I've been pleasantly reading (and playing)
Jigsaw, by Graham Nelson, a classic 1995 work of interactive fiction lingering in poetic prose and fair and logic, but still demanding, well-crafted puzzles.
Waiting for new years eve in 1999, you find yourself attracted to a tantalizing stranger in black. Soon enough you realize Black is a time traveller supposedly trying to get key events in the XX century right. While Black seems to see you as an ally, it's up to you to get sure history as you know it - right or wrong - gets through unchanged, unless you want to live in an alternate history world.
A favorite, short vignette-like passage to give an idea:
Quote:
> search dishes
Glancing through the piles of dishes, you come across one with a (rather revolting) circular pattern of mould.
> examine mould
It seems to have been contaminated by a spore of mould, because a circular colony of mould has grown across the surface of the agar. Interestingly, near the edge of the mould, the bacteria seem to have gone, leaving only a faint ghost image.
Alexander Fleming, a tall Scotsman in his late forties, strides confidently in and puts down a suitcase. As you hastily hide behind a cupboard, he looks around for something, fails to find it and leaves again.
> examine case
A solid slab of a trunk, it bears chalk-marks suggesting that its owner has just returned from the Continent.
> get it
It's far too heavy to actually pick up, except for athletic Scotsmen.
> wait
Time passes.
Fleming comes in again, and you hide once more. Something catches his eye on the pile of Petri dishes, and he begins looking through them, in the process burying the only interesting one again. Disheartened, he wanders out.
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it's a good thing that while Black seems honestly bent on changing history, most efforts backfire without you even doing much: in the example above, Black "contaminates" Fleming's samples with mould taken from a jar of penicillium.
Your only trouble is to get Fleming to look at it.
It is long and hard, you've been warned. It's also delightful and extremely rewarding once you get through the historical events. I'm about 40% through it. I started a week ago.
There's a fair ammount of trial-and-error: it's actually integral to the concept, otherwise you'd not know what happens in case you fail. Some scenes are rather large, some are small, vignette-like. The large ones usually require more trial-and-error as you need more than one run until you get used to your role in the sequence of events - including the timed Prologue in the Park! It's like it requires to approach the events from many angles rather than just be an inactive witness...
The puzzles are fair in that you never go great lengths to get a key item to unlock some puzzle nearby - they either are lying around close enough or you already have them. Some are even hinted at in the text. It certainly doesn't require Rube Goldberg-like machinations. (aside from the finale I'm told, from which a crucial item right from the beginning is needed. be sure not to miss it)
have fun
