The Legend of Blackbrook Village

Update:
I was able to progress by downloading the file and playing it offline, but, ran into another game-breaking bug later in the game when directions gave me the same error as in the car. I do think this work has a lot of promise and an interesting premise, but I've removed my star rating for now until I can actually play through it.

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This game has an interesting premise and seems to create an appropriate tone, but completely falls apart in the first 2 minutes.

Leaving your house to start the story results in a bizarre situation: you have a car in the driveway, but no seemingly no ability to go anywhere. "Go to kitchen", compass directions, "get in car", "Drive car", all produce error messages. "Open door" seems to work--the story informs you that you're in the car, the engine is running, and Uncle Jacob's house is 30-minutes to the east--but that's it. You can keep typing "open door" or "x car", but nothing really happens.

It's a shame, because the author seems to have put a lot of work into this. I don't know if the version is bad, or if it's a placeholder for a forthcoming work, but I look forward to re-playing it when it's fixed.

As an aside, it could use a little copy editing; I'm not ruthless about typos but found several.

This one is a real shame - It has a lovely style & interface, including great sound & other effects to enhance the atmosphere (though the sound volumes seem to differ a lot). The writing is good (despite some spelling errors) and the story seemed genuinely intriguing leaving me really keen to see what was going to happen...

I like the way the author doesn't feel it necessary to describe *everything* in room descriptions, just the impression pertinent to the story.
Although, it could do with more descriptions of objects that can be examined, to make immersion richer.
The author has attempted to get away from using n-e-s-w directions, though oddly only for indoor locations.

Sadly though, from a technical point of view it has some game-breaking errors; In some places the directions seem to break leaving you in weird 'non-locations' or unable to progress. Some players couldn't even progress past the car at the beginning; I tried both browser and downloaded versions, and from the comments upon several sites couldn't find anyone who had been able to progress further than the village garden.

Less seriously, there are some errors where you can answer the same phonecall twice or 'open' doors already caved in; error messages appear for some unexpected commands and it reacts very badly to commands like 'look in'. It is also VERY picky about which verbs work for things you can do- For a sheet over an object you cant 'take' 'pick up' 'look under' 'move' or 'lift' the sheet - though you can 'remove' it! The same goes for other situations.
Some room descriptions are different the second time you enter, with different directions available, which the game doesn't respond to... whether this is an intentional part of the eventual storyline is impossible to tell.


Clearly a lot of time was put into what seems like a really engaging story; but as it stands it's a tragic testament to the importance of error-testing after all the hard work... Here's hoping some day a version comes out that can be experienced fully.