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Number of Ratings: 54
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Showing All | Show by Page - Edo, August 17, 2023
- gattociao, August 16, 2023
- elysee, April 24, 2023
I've been training like a Pavlov dog, January 6, 2023
Dinner Bell is a one-room game full of silly humor. Your goal is, from inside your test chamber, to find 16 food items. You instinctively put them in a grocery bag, despite starving, due to the conditioning from Dr. Beagle.
In Dinner Bell, it's worth trying some weird or silly stuff to see what it has to say. My favorite joke involved either the bucket of wax pears, or the Shiptogar. The game's theming is also pretty interesting and unique, and I haven't seen anything else like it.
It's a quick game, but there's a lot to like here. I recommend it.
- Sobol (Russia), September 16, 2022
- Kinetic Mouse Car, August 8, 2022
- TheBoxThinker, July 28, 2022
- Ray Leandro (Philippines), January 27, 2022
- godzillaposter, December 12, 2021
- Zape, July 3, 2020
- Sammel, April 25, 2020
- felicitations, October 1, 2018
- Edward Lacey (Oxford, England), April 1, 2018
- xochie, September 3, 2017
4 of
4 people found the following review helpful:
technically wobbly, undeniably original, June 9, 2017For a game made in 2012, Dinner Bell is surprisingly underimplemented (a lot of synonyms weren't recognized, and I was especially surprised when (Spoiler - click to show)the message blocking interaction with the candles didn't change while I was wearing the oven mitt). But in terms of atmosphere I think it mostly accomplished what it set out to do. That atmosphere - gross and disturbing, leavened in appropriate measure by "zany" humor - is one that I don't think I've ever seen attempted before. So props for that.
And, hey, it was a fun game.
- Kaesa, March 4, 2017
- imelda, January 31, 2017
- lkdc, January 31, 2017
- KGH (North Carolina), September 15, 2016
- nosferatu, July 21, 2016
- Matt Bates, April 12, 2016
- Teaspoon, January 30, 2016
- Deboriole (San Diego, CA), January 16, 2016
- Harry Coburn (Atlanta, GA), September 3, 2015
- ZombieHam, August 20, 2015
- leanbh, August 7, 2015
6 of
6 people found the following review helpful:
An amusing one-room food game, August 6, 2015In this short one-room game, you reverse the roles of Pavlov and his dogs by being the subject of experiments by dogs.
Your goal is to correctly find all of the food in the room. This requires varying amounts of ingenuity. Some of the puzzles are 'leap of intuition' puzzles.
As others have noted, the writing is the strongest point of the game. The strange mix of obedience and resentment makes for a funny game with a sad undertone.
The game has enough easy puzzles mixed in with the hard to let beginners get pretty far without consulting a guide.
- dosgamer, April 18, 2015
- hoopla, March 1, 2015
- Floating Info, February 15, 2015
- Caleb Wilson (Illinois), November 24, 2014
- o0pyromancer0o, November 11, 2014
- EllaClass, November 8, 2014
- PStanley, September 26, 2014
- Katrisa (Houston), September 24, 2014
- Doug Orleans (Somerville, MA, USA), April 27, 2014
- Christina Nordlander, March 30, 2014
- Sdn (UK), July 5, 2013
- Robb Sherwin (Colorado), June 21, 2013
- DAzebras, May 1, 2013
- Mr. Patient (Saint Paul, Minn.), March 30, 2013
- Beable, January 21, 2013
- Jeremy Freese (Evanston, IL), December 12, 2012
- verityvirtue (London), November 29, 2012
- Molly (USA), September 26, 2012
- liz73 (Cornwall, New York), June 28, 2012
- libsrone, June 7, 2012
- dbigs, June 6, 2012
- perching path (near Philadelphia, PA, US), May 30, 2012
- Johnny, May 7, 2012
- EJ, April 18, 2012
- Sam Kabo Ashwell (Seattle), April 11, 2012
15 of
15 people found the following review helpful:
Surreal, in a good way, April 11, 2012If you like escape the room puzzle games and you didn't get enough of Dr. Sliss in Rogue of the Multiverse, this game is for you.
According to the odd premise, you're the a subject in a pavlovian test being run by a dog, and must perform tasks meeting your training requirements. The tasks in question mostly require thorough searching and obedience to the game's not-very-subtle precepts, though there are a couple of puzzles that require a bit more sideways thinking to separate the quest objects from their surroundings. (Spoiler - click to show)I particularly enjoyed the solution to finding the one real pear in the bucket of wax pears. Though it's not an extremely long game, there's enough there to keep a player occupied for 45 minutes or so; this would not have been conspicuously undersized as a comp game.
Overall it's a very solidly made and tested piece. I didn't run into any bugs or situations where the parser patently should have been more intelligent, and there were many points where it was possible to refer to objects that were only figuratively present and still get some kind of interesting response.
What really sets this game apart, however, is its particular humor and narrative voice. Most of the game's major objects are things referred to in the They Might Be Giants song of the same name -- enough so that the song could almost serve as a walkthrough for most of the elements. More than that, though, the narration is often self-conscious and fourth-wall-breaking in order to deliver a payload of puns, references, and commentary. Those familiar with Polodna's blog posts and reviews will have a pretty good idea of whether they're likely to enjoy such asides. (I did.)
The game's final point is moderately noteworthy as well. (Spoiler - click to show)After a sequence of puzzles in which the player is railroaded into finding but not eating a series of foodstuffs, the game gives the player a chance to eat some cake; but rewards him with a final point and a different ending for choosing to follow his accustomed conditioning and setting the cake aside instead of eating it. It would probably be a stretch to claim that this is a serious commentary on agency and player conditioning, but it was a more memorable outcome than I had expected.
- dhakajack (Washington, DC), March 30, 2012
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