I took the demo because I saw a gameplay on youtube and it seemed fun to play. The game concept is very interesting, the graphics are cool and I really enjoyed playing it, but after a week or so I've exhausted it. Of course, it's only a demo, but I didn't see that much of margin for improvement. I mean, you see there is a basement where (in the final product) you could build your own laboratory, but it doesn't look like it would add that much to the gameplay. I understand they're still working on it, so it's possible that new content will be added, but it has to be some major addition for this to be worth a full price. As is, I'd say it's a nice mobile game that I could enjoy while killing time in the metro or something like that, but not much more.
I had two runs on this game. The first time I got very annoyed, because I had the feeling I've missed two puzzles in a row, so I stopped playing. I'm a fan of Lucas Arts adventure games and I really hate games having dead ends. So I searched on internet, but I found the game doesn't actually have dead ends: missing a puzzle only leads to one of several possible endings. I gave it a second try, this time with the proper mindset, and I found myself playing until 5:40 a.m! The story is on the same verve of Beneath the Steel Sky: the dilemma between man and machine; allthough I've found it more engaging, with more relatable characters. The puzzles are mostly fair, although a couple of them are quite far fetched, but you can always ask crispin for hints so you won't get stuck. Towards the end, I wished the game were a bit longer, since there are many locations that are only named but you could never visit. Another slightly annoying thing is that an event sometimes will make some object available in a place you've already searched. Fortunately, if you ask Crispin he will always direct you toward the correct path. Overall, a great adventure that you're going to play several times, in order to see the different endings. Highly recommended.
The graphics and the overall tone of the game is quite cartoonish are very pleasing, on the same verve of the Curse of Monkey Island. The puzzles are interesting and sometimes very challenging (you can skip them, by the way), the story is enjoyable but nothing spepcial. The are some glithces from time to time, but they don't affect the playability at all. I personally hated the guy singing during the intermissions, I guess it's part of a joke but I don't get it. It's just annoying. Overall, a well made game, still not at the same level as other classics from Lucas Arts etc. If you loved The Curse of Monkey Island, though, you're going to like this one for sure.
On a first glance, the game looks simple. It is not. It pushes you to make decisions on the spot, no looking back, and then it punishes you for that. You will face so many situations that are just unfair, like you have to have already died several times there in order to know how to save your but. And you're going to die a lot. Still, you're going to try it out one more time, and die again two steps further. Rinse and repeat. It's a strange feeling of love/hate that will definitely get you entangled.
The game is essentially the same as the original, the enhanced graphics are just the original ones with a bilinear filter on top of it, i.e. they are worse. There is also a new intro that makes the game crash about 50% of the times, especially if you launch it from the GOG interface. I've contacted the support service and, although the guy has been very nice to me (even more than I deserved, I'd say...) he just said I had not enough dedicated VRAM to run the game and otherwise had no clue on how to fix my problem. Now, my point is: 512 MB of dedicated memory is a silly requirement for what's essentially a video game from the '90s. In fact, the intro is a normal video I can watch on my media player (by the way, who cares about the intro?) and once the game gets past it without crashing, I can play it no problem. In the end, I've got the original game for free from another source and played it on a DOSBox without problem. You should do the same. I mean, I'm a software engineer and I can say it's just a poorly developped product, even if you have enough memory and the game won't crash on your PC, they just don't deserve your money. I know it's less than 1€, but it's less than 1€ that your thouwing to the bin.
I actually like this game, even more than expected. The plot is simple and quite on the comedy side. It goes like a parody of 80's TV series (à-la Magnum P.I. for example). There are many silly situations, but those series didn't take themselves too seriously in the first place, so you kind of adjust to it. But from time to time they drop a joke that's plain nonsensical and you find yourself laughing at it. I mean, the same joke in a game like Day of the Tentacle wouldn't have the same effect, because the whole game is full of demential humour, but in this game it catches you off guard. The puzzles are quite easy, some of them you just have to talk yourself through. I think I've finished it in one week end, but hey! I got it for free, so I totally enjoy it.
The puzzles oftetimes don't make any sense, which is OK due to the nature of the game. The problem is, since you don't know what you're doing, you're forced to try every option. This will lead you to die a lot, which kind of hinder your willingness to try every option... Also, many puzzles rely on timing and/or positioning. If you don't do things exaclty how they're supposed to be done, the trick wouldn't work and sometimes you will even punished for that. This will lead you to think you're on the wrong path even though you were actually correct. Moreover, the controls are quite dumb and this will only increment the chances to mess up with puzzles. I know at its time it was a novelty and people loved it, but for me (who's grown up with Lucasfilm adventure games) it's been quite a frustrating experience.
I've played this game when I was a kid and when I tried the GOG version I felt something was odd, although at first I didn't get what it was. Then I saw a video comparison between VGA and EGA versions and I got the problem. The talkie part is actually quite good: I like the scottish accent of the shepherds and all. But the close-ups of the faces during dialogs are missing, the musics are missing... I mean, most of the nostalgia is gone. What actually made me ring a bell was Bobbin's cry when he got caught by the tornado. Bedides being quite odd by itself, it's repeated twice when he got captured by he dragon. In fact, that entire cut scene has been butchered and really felt out of place. I ended up unninstalling it and getting the EGA version by other means.
The story is surely interesting, but the game itself is not as much enjoyable. Locations are quite empty and there is not much you can do at any moment. So you spend most of your time travelling from a location to another (which takes a lot time, especially since you can't skip many animation sequences) with no clue on how to advance. Some puzzles are quite obscure, sometimes they will disclose totally unrelated locations at the other side of the city without notice, other times they will require a certain character to be at some place at a given moment to work (which is not particularly difficult to achieve, but when you're not sure of what you're doing it just adds an extra layer of difficulty). Moreover, you can suddenly die at any time without warning, which is quite frustrating if it's been a while since you've last saved the game.
