Sue

Review for The Lost Scroll

What's not to love about a heritage house, hidden treasure, and a load of fiendish puzzles?

The Lost Scroll has stunningly intricate and layered details for almost every object in the game (for example, I spent a good 5 minutes examining a painting, and it was just scenery!). Yet, despite the level of detail, the text never feels bogged down. There’s a perfect balance of interesting and necessary to keep things moving.

While definitely tricky, the puzzles are all intuitive and so long as you search everything (seriously, everything!) they're all perfectly solvable.

This was an absolutely fantastic game and I would definitely recommend it.

Review for The Lost Orb

This was a really fun game with some tricky puzzles. It took me a while (and a browse through the comments) to figure a few of them out, but the solutions were all the more satisfying for the time put in. As with all of Craig's games, this one boasts great landscapes and an interesting plotline.

Nice job, Craig!

Review for Snowquest

This was a pretty good game. The storyline was excellent--a little more surreal than fantastic, but excellent nonetheless! It was intriguing, and full of unexpected twists and turns. Beautifully plotted! The spelling and grammar were wonderful, which made reading the sometimes long descriptions easy and enjoyable.

The puzzles were relatively intuitive and made perfect sense within the context of the game.

I gave this game a 4 rather than a 5 for two reasons. First, because it doesn't make use of "the usual" text adventure commands, which makes the game play a little difficult as you try to guess the right verb to use. A number of times I had the answer to the puzzle very quickly, but couldn't figure out that exact phrase to make the game do what I wanted. And second, because of the game's presentation: I'm blind and use a screen reader; the game put commands and their resulting actions all in one paragraph, so the screen reader would have to re-read lengthy descriptions before it got round to giving me the results of my intended actions. This was frustrating and slowed the game down, but likely won't be an issue for sighted players and might not even happen if you're playing offline!

All in all, it's definitely worth playing!

Review for Bard's Quest

A quick and intuitive game with relatively easy puzzles. The location descriptions were relevant, but not overly detailed, and written with excellent spelling and grammar (much appreciated!) A great intro to text adventures, and a fun play for more experienced players. I really enjoyed it!

Review for City of Blood

Hi Craig,

This was an excellent game. I loved the epic landscape, detailed descriptions and interesting characters. The puzzles were more than tricky, and I'm definitely grateful for the walkthrough! I particularly liked the cartographer.

I've given it a 4 instead of a 5 for two reasons: first, because there were a few proofreading issues; and second, because sometimes the directions in the description didn't match the directions you could actually go (e.g. the description would say that the blacksmith is to the sw, but really he's s). That said, I totally enjoyed it, and will likely play it again once I've forgotten some of the answers to the puzzles.

Cheers,

Sue.

Review for Escape from the Forbidden City

I really enjoyed this game (as I do all of Peter's games). All of the puzzles are perfectly logical (and kick-yourself straight forward once you've figured it out!). I particularly loved the dragon puzzle.

Like Sarah4, I had a bit of trouble with the graphics, but there are now transcriptions of all of the letters in the comments section (thanks, Peter), so that isn't an obstacle to gameplay.

Great work, Peter, and I can't wait to play another of your games!

Review for The Witch's Apprentice

Absolutely wonderful!

Having read through what others say, I find I've got very little to add: fantastic settings, interesting characters, and a genuine reason for questing make this an intriguing storyline. As always, Craig's puzzles are challenging (Thanks, Sarah4 for setting me straight!) but once you get your head around it, the game's a lot of fun.

There are a few minor typos and plot bugs (like Madam Ingra being able to converse when she's supposed to be unconscious), but otherwise excellent, as usual. :)

I look forward to the next game, Craig!

Review for The Ultimate Museum

This was a very good game. The puzzles weren't particularly hard, but were challenging enough to make you think about them. The tone was light, and the humour kept the prose moving, though the tone of the game never became too silly, which was fantastic. Excellent spelling and grammar (so rare!) and a very interesting concept. Certainly worth playing!

The only reason I bumped it down to a 4 was because I had a lot of trouble with the game jamming up unexpectedly. Only about half of the description resulting for a command would appear; sometimes patience would win out, and sometimes I'd just have to close out and restart from my last save point. I play on the browser, so perhaps this isn't a problem in the offline version ...? Either way, I'm glad I stuck with it; this was definitely worth the effort!

Great job, Jonathan! I look forward to playing more of your games.

Review for Night is Falling

Hi Kerri,

This was a good game. I especially appreciated that it's not so long that if you die it's a pain to start over. The woman in the water is one of the creepiest things I've come across in a horror game (I encountered her two different ways and both times she was great!) and I laughed when I came across the path that quite literally takes you back to the beginning.

Two small points for improvement: 1) on one play through, there was reference to me falling out of a tree when I hadn't climbed one, and 2) there are a few spelling errors (though certainly not as many as in some other games!)

All in all, nice job!

Review for The Legend of Robin Hood

Hi Craig,

Sorry it took so long for me to get to the review. This was a fantastic game. The puzzles were tricky, but not impossible, despite one occasion that was a little guess-the-berb. I loved the use of traditional characters and setting in a whole new adventure. Great job!

Review for The Piskie

This is another great game, Peter!

The setting is wonderful (and made even better by the use of diolect) and the puzzles are challenging, but not so challenging that I would consider giving up on them (I had the right idea with that eraser puzzle, just hadn't tried the right verb! Thanks for the pointer).
Your excellent spelling and grammar helped the game move quickly and fluidly. Can't wait to play more of your games :)

Review for The Enchanted Glade

Hi Peter,

This was a truly wonderful game. I loved the setting, and your beautiful descriptions helped to bring it to life. The way the story unfolded slowly as the game progressed was very nice. The puzzles were difficult, but not impossible, and actually embarrassingly straight forward once I figured them out (thanks for the hints!). Great job, and I look forward to playing more of your games.

Review for Doctor Incognitus and the Scorpion's Sting

Hi Craig,

Like Sarah, I'm a vision-impaired player. I really enjoy your games (I played my first, Dragon, on a braille computer some years ago). Your descriptions are excellent, and your puzzles, while sometimes very tricky, are always fun--and very satisfying--to work through!

I particularly liked the Victorian London setting of this game, and appreciate the careful proofreading! Wonderful work, and I look forward to discovering more of your games soon.