Vacation Gone Awry

The premise of this game looked interesting. I certainly wanted to know what happened to the player character's family. So I began playing, and soon discovered what I've taken for granted playing modern IF - intuitive command entry. It should be noted that I did not grow up with text adventures. I have no nostalgia for tedious gameplay, timed puzzles, and constant restoration. My intro to IF were games like Photopia, The Moonlit Tower, and Glowgrass. All excellent works, I might add.

I will say now that I have not finished this game and do not intend to. It is just too frustrating a prospect since I was already banging my head against a wall before even making it past the first puzzle. I did eventually solve it when I realized it was timed and I'd seen what to avoid, but it was a lot of trial and error. I do not consider that a worthy expenditure of effort or time. Every step forward presented a new problem for which I couldn't think of a ready solution without experimentation, and continuing in that vein to reach an end that might not be worth it is just not my idea of fun.

I don't like writing negative reviews. I wanted to enjoy this more. But the genre, choppy parsing and puzzles that I did not find intuitive combined to finally have me giving up on the game.