Earl Grey

I was hoping to like Earl Grey more than I actually did. The game's upper-class English writing style befitting a tea party is very well-done, and the characters are memorable. The game also gives you some of the protagonist's internal monologue after each move, which can clue you in to what to do next or (more often) give you a joke. I found the jokes to be a bit excessive later in the game, but there were some clever ones too ("You know, Eaves, it's not like I didn't have other options today. One of my friends offered to teach me to fish! I could have eaten for a lifetime!")

The game is a bit like a reverse Counterfeit Monkey. Here, you get to take letters out of things and transform them, then re-insert the letters. Confusingly, a few puzzles involve removing a letter, doing something, then putting the letter back where you found it. The opening has you do this twice in a row and I had no idea what happened differently between the two times -- the dialogue made me think I screwed up the puzzle and it was giving me another attempt. And the biggest problem I had with the game is how confusing some of the puzzles can be. They get really abstract or make use of things you don't think too much about.

There's a lot of potential with this game, but I found it a bit messy. David Welbourn's walkthrough is very helpful if you just want to read through the story without struggling with the more esoteric puzzles.