The Rotten Wooden Room

The Rotten Wooden Room is a relatively linear game where, fortunately, there are much more exciting places to visit than the room where you start. It's got nice graphics, and it's pretty clear what to do. The fantasy and text adventuring troops are pretty standard here. You find a pickaxe to dig at gems, you give magic items to magic beings and eventually, you have a happily-ever-after ending. It's quite pleasant, and although there is one bug that had me baffled, it's well organized enough and you don't have to guess the verb. The place with the bug, the author simply misplaced a door in another room, so you go to unlock the door where it should be, and it says it isn't there. It's a puzzle of its own, which isn't terribly unwelcome, since nothing else overtaxes your mind.

It was written for TALP, and the tutorial bit is adequate, explaining what to do and how to get started, and it helps you in bits and pieces all the way through. While it's not necessary, it's still refreshing to see this sort of follow-up. The author cares. Though it does come off feeling like a first work, because the author has the basics of what a text adventure is down, and they don't make any big mistakes, but besides the bit at the end which I found very nice, it doesn't really start to achieve personality. It's still a pleasant journey.

And it's a relatively linear one. There are only two rooms that branch, and as you'd expect, you find items in each dead end that help you move on other places. You're not going to get lost here. You can even dispense with examining and such a lot of the time, once you know what to do, and it's not hard to find your way through again. You wind up making one guardian flea and making another happy with a gift. There's rudimentary dialogue.

I'm glad the author stopped by to write this, even if it isn't a world beater. It's interesting to see the sort of things people with a more artistic background come up with (they have a nice portfolio of other stuff on itch,) as I sure couldn't brave going into an art jam for drawing stuff. I think this is much better than what I'd be able to do. When I replayed this, I remembered some of the images very quickly, such as the castle with the clouds. So while it may not blow you away, it's more enjoyable and has more substance than most games that place low. It's a bit of a shame the title made it seem potentially dreary, because it really isn't.