IFReviewed by
Andrew Plotkin on 2006-07-01 04:18
I liked this one a lot. It's a Musician Game, only it's also a Lovecraftian horror game, and the author just has piles of fun with the combination. Deft sense of humor and some genuinely great lines.
The puzzles are a little vague in places -- I had to look at the walkthrough a couple of times; but I didn't feel like I had to play from it continuously. There are multiple solutions to most of the puzzles that might get you stuck.
A lot of the plot is held together by twists of the form "Once you find out you need something, it happens to appear elsewhere in the game." This is confusing, particularly if it's obvious that you need it long before the protagonist figures it out. Most of the places I got stuck were of this form.
On the other hand, a few were just wacky verbs. The game could use a few more command synonyms. And it wasn't helped by Alan's somewhat persnickety parser. (It won't accept "scrap" for "scrap of cardboard", because it thinks "scrap" is a mere adjective.) Don't even get me started on the limp Mac port, which seems to freeze up completely when the output buffer reaches 32K.
But, technical details aside, an entertaining story and a good game.
One other note. Yngvie is a louse. Not a rat. Sir.