Customer Reviews

Scratches: Directors Cut

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

In the independently developed Scratches, you play as Michael Arthate, a British horror writer who's hard-pressed to finish his sophomore novel. In an attempt to seek inspiration, you arrange to stay at a dilapidated Victorian manner in the English countryside. The next three days will change your life forever. If I had to sum up Scratches in one word, it would be dark. Dark ambiance, dark motivations, dark secrets await you.

The game is set in the year 1976, and during the course of your investigations you'll revisit the shocking past of Blackwood Manor. Feverish dreams (or are they reality?) keep you from sleeping, and there are sounds that can't be explained away by creaky old houses. You are drawn deeper and deeper into the mystery of James Blackwood and his misfortunes. The only sound in the manor is the grandfather clock, the squeak of ancient stairs, and your lonely footsteps...until night falls.

The game's Argentinian creators Agustín Cordes and Alejandro Graziani are horror fanatics, and their devotion to their craft shows in loving homage to Lovecraft and Easter Eggs that poke fun at other adventure games. Scratches truly shines in creating a foreboding (dare I say downright evil??) atmosphere without gore. At times, the horrifying music by Cellar of Rats makes your hair stand on end when you realize that you're not alone. Every small nuance has been seen to, from the reflection of light in cut crystal to the trinkets that line the house. Blackwood Manor is almost an art museum, what with the numerous reproductions of famous paintings. Although the prerendered environments are lush and lifelike, the animations left a lot to be desired, but hey, this is an independent developer's first game, so I'm not going to fault them on that. Like many horror games, there are "standard" areas to explore, like a crypt, chapel, greenhouse, cellar and garage (after playing Scratches, you might avoid going into your basement for a while). You may also recognize a familiar name in the credits: Jonathan Boakes, famed creator of Dark Fall: The Journal and Dark Fall: Lights Out.

Although some reviewers complain that the first third of the game moves very slowly (you are mainly exploring the manor at this point), I found the pacing to be brilliant. Little clues gradually emerge as you scour the house looking for candles on your first night...stacks of old newspapers and faded scraps of paper start to raise questions. You're able to phone several outside sources for help as the game progresses: your friend Jerry, your secretary Barbara, and two other surprise guests that are directly involved in Blackwood Manor's shady past.

The puzzles are largely intuitive and inventory-driven (no combination locks or devilish slider puzzles, thank goodness). The inventory management is adequate, but you do acquire a bloated inventory by game's end, with no way to get rid of extra objects.

Scratches: Director's Cut features a patch, but I still found mouse performance to be severely laggy on an above-minimum-specs laptop, and a very frustrating lag on opening any doors that resulted in minute-long lockups every time I tried to enter or exit a room. Otherwise, I didn't run into any crashes or other bugs.

This is the Director's Cut, which features improved resolution on the prerendered graphics, an alternate ending, and an additional brief chapter called The Final Visit, where you visit Blackwood Manor in the present day shortly before it's to be demolished. If you don't already own Scratches, this is the version to get.

Fans of horror and adventure will enjoy Scratches. If you like Scratches, also check out indie Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle. Nucleosys is to be commended on a job well done!

Don't let the person who gave this game one star sway you. The game will be very boring if you don't even try to solve one of the puzzles, which he obviously did. Yes, you can wander around the house for an hour and have nothing happen if you do just that; wander around the house doing nothing. And (to address another of his complaints) on a normal computer it will install in a few moments, just like any other computer game. My computer is a mediocre one from four years ago, nothing special at all, and I was able to install both discs in well under five minutes with no confusion at all.
If this is your first attempt with an adventure/puzzle game you might end up bored and frustrated as it might be a little too much for you. But don't let that stop you from trying! If you get stuck and feel yourself getting upset just go to Google and search for one of the many helpful Scratches walkthroughs and look up what you're supposed to be doing next. No harm in that and then you can move on to the next part of the game.
You eventually have to go to sleep (after you're done exploring) before anything creepy starts to happen, so that is probably why that other reviewer thought nothing ever happens.
Good game overall if you know what you're doing.

Like other gamers, I really wanted to like this game. I love adventure games, especially the spooky kind, and the challenge and slow pace of them is something I relish. But this game made so many obnoxious design mistakes, I gave up halfway through and used a walkthrough just to see what would happen. Things that in my book are unforgiveable design sins:

1. Red herrings. It's very annoying to have the game point something out to you, especially something that looks like it should open, or move or otherwise function, and then never enable you to DO anything with it. If you're like me, you waste a ton of time revisiting it, trying in vain to make it do something.

2. Ignoring established game logic. Early on in a game, you figure out the logic of the game world - what sorts of things are interactive, which aren't, how you can move, etc. When a designer changes these rules late in the game, it creates confusion. This example is the annoying flip side of the above issue. I'm thinking here of a specific instance in the game wherein I tried to interact with something no less than 8 times with no result. (the player voiceover even said something along the lines of, "I don't EVER want to have anything to do with that!") Being totally stuck later on in the game, I looked for a hint and the hint was to - you guessed it - interact with the thing that up till then, had done nothing.

