Retool Looter

After playing (and loving) another of Charm Cochran's games last year, I became really excited to see Retool Looter, and I wasn't disappointed. Counterfeit Monkey is an absolute classic in the genre, and this scratches that same itch. Without spoiling too much, the main idea in the game is that you use a word reverser to rescue your colleagues who have been disguised as objects. The built-in hint system (your person in the van, Kay, who had been turned into a yak) feels organic and helpful without being too much. I also love Val's commentary. The writing is really fun, and Kay's quirks never felt tired. I was extremely impressed with how smooth, seamless, and logical most of the puzzles were. There were many small details that show a level of polish I was delighted to discover and reward exploring and playing with the world. (For instance, *every object* has a texture. Love it!)

However, there were a few moments that I felt could have been addressed better. In a couple instances of conversation where you're given a numbered list with selectable prompts, after giving me the response, it would produce an error. Also, in a game where the puzzling was so intuitive -- impressive in a genre famous for needing to read the author's mind -- there were a few towards the end that really stumped me and I had to turn to a guide to solve. (For instance, I knew I had to (Spoiler - click to show)create a hammer with some of our collected materials, especially since the ATTACH verb was cued earlier, but even after I did so, it was unclear what to do with it. I don't believe making LOOTS was possible before, so I had to turn to a walkthrough for it. These are really minor criticisms here, though, notable only because the rest of it was so polished and intuitive. Another fantastic piece from Cochran, and I'm excited to see what'll come next!