I just played this through, and this is my favorite IF game next to Blue Lacuna. It wasn't terribly difficult but it was a lot of fun. The story and atmosphere managed to grip me, the characters (not a lot of them) were sympathetic, it is well-written, and the puzzles made sense. No 'guess the verb' or obscure item combinations at all. All in all I needed a hint only once, for an item I had not managed to collect. It was a bit short, though.