At Wit's End

In AWE, you are Jake Garrett, who plays center field for the Boston Red Sox. When the game opens, you are up to bat, and--of course--the game rides on your success. The first puzzle is fairly well hinted, I thought. If you fail to get it the first time, you do get a second chance, which is nice--and even losing is interesting: the message is "You have failed to be a hero"; very nice. Another interesting thing that I didn't notice until a couple of scenes in is that replacing the usual score display in the upper right corner is an emotion display, which changes as does your situation, and dependent on your solution of the puzzles.

The game did a good job of pacing and keeping the player motivated through the first few puzzles, and they were easy enough to solve without needing to load saves--sometimes, perhaps a little too easy, but only a little. As well, the writing was reasonably good and the story sufficiently engaging to keep me interested.

However, it wasn't without flaws. In the middle of the game (and the game is short--easily solved in a half hour if you don't get side-tracked) there wasn't quite enough hinting, I felt, to indicate which part of the puzzle I ought to be approaching next, so the game felt rather slow as I stumbled around trying to figure out just what should be done. As well, there was a puzzle whose solution was to eat; it was noted earlier that you are diabetic, and there are messages insisting that you are hungry and need to eat, but the food is just right there in the refrigerator, so it felt like nothing but a distraction.

But those are minor problems; removing the eating puzzle and tightening up the mid-game a bit would be easy and would answer most of my complaints. Unfortunately, there were several unintended random features that made the game annoying. A couple of items just kept disappearing from my inventory for no clear reason, which was frustrating. Also, after completing the game, I checked the walkthrough to see what the optimal ending was; but there was another bug that caused the optimal ending to be impossible to achieve unless you worked around it--I had to examine a person twice after completing the final puzzle, or the game proceeded as though I hadn't completed it.

(This review refers to the original competition entry. The bugs mentioned may have been fixed in the later version, but I have not checked.)

I really wanted to love this game. Thrown into the middle of an at-bat during the American League Championship Series, it has one of the better hooks I've seen, and I honestly would have played an entire baseball game coded by Sousa. Ultimately, however, this game can't decide what it wants to be and it left me deeply frustrated.

The first third of the game is well above average, as the first several sections are tense and well-paced. It has the feel of spy movie with exotic locations and contrived danger. But then came the barn.

Even if I could look past that a complex, multi-step puzzle feels entirely out of place in this otherwise frenetic game, the way it's coded is aggravating. At one point you must pour liquids into containers using a funnel, and you have to individually unscrew each cap, insert the funnel, pour the liquid, remove the funnel, screw on the cap, and repeat. And that's just one example of how the game needlessly complicates basic tasks. None of the puzzles are terribly difficult; they all make sense within context and the game will often push you in the right direction if you're on the right track. But there's...just...so...many...steps. Heaven forbid you have to restore back to an earlier point and redo the entire barn puzzle (yeah, that happened).

There's also some sloppy coding. Sometimes doors are described as closed when they're open. There's a door entrance that's apparently its own room, but only while going in one direction. And some fairly obvious synonyms are not programmed. But in other ways it's coded really well. With one or two exceptions, the game will let you know if you try to save in an unwinnable state.

I honestly feel bad being the only person so far giving this game less than three stars. There's a lot to like here, which is why I finished it despite my frustrations. But At Wit's End left me feeling as much.

This game is named appropriately, for two reasons.

First, it's about a series of unfortunate events. After a bright opening, the game quickly devolves into tragedy after tragedy. The writing is funny and fresh, and the situations made me laugh.

Second, though, the biggest section of the game is incredibly frustrating, with inventory limits, hunger puzzle, liquid measuring problems, etc.

I recommend playing through the first part, then using a walkthrough or the club floyd transcript.