Ratings and Reviews by dogdennings

You, a master thief, have just broken into a house owned by Jefferson Smith, the fifteenth wealthiest person in England. You have 2 hours to gather valuables and make your escape.

Despite being billed as a coding exercise, Burglar! is fairly enjoyable. Much like Hollywood Hijinx, Burglar! is a treasure hunt game that must be completed in a limited number of turns. However, unlike Hollywood Hijinx, Burglar! does not automatically end when you run out of turns. You can still complete the game, as long as you manage to avoid the homeowner while they search for you.

I found the gameplay to be moderately difficult. While some of the valuables are easy to find, others require the manipulation of hidden buttons and levers. The author also has a penchant for hiding objects inside other objects. To complicate matters, some objects exist only to serve as red herrings, a design choice that I have always had mixed feelings about. I was not able to get the full score without the help of a walkthrough.

I didn’t encounter any bugs, but some of the writing is awkward, with descriptions such as “an item of junk mail” and “there's a fridge is whirring away to itself in the corner.”

Burglar! does not excel in any one area, but the overall package is enjoyable enough. Fans of treasure hunt games might want to give it a try.

Mr. Webster, the lighthouse keeper, has asked you to take care of his lighthouse while he is away. Are you up for the job?

According to the publication notes, this is the authors’ first game, and it certainly bears a lot of the telltale signs of a first game. The map is small, the descriptions are unhelpful, and the coding is a little buggy. While the concept of having to take care of an isolated lighthouse all by your lonesome sounds like fertile ground for a story, the entire game can be finished in about 15 turns, which squanders any narrative potential.

Even more unfortunate is the fact that this also appears to be the authors’ only game. We all have to start somewhere, and while I will admit to being unimpressed with pretty much every aspect of The Lighthouse, I can’t really fault someone for wanting to show off something that they made. I just wish that they had put more time and effort into it.

If nothing else, I hope that The Lighthouse serves as a reminder that we all have to learn to walk before we can run.

Castle Adventure! is about as old school as you can possibly get. It is the fantasy-themed story of a nameless adventurer and their quest to rescue an imprisoned princess. The map is made up largely of mazes that are separated by puzzles. The game can be put into an unwinnable state.

All that being said, I didn’t find Castle Adventure! to be nearly as difficult as a lot of older text adventure games. There were a few puzzles that gave me trouble and I had to draw a map to keep my directions consistent, but between the limited items and the minimalist room descriptions, I usually had a pretty good idea what I was suppose to be doing.

If you are looking for the next Photopia or Counterfeit Monkey, you need to look elsewhere. But if you are in the mood for an old school dungeon crawler, Castle Adventure! is here for you.

Craverly Heights is a short game with a lot of creativity. You play Dr. Langridge, a brilliant physician at Roland Memorial Hospital. Pauline, your patient, is in desperate need of an operation. Sadly, her insurance is refusing to pay for it, which saddles you with the laborious task of trying to raise the money yourself.

A dramatic setup quickly mutates into a comedy of bad acting and ad-libbing. The map is small, but the rooms have a lot of personality. The characters are mostly static, but their dialogue does change depending on what you are wearing. There are multiple endings.

I usually find comedic IF to be more amusing than actually funny, but Craverly Heights has some really great moments. If you are looking for a light-hearted game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, I highly recommend Craverly Heights.

You wake up in the middle of the night with a throbbing headache and an itchy scalp. It is only going to get worse from here.

Based on an idea by H.P. Lovecraft, Ecdysis is the story of a man struggling to make sense of a rapidly changing environment. The game begins in a rather mundane setting, but soon shifts to an alien landscape of lust and violence.

The gameplay is a little too linear for my liking, but the story is interesting enough to keep me invested. Locations, people, and objects are represented as clickable hyperlinks, so you can play the majority of the game with just the mouse, although typing in commands will sometimes give you additional information. The game is short, and there are no puzzles, aside from the general process of interacting with the environment. There are multiple endings, with each one seemingly more grotesque than the last.

I recommend Ecdysis, but that recommendation comes with an asterisk. If you are looking for a scary but ultimately uplifting story about conquering evil, you are definitely looking in the wrong place. But fans of the macabre will find a lot to appreciate in Ecdysis.

You, the always dutiful museum employee, have just stumbled upon a meteor. It would make a great addition to your museum. Too bad the meteor is currently too hot to handle…

The Lake is a one-room game centered around one puzzle. The puzzle itself is not difficult to solve, although I will admit that I found the solution to be amusing. However, the lack of detail is the thing that really holds the game back. For example, the titular lake cannot be examined.

The Lake is a very short game centered around one puzzle with a joke solution, and while I will admit that I enjoyed the game, I wish that more time had been put into the descriptions.

Maybe watching all those scary videos right before bedtime wasn’t such a great idea…

Something In The Night is a game about finding the courage to go to bed while home alone. Horror fans might be disappointed in the game’s lack of scares, but I felt that the somewhat humorous nature of it all worked to its favor. The game is well-made with no obvious bugs or typos. The gameplay is puzzleless and very short, but the writing manages to maintain a decent atmosphere throughout.

If you are a fan of the often goofy horror stories that get told at sleepovers, you will probably enjoy Something In The Night.

Working at a Quick Stop can’t be the most glamorous of occupations.
Thankfully, you have sexy Becky to take your mind off all that.

The author credits Adam Cadre for inspiration, and at times Becky definitely feels very Cadre-ish. The game waste no time getting right to the sex scenes, but it does feature an epilogue that took me by surprise. The game is short and puzzleless, although it does contain multiple endings.

Becky is an interesting take on AIF. It is not going to give you hours upon hours of gameplay, but it is creative enough to warrant a playthrough.