Randal's Monday

Randals Monday is a point-and-click adventure game with too many difficult puzzles. I used the help function early on. A complete solution is built directly into the game. The programmers probably knew exactly why they had it built in. Otherwise there would have been too much frustration for the player. The dialogues are funny and the German speakers are professional. But unfortunately there is much too much of the dialogues. I never thought I'd play an adventure game where I'd click away all the dialogues at the end because they just annoy me. At the end of the game I simply didn't have any nerves anymore for the never-ending jokes, clambags and incessant allusions to pop culture, games and nerd culture. These points were the highlight of the game. In the beginning I had a lot of fun looking for all the allusions to my favorite movies and games. But it didn't stop. I was almost beaten to death. Here fits the old wisdom that less is more. Graphics and sound are fine. The game leaves the impression of a modern flash game from a browser. Up to the time I was in prison, the only thing that bothered me about the game was travelling between the scenes in the subway. Again and again the same animations. Fortunately it could be skipped. An overview map could have shortened a lot. The game made me really sad in the end, because I would have loved it so much.

This is a point-and-click adventure game with inventory and dialogue based puzzles. I felt that the puzzles were fair. I was able to play through the game without consulting a guide. The game provides a lot of hints in observations from the main character about what you need to be doing to achieve the next objective. The graphics, music, and sound effects all seem very well done. The music was enjoyable to listen to for the most part. The story is comical , making fun of a lot of sci-fi, gamer, and other pop culture references. There is a neat sci-fi element in reliving the same day over and over again and seeing how the choices the main character make change the timeline. There are several strong side characters that make multiple appearances. I would say the main negative is some crude and mean-spirited language from the main character, but this doesn't overwhelm the experience.

I Played this on steam years ago, was watching the trailer for the game for a year and was so hyped , Jay and Bilent Bob !!!!!! All those geeky throwbacks , but when i played the game it was so badly paced and boring that Last act i was speed clicking it and it was still too long. They had great idea but game is boring as hell (and i played all point and click adventures since especially from LucasArts , started around 92.)

Randall is a sarcastic slacker. He also has a lot of other issues such as kleptomania. This pretty much explains why Randal, after a night of wild drinking to celebrate his friend's pending marriage, takes said friend's ring after he accidentally it drops it in a alley. Now this would be bad enough on it's own, since he doesn't give it back right away, but it's even worse since this is a *magic-evil-I- what- I-want-ring*. Randal soon parts ways with the ring and finds that his world has gone a bit strange. He keeps waking up and it's Monday. Every day is Monday and every day his friend finds a new way to die since he thinks he lost the ring he was going to give his soon to be wife. Randal knows, now, that this has something to do with the ring and he needs to get it back. The ring doesn't want to come back though, it's having too much fun. What follows is a pop culture referencing, ground hog day / bedazzled mix, space time tearing romp through several Mondays as Randal desperately tries to stop screwing things up and get the ring. He may even learn a little. Don't get your hopes up. This was a good game. It's got a lot of references and quite a few are funny. How much you get out of it probably depends on how familiar you are with pop culture. There's quite a few Star Trek and Star Wars references that most will probably get. There is also quite a few video game references and 90's movie references that might be a little harder for some. This is also one of those games where you might want to play it with head phones on since the language can get a bit salty without warning. Beware the Jay and Silent Bob cameo. This is a T rated game at best and a M rated one on occasion. All in all it was a fun game to play through even though some of the puzzles can be a bit "really?" on occasion especially since the game keeps saying they are all logical. Thankfully there is a built in tip system. If your looking for a funny game give this a shot.

This game could easily have been 5 stars, wasn't it for the fact the developer intentionally puts the player into uncomfortable situations where performing antisocial actions are the only way to progress the game further. It's clear they have copied various parts of other games, like monkey island and day of the tentacle, but with poor implementation. As example [spoiler] you have to get an item on the roof of a building, but a few pigeons are standing in the way. This is much like in monkey island 1 with the guard dogs. In monkey island you can give them some modified food, which would make them go to sleep. The developer makes certain that the player is aware the dogs are sleeping, by showing a popup window. In this game however, you need to give the pigeons food, but add rat poison. This obviously kills the pigeons and the developers makes certain the player is aware they are indeed dead by stating this in a similar popup window. Obviously this is not only unnecessary, but also ridiculous, as pigeons are hardly dangerous creatures. The animal cruelty is visible in various parts of the game, like where you have to throw a hammer at a koala bear to get an item. It's however not only animals, as assaulting/killing people to progress the game seems also very normal. Another issue with the game is that you often are in the situation where only 1 single action would progress the game, but it's unclear what this would be. This results in aimlessly running around the whole game trying everything until the next bit of the game unlocks. The game is not that difficult, but some of the puzzles are just not very logical. You can figure them out when putting enough effort in trying stuff. Overall however the graphics and the overall story of the game is pretty good and in itself has huge potential. It's therefore a shame that certain parts of the game spoil it all. In its current form I can't really recommend it.