Der fünfte Raum

by Jens Bojaryn

Surreal
2002

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Florian Edlbauers "Archiv DEutschSprachiger TExtadventures"

Der erste Eindruck ist negativ: Ein Rätselspiel, das seine Natur verleugnet, wie unter anderem der Verzicht auf Punkte zeigt. Auch zeigt der Autor einen gewissen Stolz auf seinen "schlechten Humor". Wer gelegentliche Peinlichkeiten ignoriert und langsam Vertrauen in die Implementierung der des Spiel beherrschenden Rätsel fasst, wird mit wenigstens zwei Rätseln belohnt, die zu den besten Textadventure-Puzzles überhaupt zählen. Dazu gehört auch, dass sie weder zu leicht noch zu schwer sind, sondern der eigenen Logik des Spiels entsprechen.
Einstufung: gut.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Absurd, silly, but mostly coherent, December 29, 2008
by kba (berlin)

The premise of this game is a typical one for IF: You wake up in an unknown room, suffering from total amnesia. What unfolds now could be described as a kafkaesque tongue-in-cheek college humor version of the movie Cube with only one protagonist. Rooms are linked randomly (Spoiler - click to show)- or so it seems at first - and what absurd, confusing rooms!

The puzzles are a blend of combining items, magic and trial and error, though they largely adhere to the logic of the game. The tone is light-hearted and crude at times, fans of toilet humour won't be disappointed, as the game reacts to a multitude of words for bodily functions, excrements and sexual actions, but they are not necessary to finish the game. (Spoiler - click to show)For whatever reason, the author mapped F7 to the 'fart' command. Now that's just silly...

If you like that kind of humour or not: If a game reacts to almost anything you throw at it, that shows that the creator really made an effort and for me, that is always a good thing. You can examine everything and ask the one all-knowing NPC about everything. You can also communicate with this half-philosopher half-lunatic using a menu about a variety of existentialist matters which tends to get tedious at times, but some lines are funny(Spoiler - click to show), like the dialog: "What is the meaning of life?" - "We are manure. Now what?". Makes me chuckle like a koan.

Apart from possible but easily avoidable deaths, there are five different endings that range from religious to self-referential (that one is surprisingly funny). Except for one riddle (Spoiler - click to show)that is just a big hint for the final puzzle in a deliberately incorrect anachronistic style a basic level of the german language should be enough to finish it.

If you like self-mocking puzzle games with an existentialist undertone (existentialist as in Beckett/Ionesco, not as in Nietzsche/Kierkegaard) then give Der Fünfte Raum a try.

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