I realize that this game's goal is almost entirely to tell a story, So I didn't really expect much from the gameplay. It should be simple and stay out of the way of the story. Unfortunately, it doesn't even manage to do that. The controls were probably the most obtrusive part of the game. You can either use the mouse or the keyboard most of the time, but it still never quite worked smoothly. The pathfinding for the mouse control is awful, and because the game takes place on a grid, the characters end up zigzagging around like monkeys on cocaine, often just stopping for no reason halfway to the point you clicked on. If you op to use the arrow keys instead, things go much smoother, though you give up the changing mouse icon to indicate things that can be examined/used. This really isn't much of a sacrifice, though, as it's usually pretty simple to find the objects you need to interact with. In between each "level" of the game, you are presented with a puzzle that you must solve to move on. These don't really change throughout the game apart from being slightly larger later on. They are simple, boring, and seem to serve no purpose other than to take you out of the story while you work through them. At least after a certain point the game seems to give up on them. I can only guess that the developers thought that we must be getting sick of it by then and had mercy. I did finish the game though, and I'm glad I did. As everybody says, the story is what it's all about, the music and art are great. If you enjoy this kind of introspective, minimal-challenge game, you will most likely see past the flaws and enjoy it. Unfortunately, in a reversal of what we usually see, it feels like a great story with a bad game hastily tacked on at the end.
I just finished playing through this game for the first time, and It was more than worth the price. Between the great variety of the gameplay and the absurd humor, this game delivers all the way through. My only complaints are that the base-building levels can be slightly repetitive, especially since there's little from one of them to the next to increase the difficulty or that requires an approach different from the last. Other than that, it was thoroughly enjoyable, and I'm glad to have had the chance to play it, having missed it when it came out.
