Ratings and Reviews by jakomo

A return to the weird world of Castle Balderstone. Specifically, the "weird west" world, in this cowboy horror where the protagonist packs heat to take on a demonic invasion of a frontier town. It's a shoot-em-up with trivial levels of puzzle difficulty: the only real challenge is equipping the right gun for the right enemy (and maybe preserving ammo, but it almost grows on trees in this game). But this is story-focused IF, and the most important element, the writing, easily carries this to greatness: you can almost taste the sawdust and spittoons. And there are multiple, impressively lengthy bits done entirely in rhyming verse. Yee-haw!

The Little Match Girl gets scary, with this Clark Ashton Smith inspired weird tale. Ebenezabeth takes on a time-travelling werewolf, teaming up with three other monster-hunters, in the closest thing to a "slasher film" this series has ever been. Builds a genuinely foreboding atmosphere very successfully (the descriptions of the creature's victims are especially creepy), while retaining the straightforward inventory-puzzle focused gameplay these games are known for. A nice new feature for this series is the in-built adaptive hint system: I only needed it once but love that it exists. There is also a "post-game" involving collecting a set of cards, which I have yet to fully explore...