Adventure in the Crypt

Like several other games in this archaeology-themed competition, this has a mash-up of different cultures, with a Sherpa guiding us into an Egypt-like crypt that includes Meso-American iconography.

It uses what seems to be a custom system used once before by this author (MAD Candy Interactive Fiction Studio). It has several good features (visually nice-looking, can save etc.) but could use some more strong features (like being able to easily repeat commands).

The game centers around the same puzzles 4 or so times in a row with slight variations each time. I was surprised that the difficulty didn't increase and that there wasn't as much variety. There was a hard puzzle for me, but that's because I didn't examine all scenery and had trouble with the parser.

I did have some struggle with the parser, especially with things like the piano keys (the F key, for instance, can't be called F or Key or F Key but has to be called F Bone).

Overall, I feel pretty neutral about the game. There's a consistent plot but not a strong plot arc; there's helpful parser features but some basic parser elements that are weak; there are interesting puzzles but most are rendered moot by using the same elements over and over. So, pretty much neutral.