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Review
This is a very large game, with a lot of puzzles. But none of the puzzles felt especially cool. The game felt to me like an affordable all-you-can-eat buffet, where you can eat your fill of decent but unmemorable food.
Most of my feedback here is negative; I think I'd give it four stars if issues like the ones below were fixed.
Searching and looking under everything is painfully dull
The game begins with this "note for the player":
This adventure game is very much "old school" in that the gameplay involves having to SEARCH objects and/or LOOK BEHIND, IN or UNDER objects to find objects that you will need during the game. You might also have to EXAMINE WALL to find something on it. The game is also quite long and there is the possibility of sudden death. There is also some mild adult content.
If you do not like this style of adventure gameplay then regrettably this game may not be for you.
I don't think it's right to characterize this approach to SEARCH as "old school." None of the Zork games use the verb SEARCH. A few Infocom games like Ballyhoo support SEARCH as an alternate way to LOOK IN something that's obviously a container, but you never need to SEARCH stuff to find something hidden.
I generally object to SEARCH as a "puzzle" mechanic because it's inherently boring. Most parser games already require you to exhaustively EXAMINE every notable thing in every room. In games that require SEARCH, there's usually no clue/hint about what you need to search, so you just have to SEARCH everything after you've EXAMINEd it. What's the point?
I've said elsewhere that, in my opinion, a good puzzle solution should be surprising but inevitable in hindsight. Ideally, I won't immediately see the solution to the puzzle, but once I figure out the solution, I'll slap my forehead and say "ah, I should have known!" SEARCH puzzles are never like that. Once I know that the solution is to SEARCH every notable object, finding something when I SEARCH is never surprising or delightful.
But this game makes it that much worse, because you don't just have to SEARCH everything. You also have to LOOK UNDER and LOOK IN things, when SEARCH should have accomplished that.
In Longhouse
You are in the village longhouse, where the people of Starhollow gather for socialising. There are lots of tables, chairs and benches for people to sit on. Double doors lead Out to the lane outside and the kitchen is to the West.> x tables
What villagers sit at when eating meals or playing games, etc. On one of the tables you see some food.> search tables
You search the tables but find nothing of interest.> look under tables
You look under one of the tables and find a length of thin rope, which you pick up.
You can't get out of the starting village of Starhollow without finding a bunch of mandatory items this way. It makes interacting with the game feel like a huge slog. Every time you see a thing, you must first EXAMINE it, then SEARCH it, then LOOK IN/LOOK UNDER it, over and over and over. When I got stuck, it usually turned out that there was something I'd remembered to SEARCH but forgotten to also LOOK at using the right preposition.
The sex scene is not for everybody (perhaps hardly anybody)
About 60% of the way through the game, you'll encounter a mermaid, silently beckoning to you as she swims underwater. You can't follow her at first; you have to solve a puzzle to get to her underwater grotto.
When you get to her grotto, she gives you an important quest item. Then, she magically turns her tail into legs, and immediately and automatically has sex with you, in a "fade to black" sex scene with no detail or interactivity.
(Spoiler - click to show)Underground Grotto
You are standing in a grotto deep underground. The mermaid that you saw earlier is sitting on a rock nearby. The walls of the grotto sparkle from thousands of jewels that are embedded in the rock. The water in the grotto glows brightly with a soft white light that reflects off the walls of the grotto.
"Welcome to my grotto," the mermaid greets you in a bubbly kind of voice. "I expect you are wondering why I asked you here?" she says, enigmatically.
"Yes," you reply. "I did wonder why I am here?"
"I know why you are here, Alyas of Starhollow," she tells you. "The thief has taken the Pipe of Rummkub to the sorcerer who lives in the castle aboveground, the evil Xarkzis. If you wish to defeat him and recover the Pipe, you will need this charm, the Amulet of Acara, as protection against magic spells."
She takes an amulet from where it was hanging on a thong around her neck, hands it to you and you hang it around your neck. "Whatever you do, never take it off," she warns you.
Your eyes then go wide as her fish-like tail shimmers mysteriously and transforms into two shapely legs. She gets to her feet, walks over to you and puts her hands around your neck.
"Now, Alyas of Starhollow; I am Thalassa and I am in need of a man," she says, kissing you on the lips and pressing her voluptuous naked body against yours, evoking an instant reaction from yourself. You then retire to Thalassa's chambers and fulfil her needs.
After a couple of hours of love making you both fall asleep.
When you wake up, you find yourself laying on the grass by the round pond next to your clothes. You get to your feet and put them on.
I don't think this level of adult content will please anybody.
I think many players will be turned off by automatically having sex with a mermaid we just met, without even a "(y/n)" question to decide whether to participate.
Players who do find this sexual encounter rewarding will prefer more explicit detail. Adult IF is a thing people enjoy; if you want to write it, then write it. But a "fade to black" sex scene that starts by surprise and ends on a single, non-interactive page is, I claim, nobody's cup of tea.
Even the bit of detail we get about this scene only characterizes the mermaid as an object of sexual desire. Is Alyas sexy? If so, the game has literally nothing to say about that. If you're not into having sex with women, there is nothing for you here.
I think the author intended this scene to be a "reward" to the player for playing this far, but I found it unrewarding. Anyone who wants romance in their AIF, anyone who wants explicit detail in their AIF, anyone who wants interactivity in their AIF, and anyone who's not into sex with women will be unrewarded.
Cruel, perhaps accidentally
The game has hundreds of rooms; the map is divided into zones. Progressing to the next "zone" is normally the primary objective in each area.
Leaving the first zone, the village of Starhollow, the game's narrator intervenes, refusing to let you leave unless you have all of the mandatory items. ("There's something that was in your yort that you haven't got.")
But the game will cheerfully let you forget to bring objects from the very next zone. You can just miss the ball of string, hop on a ferry to the far side of the lake, and you'll be completely stuck, unable to finish the game, and unable to figure out why you can't finish the game.
This is so "cruel" in the Zarfian Cruelty Scale that I think it may have been a bug. If the narrator had said "There's something in the woods that you haven't got" when trying to board the ferry, that would have made the game much better.
