A short horror with a common setting: a dark rainy night, lost in the woods with your car. (Spoiler - click to show)You drive in the woods. Your car goes astray and crashes. You are alone in the dark. You meet strange people. You find yourself in the middle of a bloody ritual, the cultists evoking some disgusting goddess from the ancients, inspired by lovecraftian commonplaces like dreadful language, a cursed book, human sacrifices, etc etc.
The game is very short, both in the gameplay (few minutes if you go straight to the end) both in the accuracy of the descriptions. Written with standard short sentences and situations (which is good, very old style) but a lot of lacking in details (too many "I don't see it here" errors).
A lack of accuracy is shown when managing end-of-lines (blank spaces, full points, etc.).
Some bugs are quite annoying (a telephone ringing when the battery is discharged, the car going out of the road while the engine is off, etc.).
The game deserves few minutes in fixing those things. This brings me to give a star less in my rating.
The game could be very low-rated if it were not for the original scoring system: we find a kind of personality test which judges your behaviour in the game. It's very funny, and it's really worth the playing! Very good!
Unfortunately, the different choices the player does replaying the game don't lead to many different reactions from the world, but it's worth trying anyway.
In the end: a game too small, which gives few minutes of a nice horror atmosphear, not very original but very funny in the end when the score comes out.
[english]
Though easy, it's a good story, well written and with the right number of puzzles, all of them moderately challenging. Style is simple yet various, apt to the atmosphear, which is well created. These are the things I like in IF: a beautiful example of Interactive Fiction, though the introduction can be judged a little too verbose.
Puzzles are simple in their ideas, but challenging enough.
Hints sometimes make things too easy, and some descriptions are too clearly pointing to the solution. The game forces you to try and retry until you find the correct combination of actions; this shortens the game's longevity.
[italian]
Benché facile, è una bella storia, scritta bene e con il giusto numero di enigmi sufficientemente impegnativi. Lo stile è semplice eppure variegato, adatto all'atmosfera ben creata e ben curata. Queste sono le cose che mi piacciono in un racconto interattivo, e questo è un ottimo esempio di Fiction Interattiva - anche se forse possiamo ritenere l'introduzione un po' prolissa.
Gli enigmi sono semplici come ideazione, ma sufficientemente impegnativi. Gli indizi a volte rendono la vita troppo facile, così come alcune indicazioni troppo esplicite. Il gioco costringe a procedere un po' per tentativi, ricominciando da capo ogni volta; in questo modo perde longevità, perché una volta capito il modo di arrivare alla fine non ha più senso rigiocarlo.