Ratings and Reviews by calindreams

calindreams's Rating:

Easy but fun., July 14, 2011

I managed to complete this game without any hints or a walkthrough which is a rarity for me. As the title suggests, the player will die countless times. It has a nifty feature of automatically restarting you at a point in the game where you can try again. This is quite approprite in the context of this piece.

The premise of the game is that you are an agent trapped in a house where you have to disable the traps. It has a feel of a one-room game, although you navigate around the various sections of the house using standard compass directions (which aren't always perfectly implemented). It has a simple premise, but this is fleshed out as you progress.

Hints to the puzzles are built in to the narrative itself, so it is a good game for beginners. It isn't the most dazzling and original game to introduce someone to interactive fiction, but it has plenty of humour and has a quirky mid-game twist. There is a little game-within-the-game section which I enjoyed and would like to have seen developed more fully.

Some of the puzzles are a little confusing and it is a little buggy in places, but nothing that really impedes the gameplay. The first half of the game is more enjoyable. The second section lets it down a bit. The puzzles in the second half are a bit pedestrian and don't contain the immediacy and excitement of the first part. This is remedied by quite a funny epilogue.

It shouldn't take most people very long to complete it so it might prove an interesting diversion for people, especially, if like me, you like puzzles but aren't very good at them.

Stunned, July 6, 2011

I literally sat in stunned silence after completeing this piece of interactive fiction. My reaction to this game was impounded by the fact that I'd got confused with the zfiles I'd downloaded and thought that I was playing an old Scott Adams game. How wrong could I have been.

This was my first experience of a puzzleless 'game'. The warnings given by the author were very appropriate (although I only read them after I finished), although I'm not sure if it's children who need the warnings.

Disturbing and thought-provoking. I knew I wasn't playing the game I thought I was when I started having philosophical conversations with mythical beasts. Personally I wasn't so keen on the menu based conversations, but they were approprite for this piece. The typos didn't really detract from my immersion in the storyline.

I never guessed what was actually going on until the very end. It's good to see that interactive fiction is being used to explore darker territory. It's hard to say whether I'd recommend this game. But for mature adults who are willing to be disturbed and provoked, then yes, it is an important piece that deserves recognition.

Now to get on with playing 'Voodoo Castle' (the game I meant to play!)

calindreams's Rating:

calindreams's Rating: