Ratings and Reviews by Brian Campbell
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The best single puzzle I've played, October 17, 2007Edifice is a short game that takes the player through the various stages of development of human civilization. The game stands out because it has the best puzzle I've seen in any game so far. The writing is solid but unremarkable, and the other puzzles are good, but the language puzzle is by far the reason to play the game.
In Edifice, the player begins as a caveman, and is faced with a puzzling edifice. The player must teach the caveman to use basic tools, to open a door in the edifice. Inside, there are stairways taking the player up to different levels, each one of which takes him to a new stage of the development of civilization. In each stage, he must advance the state of civilization by solving a certain puzzle that teaches his character how to do something.
The puzzle that makes the game is the language puzzle, in which the player must learn to communicate in the foreign language of an NPC. It is hard to describe, without giving spoilers, why this puzzle is so much fun, but I've found that it's simply the most satisfying puzzle of any game I've played.
A nice introductory game, October 17, 2007This game was, as it was designed to be, my introduction to interactive fiction. I've come from a background of having played graphical adventures in the past, and not been doing much gaming recently, and Dreamhold gave me a nice introduction to interactive fiction.
The game began with a very nice introduction to the basic commands in IF that everyone is expected to know. The hint system is very nicely integrated, being unobtrusive but quite helpful when I needed it. The game began with a standard hook, amnesia, to motivate the player to simply explore. The setting is your typical eclectic magical setting with a steampunk sort of aesthetic, which reminded me of Myst.
The puzzles in the game were all of a reasonable difficulty, though I think I needed the hints on one or two. There were some side puzzles that I never did figure out, which baffled me but were not necessary for completing the game. The writing included snippets of memories from the player character's past, most of which were fairly obtuse and didn't really shed much light on what was going on. By the time I completed the game, I still didn't really know what was going on; the writing evoked a mysterious mood very well, but didn't really have much of a plot.
In all, I think this is a great introduction to IF, but I would prefer if there were a stronger plot and the writing were a bit less obscure.
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