OMG! A game tagged as Point'n Click Adventure that is a REAL point&click adventure! I can't believe it!
Moreover it contains:
multiple endings,
puzzles that can be solved in many ways,
references to games I well know,
humor (even if I prefer serious stories).
Well, I'm not an "influent video games critic", but i give you five stars! ;)
BTW Thanx for the italian language option, and, above all (PSEUDO-SPOILER ALERT) thank you for allow me to kill Simon!
Thanks a lot!
Every single reviewer counts a lot, whether he's influent or not :D
And lol, you're welcome, but Tymon did it pretty much all on his own
Thanks again!
P.S. The reason this game has italian language, too, is because I'm italian. That's also why it lacks "more popular" languages - I can't speak them :P
For the Discworld reference alone, you win, sir.
A brilliant sendup of PnC games. Bravo.
Thanks a lot, sir!
Terry Pratchett is my favourite fantasy novelist, on a par with Douglas Adams and Stefano Benni.
I'm very glad someone noticed that reference, Discworld is an extremely fun game! :)
Outstanding! Very nicely plotted. A good little nostalgia trip with decent graphics and scenic music and sound. I liked the self-awareness and touches of humor. It's worth replaying to get all three endings, they are quite distinct! The real trick is finding both the "cheating" and "beating" methods of solving each puzzle.
A bit of a shame about the lack of voice-acting, though I suppose the cheapness was part of the charm. Voice acting can add a lot to the atmosphere of a game if done well (Beneath a Steel Sky springs to mind, in this genre).
My major reservations? Dialogue, though witty, goes on too long, and there is no way to skip through the reams of dialogue (particularly in the first room) when you replay. More complexity to the tasks might have been nice but then it would have been a longer game (I quite like a good minigame puzzle and this game didn't really have any). There were few interactable elements in any scene - a nice escape from pixel hunting, but I quite enjoy clicking on random objects or places and getting a wry description even if I can't use the thing. A little more of that descriptive dialogue wouldn't have gone amiss.
Nothing that would make me give less than five stars though. Top stuff.
My bad, I admit this game contains lots of dialogues. That's also one reason why there's no voice-acting, the other being that, you're right, a good voice-acting can change a game for the better, but a bad voice-acting can change it for the worse, as well.
In short, it's hard to make a good quality voice-acting for so many dialogues and so many different characters... without spending a small fortune!
But I'm glad you liked the game despite all that, thank you for your nice review!
I had a good time with this, lots of sarcastic and self-deprecating humour with a snarky protagonist kept me amused throughout, and it was good to see so many references to other well-known point-and-click titles. The graphics are a bit rough here and there, but they do the job overall. The difficulty is about spot-on, I got stuck a few times but was able to just make it without a walkthrough, having multiple solutions to puzzles and a save function helped, also there were no insane moon logic puzzles that other games in the genre can fall afoul of. Very nice all round, keep it up!
I really did my best with the graphics, but I'm the first one to admit they're not very good - then, why not joke about it?
Thanks a lot for your nice review!
I'm sorry, I couldn't get through the first ten minutes before I got bored. The writing isn't interesting or funny enough to carry an intro that long, it's basically just telling the same "Hey, we totally know we're in a point and click game! lol fourth wall, isn't it how hilarious that the artwork is terrible instead of just being terrible artwork?" joke over and over..and over.... and over... and over. The tutorial is unnecessary (it's a point and click game, if we didn't know how to click on things we wouldn't be playing it) beyond the "click something twice for a description" function, which is at least different enough that it warrants a note, but a note would have done the job. Two stars for the obvious hard work that went into it, but reviews are supposed to give a quick rundown of how good or bad something is, and I couldn't stand this for more than a few minutes.
I'll probably come back to this at some point because the other reviews suggest some interesting puzzles, but I hit bad joke saturation in record time with this one. It felt like taking a bite out of an apple and getting a mouthful of salt.
Man, what a harsh review.. But at leats it gives some constructive criticism, which is always welcomed.
Let me clarify a few things:
- Yes, I guess I could have abused those kind of jokes. The thing is, the whole story and most of the puzzles revolves around this concept. The protagonist doesn't just "know" he's inside a videogame: he's a human player trapped inside the videogame you're playing. The jokes aren't breaking the fourth wall, the whole game is.
- Tutorials are ALWAYS needed. That's the first thing you learn as a game designer (and as a gamer, you learn to never skip those). Most point and click games share the same instructions, true, but each one has its own interface with its own quirks. Magnifying lens that highlight interactive items is a rare function that most player might not know about, for example.
Thanks for acknowledging the hard work I put into this, and for your review - I'll try to do better next time.
If you come back to finish the game, please let me know your opinion about it once again - send me a PM!