Reviews by jakomo

Like another PunyJam entry Arthur's Day Out, Pub Adventure is very bare-bones. Lots of nouns that are described but cannot be interacted with and the occasional guess-the-verb difficulty. Nothing game-blocking though, and the story, about the ghost of a pub that wants you to make its favourite cocktail, has a good sense of its own absurdity while rarely becoming frustrating.

An intriguing demo that ends just as it's getting started. The player-character is a fascinating enigma: you "crackle into existence" in a pub closet, covered in bandages: NPCs are familiar with you, as if you've worked with them before, but who you are and what you do are only partially revealed. In contrast to the player-character's mysterious supernatural nature, puzzles are mundane: fix a leaking pipe, retrieve something stuck in a tree, unlock a gate. Just as you're about to flex your powers, the game ends. Successfully does the job of an intro scene: I want to see more!

The least ambitious game I've encountered so far in PunyJam (the competition for Inform games using the slimmed-down PunyInform library)... but also the funniest. Closet of Mystery tickled my funnybone successfully at least twice. Which is good going for a game I completed in 16 turns (scoring a perfect 0 out 0 in the process). Play it.

The titular Arthur is none other than Arthur Dent, complete with gown and analgesic pills, in what seems to be a pastiche of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Does a good job of emulating the light, breezy writing style of the Adams/Meretzky game, despite the implementation being very bare-bones. I struggled to solve many of the puzzles presented here, as there too few clues to help you. I gave up at 90/200 points, stymied by an impossible light source puzzle, an impassable doctor's office door, and an uncrackable safe.

A puzzle-filled pirate-themed adventure: the local publican's daughter has been kidnapped by nasty pirates. To rescue her, you'll need to uncover the mystery of their stolen treasure. Lots of intricate details implemented here: chatty NPCs who respond to lots of conversation topics, a pirate ship that requires nautical directions to navigate, a very cool imprisonment-and-escape sequence. Everything exudes an appropriate 1700s-era flavour. Puzzles aren't easy: I couldn't get past the crate puzzle in the warehouse, which sadly brought an abrupt end to the fun.

You're a genie in a bottle, but thankfully nobody needs to "rub you the right way". You have the power to SWAP any object in the game world with any other (providing it has similar properties). A door is locked? SWAP it with a different, open door you've seen somewhere else and just walk through. A really clever mechanic used in multiple crafty and surprising ways. Three new custom verbs, a karma system, puzzles with multiple solutions, and multiple endings, NPCs you can converse with, all crammed into a mere seven rooms. The game is an entry in "PunyJam", a competition for games using the alternate, cut-down Inform library suitable for 8-bit computers. I honestly didn't notice anything missing from the regular Inform libraries while playing, so that's a big success for both the library and the game's shrewd use of it.