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Wes Garden's Halting Nightmare Reviews
Author: Jubell
Date: 2010
ADRIFT 4.0
Reviewed by Lumin
This game. This freaking game. While I’m glad Jubell’s going to get his free
copy of Adrift and all, he really should have saved it for the Summer
Comp...unregistered limitations and all, I think it still would’ve given some of
us more experienced Drifters a run for our money. I loved everything about this.
Well, okay, I admit thought the whole ’Soul Scythe’ things sounded like
something out of a cheesy action game, but everything else--the intro and the
writing, the genuinely creepy rooms and mindscrew plot, and of course the
amazing art and music, just blew me away. I even loved that I still had no idea
what was going on at the end. Usually that’s something that would annoy me a
little, but here it’s a strength...I was SO glad it didn’t all wrap up neatly
with a pat ’but it was alllll in his head’ or whatever ending.
The limitations of the unregistered version did show up in a few cases, (mostly
when I was getting drawn into a trippy room description but not being able to
examine something that seemed prominent) so I’m really hoping that in addition
to a sequel, the author might be able to go back and flesh this one out a little
once they’ve got their shiny new full version. And though this one’s more a
matter of personal taste, it also seemed like there was a lot of plot
railroading, long cutscenes and such popping up every couple of minutes. Though
once again, even though it’s something I don’t always care for, in this case I
might call it a good thing because it allowed so much plot and content to be
crammed in despite the limits and made the game seem a lot larger than it
actually is. (I noticed you made good use of conversation topics as well, which
is also a good trick in this kind of situation.)
The one and only thing I would have to say I definitely didn’t care for were the
combat aspects - the fact is I simply hate hate hate Adrift’s default combat
system and have never seen it used in a good way. I found it yanked me out of
the story here too, and finally after being killed half a dozen times in the
first fight (my own hits never seeming to do any damage) I got frustrated and
changed the opponent’s stats in the generator, which let me move past that part
but may or may not have caused a bigger problem later.
For the second fight, I got the message saying I was being attacked, but nothing
happened (I was alone in the room) and since I couldn’t trigger the end of the
fight I wasn’t able to progress any further after that. I can’t say with any
kind of confidence that it was a bug, because there’s a good chance I broke
something with my meddling earlier, but even if it was, the game up until that
point was amazing enough to more than make up for it. Happily I was able to sort
of experience the last few scenes by following along with the walkthrough and
the generator anyway, and the ending did not disappoint. Really, really, REALLY
looking forward to whatever this author decides to write next.
Reviewed by Lumin (2)
Maybe I'm just a sucker for mindscrew plots and hand drawn art and ominous music
in an IF game. Made with the unregistered version of ADRIFT 4 (which severely
restricted the number of objects, locations, etc.) and by a first time author to
boot, I was absolutely not expecting this to be as entertaining and well made as
it was.
This game contains some really nice
writing, the intro draws you right in, and there is just so much trippy, surreal
imagery here that I'm not sure how a previous reviewer arrived at a comparison
to 'an episode of Buffy'. Just about every location is so unsettling,
disjointed, and...well, nightmarish, as the title implies, that I was literally
half expecting a cop out 'but it was aaaaalll just a dream' at any point. As it
is, nothing seemed fully explained, but there is a lot of
plot to sort through and the ending points at a sequel.
I did run into a problem with a segment that made use of the much-maligned
ADRIFT combat system, definitely the weakest point of the game and a disruption
to the pacing that took me out of the story (and cost the author a star), but in
the end I still can't help but love this game for all the things it does right
and how unique it is, and if Jubell really is working on a sequel, I'll be the
first in line to play it.
Reviewed by Duncan_Bowsman
Wes Garden's Halting Nightmare is an interesting game with, if I recall, some
surrealistic neo-pagan themes on identity, and its own "eye candy" graphical
style (although it is clearly not AIF). Might not be everyone's cup o' Joe. Some
of the interaction in the game is a little difficult or obscure at points, but
for a first game I thought it was a stellar effort.
Perhaps I'm a little biased, as I did provide some assistance in beta-testing.
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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