The Shivah

This is a fairly enjoyable adventure game, but very short and very linear. The visuals are lovely, but most locations feel as though they have the bare minimum of interactivity and flavour. The voice acting is very good. Some of the puzzles and mechanics are clever and gratifying, but are underused in such a short game. Other solutions defy common sense or feel slow and clunky to implement. Some trial-and-error gameplay leads to repeat conversations and sometimes even reloads and lengthy scene-skipping. Such a thing is expected from games, but is still unwelcome, slow, and clunky, especially when you're forced to mash the escape key through game over monologues and opening splash screens. This could have been easily avoided. The story and characters are compelling but ultimately the game feels unsatisfying. It does have an excellent Jewish flavour and a compelling protagonist but I question whether it is worth full price.

The idea had good potential, but the story is too short and shallow. The general appearance of the game and UI design is decent.

Apparently the dialogue-based combats in this game do follow some kind of pattern, but to me they felt very cryptic. The worst part is that when you fail them your character dies, you'll get thrown back to the start of the game, have to watch a short intro again and then load from your latest save file (don't panic! there are autosaves). The clue and inventory system don't feel as well made as in other Wadjet games, they're the same design but less functional it might help to keep a notepad next to you when playing.

A very predictable and anodyne story with no surprises and forgettable and implausible characters. The game mechanics are not bad, but the game is too short to take profit of them. The final confrontation is funny but, at the same time, very out of context. Not a really bad adventure game, but not the one I will replay or remember.

Having grown up on point & click games, it's nice seeing the genre get a resurgence nowadays. But most point & click games being done by small studios nowadays, a lot seems to ride on the plot of the game. Sadly with The Shivah, being Jewish, I'm far too close to the material to enjoy it. I simply can't avoid seeing all its faults. The story is interesting, dealing with a jaded rabbi investigating the murder of a congregation member he drove away, but it isn't dealt with in the most subtle of ways. The rabbi being more interested in kicking ass and taking names, and the game using a mouse pointer that spells out "chai", the game veers off into Hebrew Hammer territory. It doesn't help that the rabbi doesn't really feel like a rabbi. As if his part was written by someone who never actually met a rabbi. I tried to overlook the cartoony depictions, but I was never invested in the story - the game is simply far too linear & short. Getting stuck in this game isn't really possible, seeing as there is only so much you can do in it. And although this game isn't bad enough to be considered an interactive movie, it's damn near close. The game does try to appear non-linear by giving the game multiple possible endings, but only one of those endings is good. You are given the illusion of choice in this game, but you get to choose between two bad options. I constantly wanted to add a third option - to go the route a normal human being would go. The main character is simply far too crazy for me to be invested in his story. It could be chalked up to him battling his demons, but I get the feeling he wasn't all there to begin with. So all I had to enjoy was the murder mystery, which makes a basic mistake - turning an obvious suspect into the culprit. Funnily enough when murder mysteries are concerned, being proven right isn't fun.