Untold Riches

by Jason Ermer profile

2015

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Number of Reviews: 5
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
A treasure hunt for beginners, November 21, 2015
by CMG (NYC)

Untold Riches is a simple parser puzzle game. You're an assistant to a wacky treasure-hunting professor, and you've been stranded alone on an island during a treasure hunt. You've got to locate the treasure and then figure out a way to contact someone to leave the island.

What you get from the game's blurb is what you get inside the game. The tone is irreverent. The story is slim and self-aware, with references all over the place to past adventures you've had with the professor, which in turn reference pulp adventure tropes from literature and film. Like the gameplay, the writing is simple and direct, but it knows what it wants to be and it's charming.

The "about" text explains that this game was actually written to be played in a middle-school setting as an introduction to the medium for students. It sets explicit guidelines for itself: clear goals, clear clues, thorough implementation. In all three realms, it's a success.

As an intro-level puzzler, this is solid. The only thing it could do better is provide standard verbs for the player, since the game is assuming that its audience will be unfamiliar with the parser format. Otherwise, it's a nice little snack.

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