The Day I mauled ...

This is the sequel to The Day I Shot Hitler, and is in many ways very similar. It too takes place at a New Year’s Eve party, in the same apartment as the last game, with the same main characters (and party guests?), and it looks like it’s based on the same source code. This isn’t necessarily bad, though, as it’s often fun to play a game taking place in the same setting as another, and to notice the various changes and similarities. The game is also structured the same ways as the last one, with three puzzles, which all basically go like this: Something bad happens. Paul, your boyfriend, asks if you can help, then promptly disappears and leaves you to clean up the mess. (But he’s cute, so we forgive him.)

The puzzles are both strange and somewhat humorous, and moderately difficult. Some of the difficulty lies in actually finding the objects you need to solve them, but one puzzle has a very bad case of ‘guess the verb’ syndrome as well. The rest of the game also feels rather under-implemented, with lots of objects mentioned in the room descriptions not being available for inspection (‘x object’) or action. But at least ‘xyzzy’ is now recognised (it was not in The Day I Shot Hitler)!

One thing which greatly distracts from the gameplay is the frequent references to the fact that you’re just playing a computer game, instead of being a character in a story. While this is not a realistic game, the game constantly reminding you that it’s just a game really pulls you out of the story. The large number of spelling and punctuation problems also have the same effect.

All in all, this is game on par with the first game in the series. I actually enjoyed playing it, partly because it was fun playing a sequel taking place in the same setting, partly because the game is rather humorous, and despite the bugs, spotty implementation, bad spelling and punctuation and the much too frequent references to IF games. I look forward to playing the third game in the series.