I know it's "Evil AL", not "Evil AI", but there _is_ an "Evil AI" at work here - this is aislop, pure and simple. I wondered for a bit why the whole thing felt repetitive and boring, and then I hit this paragraph and it threw everything else into context:

> LAN-LOK is more than a forgotten DOS curiosity, it is a preserved moment in the daily life of Antarctic research stations during the earliest days of their local area networks. It captures the frustrations, humor, and personalities that shaped computing at Palmer Station as it transitioned from isolated standalone PCs to a shared (fragile) LAN.

It's frustrating, because this game absolutely has the vibes of a lot of old DOS/door games and I was kinda interested in learning about it, but this just sucks all the fun and interest out of it.

Playable in-browser here for those who wish to skip directly to the chase: https://archive.org/details/Lanlok

It should be noted that nemesis “Evil Al” is “AL” not “AI”; the font makes this quite ambiguous