The River of Blood

I always enjoy seeing more Adventuron games, because it's a good new system, and the Adventuron community is serious about producing creative games with neat graphics. The River of Blood is no exception. It's well-suited for a 4-hour competition and well planned out, well beyond being able to type "U" for upstream and "D" for downstream.

You are dead and traveling through the afterlife, or something close to it, in a river of blood you can't escape. Items float by. You can go downstream to pick them up. There's also a Grim Reaper who approaches periodically--mostly for dramatic effect. It sometimes randomly killed me, but I was able to undo it.

If you do things in time, you find who you are. But if not, you die for-real. The time limit seems fair. There's one neat clue that changes slowly as time goes by. The first time, I missed a clue I should have seen. And when I won a second time, I realized I hadn't seen everything. Examining objects can provide even more clues as to who you are--though some must be examined after doing things.

I really like the retro feel of this game--the low-res graphics are quite effective, and detailed pictures would feel like overkill--and the red/white/black motif feels quite nice and economical, too. The sound also feels comfortable and old-school. It's quickly replayable so you can see everything and made up of low-pressure Halloween thrills.