Pharaoh

This is a relatively brief PunyInform game inspired by the start of the TV series Otherworld, and 8-episode miniseries that takes a family to another world.

Only the intro and a few puzzles are implemented. Most of it is implemented fairly well; I saw few typos. The game is a bit sparse; I imagine that having watched the series allows you to mentally fill in a lot of the missing details.

I had some implementation issues, as shown in the two following segments:

(Spoiler - click to show)
> x tools
Mostly made of wood, are now useless.

> search tools
No need to concern yourself with that.

> take tools
No need to concern yourself with that.

> take all
There are no things available that match “take all”.

> x corner
It’s very messy. It might be worth searching through the mess.

> search mess
Sorry, I don’t understand what “mess” means.

> search corner
You search through the mess in the corner and find a crowbar.


(Spoiler - click to show)
> pry sarcophagus
Using the crowbar you manage to push the lid aside so you can search
the inside.

> search sarcophagus
The big sarcophagus contains a box.

> open box
You can’t open that.

> take box
Taken.

> look at box
It consists of a wooden box. It feels like there’s something inside.

>



Besides this sort of thing, this was well-scoped and not too hard to handle. It would kind of be fun to see a one-room game from this author; they have the sort of writing and puzzle style that I think would work well with a single room with a lot of little puzzles.

The implementation in this game was frustrating throughout and made it very rough to play. I was able to finish only by reading the spoilers in MathBrush's review; before that I was hopelessly stuck on how to open the sarcophagus. Some other issues were the game telling me "this painting looks like the other one you saw" when I hadn't yet seen another one, and (Spoiler - click to show)being able to put the fuse in the junction box despite the box being closed and locked. I think this could be an enjoyable escape room game; it just needs to be made more player-friendly.