Photopia is about Alley Dawson, a precocious young girl whose life is ended tragically. It's an Interactive Fiction (IF) adventure game, and as such, you'll control the characters' actions through text commands.

Alley's story is told through the eyes of her friends and loved ones. It's presented as a series of short, poignant scenes about key moments in her life, which appear in non-chronological order. This may seem haphazard at first, and it may take a second or third play-through to piece everything together, but it makes for much more interesting story-telling.

The puzzles are fairly straightforward, and the game will always guide you to the next piece of the plot, so you'll never get lost. This makes Photopia more of Fiction that is Interactive, rather than a true IF game. The use of IF elements really puts you in the shoes of the characters and makes you feel as they do about Alley. Perhaps the game's opening lines say it best: "Will you read me a story?", "Read you a story? What fun would that be? I've got a better idea: let's tell a story together.". While text-adventure purists may balk at the use of colour and it's linear structure, Photopia should not be viewed so much as an adventure to explore, but rather a story to experience. And a memorable one it is.

Pick up Photopia at adamcadre.ac. You'll also find other great IF games by Photopia's author on the site.

I'll admit: I'm no writer. To better appreciate Photopia's narrative elements, read a more in-depth review of Photopia at XYZZYnews, an IF site.