The Dreamhold

This game was, as it was designed to be, my introduction to interactive fiction. I've come from a background of having played graphical adventures in the past, and not been doing much gaming recently, and Dreamhold gave me a nice introduction to interactive fiction.

The game began with a very nice introduction to the basic commands in IF that everyone is expected to know. The hint system is very nicely integrated, being unobtrusive but quite helpful when I needed it. The game began with a standard hook, amnesia, to motivate the player to simply explore. The setting is your typical eclectic magical setting with a steampunk sort of aesthetic, which reminded me of Myst.

The puzzles in the game were all of a reasonable difficulty, though I think I needed the hints on one or two. There were some side puzzles that I never did figure out, which baffled me but were not necessary for completing the game. The writing included snippets of memories from the player character's past, most of which were fairly obtuse and didn't really shed much light on what was going on. By the time I completed the game, I still didn't really know what was going on; the writing evoked a mysterious mood very well, but didn't really have much of a plot.

In all, I think this is a great introduction to IF, but I would prefer if there were a stronger plot and the writing were a bit less obscure.