Theatre

Encore! Author! Theatre is a wonderfully moody work of IF in which the player is stranded in a creepy old theatre with no apparent way out. The more he tries to get out, the deeper he is drawn into a fiendish plot that spans over seventy years, the successful outcome of which could doom not only the player, but the whole world.

Many of the rooms in Theatre are minimally described, and yet the feeling of unsettling dread is maintained effectively for the game's duration. The puzzles are numerous and fair (Spoiler - click to show)(my favourite involved a ghostly usher). Most of them are clever, and one in particular is (Spoiler - click to show)rather gruesome. They are all quite satisfying to solve. Another thing I enjoyed about Theatre is that it is one of those games that, thankfully, do not end with a long single blurb of prose once you perform the winning action. It goes on a little further than that and provides a very satisfying conclusion. Bravo!

This is a (virtually) full-length work that keeps the player involved throughout. I spent perhaps five-to-six hours on this. Using the walkthrough will get you through it quicker, of course, but seriously--resist using it if you can. This game is not too-too hard, and is rewarding to complete. I myself resisted using the walkthrough, but succumbed to the adaptive built-in hint system. I really appreciated the fact that this was, indeed, a hint system and did not blatantly give away the solutions. Despite this, I was stumped by a few guess-the-verb road blocks that could have been prevented had the author worked a little harder on providing synonyms for some of the actions.

If I were to voice any significant criticism of Theatre, it would only be to reiterate what has already been mentioned elsewhere: the Lovecraftian references of ancient, cosmos-spanning creatures were out of place--they did not integrate well with the author's own style of horror, which was effective enough to stand on its own.

Despite that, the bottom line is I enjoyed this game a lot. I recommend it to any who enjoy creepy, suspenseful horror. I am not aware of other works by author Brendon Wyber, but if I encounter any, I will definitely play them.