Here is a snippet of experience. Within the first ten minutes of playing the game, I was stumped on a puzzle that required me to steal an item from an old man's residence. Seems simple enough. The problem? The solution requires the old man leaving for a short while, and the player is given no actions to control this. Entering and exiting his residence several times, fiddling around with items in other areas, and finally taking an in-game nap were all suggestions I read IN DIFFERENT GUIDES. Let me be clear here: there is no solution. It is completely arbitrary. The game doesn't bother attempting to hint at the fact that the old man even has the capability to leave, and since we are all very used to the idea of completely immobile NPC's in even modern games, it wouldn't be far-fetched to think that the solution would never occur to you. And so you wait, you fiddle, you revisit every other screen numerous times, try this object with that verb, all in a tiresome and fruitless manner so typical of adventure games until you happen upon the solution and think to yourself, "SERIOUSLY?" Oh, the endless disappointment. If I sound jaded and frustrated, I am both. Games like this have led me to feel this way. There is a mature and interesting narrative underneath the puzzle mechanics, yes. But the aforementioned example is just the *first* in a long line of time-wasting, illogical design choices you will suffer through. My advice: read the short story, skip the game.
