Hoosegow

As the other reviews make clear, this is a witty and entertaining game. It's certainly not the hardest game you'll play.

There are a number of particularly nice touches, beyond the clever setting and the splendid use of language. One is (Spoiler - click to show)the series of "alternate endings" you can see with the EASTER EGG command - a lot of fun. A more substantial strong point is the originality of the puzzles. I particularly liked the fact that the apparently obvious solutions to the various problems aren't, at all. (Spoiler - click to show)For example, you don't use the coffee to wake the preacher, you don't use the meat to distract the dog, and you don't use the key to open the cell door.

I did, however, encounter some bad guess-the-verbiage. (Spoiler - click to show)I worked out quickly that I should fix the stool with the tube, but finding the right choice of words for this took a long time - especially as I had used "fix" before and the game seemed to understand it. But not for this. I also tried to examine the deputy once I'd knocked him out, eventually having to resort to hints to find that only the verb SEARCH would give the desired results. Worse still are some apparent bugs and inconsistencies. (Spoiler - click to show)Trying to do actions that the game won't allow sometimes results in it telling you that the object is out of reach in the office, even when you're holding it. Trying to touch the deputy when he's lying in front of the bars returns the same message, even though he's certainly not out of reach.

A more minor matter is that despite the great writing, it's not entirely consistent. It struck me that while the "error" messages are written in cowboyese, the rest of the narration is not, which is a little odd.

So the game could certainly use a bit of smoothening up. Despite that, it's a lot of fun, a bit more original than your standard escape puzzle, and consistently witty. Certainly a worthy competition winner.