Watch Over Christmas

What a wonderful old-school point-and-click adventure game! It has all the key elements to make it fun: plenty of things to do, places to go, and fully voiced characters to interact with. All art is hand-painted and remind me of the classic LucasArts games. Dialogs are well-written, and the story is entertaining. Although this is mostly targeting a younger audience, I had plenty of fun playing it. The puzzles were fun, where most were trivial, but some will get some thinking to solve. Most of the objects you need to solve a puzzle are either nearby, or in nearby locations. And hold and behold - there is almost no backtracking! At least to me, this was one of those games I played longer than I should, and was eager to return to it the next day. I have completed it in 16 hours, so it's not a long game, but also not a short one. I recommend it for all lovers of point-and-click adventure games.

Perhaps, like me, you grew up on 2D adventure games and, like me, have struggled to find that retro vibe as an adult. Attempts to reconstruct the genre tended to be 'not it'. Watch Over Christmas, although a relatively simple game, is 'just that'. Gorgeous, modelled on the classics of the genre, at times reminding me a little of Simon The Sorcerer (although aimed at a decidedly younger player) it made me fall in love in the run-up to Christmas. Is it perfect? No, but it does bring back perfect memories.

So, if you worked on this game...some of this might seem a bit harsh. (Stop reading if you're sensitive and worked on this game.) The game is mostly fair, some of the puzzles aren't well designed. I'll name as many as I can remember, there's a paint mixing puzzle which in reality has about 7 solutions but the game wants you to pick the one solution the game designers had in mind. There's a smoke signaling puzzle, that makes sense when you figure out what it's doing but is un-necessarily difficult by its crude, unreadable drawings that are necessary to be read to solve. There's a maze puzzle, where the rooms to the maze change orientation, you briefly get a top o view of the entire maze, and all it's rooms when the rooms change their orientation, but they don't actually line up like they do when navigating the maze. This is again rather un-necessary... Most puzzles are reasonable. Some weren't executed as well as they could have been. The voice acting... most of it is decent... Not to be malicious but, the main protagonist, I didn't particularly enjoy this performance. It was too "WA-WAAA-I--OLDDD!!!" (wild) for me. Every line of dialogue was, "GGAAA EEEE ZZZZZZEEEE, LEEEETSSSSS GGGAAAA-E-ITTTT CKRAZEEEEE!" (Geeze, let's get crazy) Nothing against you, if you're reading this, whoever voiced the character, I'm sorry but I literally had to get drunk to sit through it. I tried muting it but turned out I missed hearing other voices. Honestly, I think the voice is why I needed a break from the game. I finished it eventually. I'm sorry, I just didn't vibe with it at all. (Not everyone has the same criticism) After getting drunk twice I got used to it. The game is a good length, just when you think it might be over, it goes on even longer. It keeps you hooked enough but honestly, it nearly dragged on. (Ok, is it done yet?) The Graphics are well drawn mostly. It captures the XMAS spirit. It's not a bad game but I find find certain parts a lil frustrating.