Ord.

Long before role-players were customizing the size of their cyberjunk and helping the Phantom Thieves save hearts, there was Zork. And not just Zork, but a whole line of incredible text adventures designed for computers where epic quests were brought to life using the written word. We don't see a lot of text adventures these days, but that's about to change thanks to the new game Ord. This is a surprisingly inventive twist that strips the genre down to its bare essentials. But can it appeal to a short attention span generation raised on state-of-the-art graphics? That's what we're about to find out, one word at a time.

Don't be fooled by the weird name and minimalist style, because Ord is nothing more than a collection of five interactive short stories. The gimmick here is that the wildly different adventures play out by having us make a choice after every single word. It's like a writing challenge where every part of the story needs to be told in the simplest way possible, something that ultimately forces the player to fill in the details and construct the adventure in their mind.

This is not the easiest thing to describe in a review, but it won't take long to acclimate to the one-word-at-a-time approach. The five stories play into the stripped-down style by tossing us into familiar scenarios and keeping the two choices simple. When we're woken up by an "alarm," we either "wake" or "snooze." We either "drink" or "leave" the "coffee"; "look" or "listen" to the "explosion"; "run" or "hide' from the "guard." When all of these words and choices are taken as a whole, they end up telling simple yet riveting adventures full of danger and excitement.

Naturally, the five stories all have short and simple titles. Quest sees us fight through the countryside in a journey to defeat the evil warlock; Dimensions allows the player to choose their destiny by either jumping into a world filled with dinosaurs or exploring a lawless desert wasteland in an effort to get back home; World allows us to play god by hand-crafting a planet, populating it with animals and guiding humans as they either prosper or parish; Foul Things explores the loneliness and desperation of being stuck in a cage; and, finally, Heist takes us through every step of robbing a bank and escaping, something that is made even cooler by an interesting non-linear storytelling technique that plays out like a Christopher Nolan movie.

Even at their longest, these five stories only last a few minutes. Because we're always reacting to a single word, there's a snappiness to the narrative that you normally don't see in a lot of text adventures. Each story is designed to have all kinds of endings, including a few that will come as a complete surprise. You may think you're trying to slay the evil warlock, but the story could just as easily end with you kissing a frog who turns out to be a princess and then living happily ever after. You're never in as much control of the outcome as you might think.

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The problem with this approach is that a lot of the stories come down to simple trial and error memorization. We learn that playing jazz music and feeding a brachiosaurus can be deadly. And not just that, but also hiding in crates, eating a dodgy kebab, leaving the desert, walking too far into the desert, trying to squeeze through a window, jumping over a stream and basically everything else in the game. No matter how innocent a choice looks, it's going to kill you.

Ord's best stories are the ones that aren't filled with gotcha conclusions. Heist, for example, ends up working because the player never fears that they'll accidentally pull the wrong lever or go into the wrong door. Sure, you can still get caught and end the story prematurely, but there was less ambiguity to the choices and more paths forward. Even when I failed to get away with the ill-gotten money, the adventure still felt complete. That's not something you get from some of the other stories, where the sudden and unexpected endings feel unsatisfying. Cheap deaths all but ruin Dimensions, the story with what is arguably the most compelling narrative. I love the idea of jumping through time and space, but it's no fun when any small, insignificant choice can stop the adventure dead in its tracks. It just feels cruel.

Visually, Ord has chosen a simple and clean design that really looks sharp. The words are nice and large, and there's a musical cue that is almost relaxing at times. I especially like how the text changes color as we explore other dimensions or dim as we enter the dark caves. They are used sparingly, which may explain why I was so excited to see the words slosh around as my hero got drunk at the tavern. These effects are cool, but there aren't enough of them.

And that's largely how I feel about the entire package. The stories are cool, but there aren't enough of them. While I love the game's single-word storytelling and the wildly varied adventures, Ord feels more like a quirky novelty than a game I'll want to come back to again and again. It's fast-paced and an inventive twist on the genre, but just like that time I died while bathing in the mud, I can't help but feel a bit unsatisfied with Ord.