suspect we haven’t heard the last of this odd little ‘club’. Watch this space…
Overall Assessment
- Pros: Some of the hands-down cleverest DS I’ve yet to see. Tight dreamweaving, high potential.
- Cons: Somewhat bland patching. The unfinished nature of the two ‘halves’ mean the average punter is going to miss out on most of the good stuff.
Popularity: 80% [?]
