As expected, this is more or less Colossal Cave from the perspective of an old school grue. That’s a fun premise, and reminds me of John Gardner’s story Grendel, which is the Beowulf saga from the monster’s perspective.
Reliance on senses other than sight is a core mechanic in this story, since grues spend their lives in the dark. Here, the author had to make a decision: to require the player to type an action every time they use one of their senses other than sight, or to assume that these senses are always engaged and to constantly update the scene description in terms of these sensory modalities. In this game, the author went with the former.
However, because the standard turn loop for Inform games is visually oriented, without sight, room descriptions are omitted. Similarly, the room title is printed before the room description and often appears in the title bar as well — unless you are in the dark. In that case, you are just informed that you are in the dark. Entering a new room for the first fires off a description of what you see. By setting the game in the dark, these niceties are lost — but they shouldn’t be for a grue.
[Some spoilers follow beyond this point]
