Menagerie!

Delron Reviews
Review by David Whyld
Right from the start, you know this is going to be a good game. It has a background, it has a detailed introduction. It's not one of those games where you're dumped in the first location with no explanation of what you're doing there and then have to spend the rest of the game trying to figure out what it's all about. Menagerie is well-written, interesting and the sort of game that we just don't see enough of.

In a break from the norm for adventure games, you don't play a hero trying to save the world or rescue a damsel in distress or search for buried treasure, you play a member of Green Peace striving to uncover cruelty to animals in a circus. If this doesn't seem quite as thrilling as would-be-world-saving just play the game a few times and you'll wonder why you ever bothered with world-saving treasure hunts before.

An interesting feature of Menagerie is the clever use of variables, used in such a way as to change locations from time to time. The first time this happened I wondered if I had read something wrong the previous time I visited a location; afterwards I was quite caught up by this ingenious idea. It keeps the game seeming fresh and original even after you've played through it countless times.

Other interesting features included a money system and a cheat which allows you to "sell" score points for extra cash. I didn't discover this when I first played the game because I try to avoid using the hints system unless I get really stuck, but it's a nice little trick that should probably be used more
widely in adventure games to add variety.
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