3. Ignoring common sense. All I can say here is "who the hell willingly climbs into a crematorium-sized furnace?" Or if a person is investigating a mystery and finds a trove of informational papers but is only allowed to read one of them, would s/he think it's possible to come back and read more later? (see game world logic)

4. Ignoring established player motivation: Having had the player character insist multiple times that he refused to leave the house until the mystery was solved, a puzzle solution shouldn't then be contingent upon him leaving.

5. And lastly...persnickety/redundant puzzle solutions. If you already have a rag in your inventory, you shouldn't have to find an equivalent but DIFFERENT rag to complete a puzzle.

The designers often seemed not to take the time to consider what they to might actually do in the situation and instead invented contrived circumstantial puzzles that were just irritating to figure out. All told, this game was an exercise in frustration and I was severely disappointed.

I really wanted to like this game, but I eventually found the problems I had with it over-rode any enjoyment I was getting.

The setting was gorgeous, the storyline spooky, and the music (something that will often bother me) was completely appropriate.

However, the controls were wonky and the panning (even on the highest setting) was unforgivably slow. I am a hard-core adventure game fan, but this tried my patience to the point that I gave up on the game, something I have never done. It was getting to the point that I could get up and make myself a sandwich before the game panned to where I needed it to be to get to another room. The game offers a feature to correct for this - which I tried - but I couldn't use it, as it rendered the game virtually unnavigable.

It really is a shame. If the game had been set up like Darkfall (it reminded me a great deal of both Darkfalls) as far as navigation is concerned, I could easily see it being one of the best adventure games I had played in a while. But, unfortunately, I cannot handle feeling out of control of my game, and this was the case here. I would stop my mouse at the place I needed the pointer to stop, and the pointer would swing wildly past that point. Opening doors (once I made it to them) became a massive chore.

I sadly cannot recommend this game for anyone with my level of patience or lower. And I really feel bad about that.

"Scratches" is my first horror game and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure if I like it. I hoped I would, but hoping doesn't make things happen. "Scratches" takes place in England during three strange days inside an old house. You take on the role of a writer who becomes intrigued with the strange stories surrounding the place.
When I first started playing, I was disappointed. I didn't think the game was scary. You were exploring an old house where you found dark accounts in some diaries. I didn't think it was much of a horror game. But now...
A little about the house. There are some strange...and downright evil...pictures on the walls (and some more in an old room.) It also began to have a strange atmosphere. Spooky...maybe...but that's not all. Whatever it is, it can be uncomfortable.
The first day is a bad start, because nothing really happens and it doesn't give a good first impression of the game; especially if you're looking for something scary. The first night is when you first hear scratching. However, the scratching wasn't emphasized enough in the game. [WARNING! Spoilers ahead!] Inside, the game focuses on an evil mask. A word of warning; near the end of the game, you must make an amulet out of some ingredients found around the manor. I had a problem with this since it seemed sort of like performing witchcraft; so if that's going to bother you, don't buy the game. To finish it, you must make the amulet.
The "scare factor" depends on what kind of atmosphere you play in. If you're playing in a room with other people during the daytime, the game will have a different effect on you then if you play it alone in a dark house at night. There are a couple surprises in the game that make you jump, and sometimes you're afraid of what might be coming next. It isn't a gross-fest, it's more physiological. If they had added things like doors mysteriously slamming and getting locked in rooms at just the right moments, that might have made the game scarier.
By the way, if you're going to buy "Scratches" you might want to get the director's cut version. There is a bonus "short" called "The Last Visit" which explains more of went on in Blackwood Manor. If I hadn't seen "The Last Visit" the ending would have been very confusing. And even then, there are unanswered questions.
One thing I don't like about most adventure games is trying to find objects to advance. This can be frustrating, and I'll generally go just to a hint site and find the answer. I like more obvious "puzzles" like the one in the greenhouse where you have to wash something out of a grate. In this game you didn't have to look for many objects but you had to complete "puzzles" that could be a pain, such as trying to figure out how to let down a rope so you could get through a window. I like how the creators of Titanic - Adventure Out of Timedid their game. Yes, there are some things in it that are unobvious, but it's a very unique kind of adventure game.

"Scratches" is definitely a psychological horror game; it comes back to scare you after you've played. However, I'm not sure I can recommend it...or if I will ever play it again.

It was a very difficult game to get anywhere. It hung up all the time and then you had to start over. Every once in a while you would stumble over something and think, "Great, now we're getting somewhere!" alas, then it went back to boring and repetitive. I will say that it was 'spooky'. And I really wanted to know the ending. I did finish it and then sat there and wondered how it ended. It just seemed to run out of steam and a lot of the things that seemed so interesting were just dropped. Never explained or 'wrapped up'. It was like taking on a complicated jigsaw puzzle and getting to the very end only to find that too many pieces are missing to complete it satisfactorily.
Maybe I'm too critical or expect too much but I thought the ending would be a WOW rather than something so mundane.

I have to agree with the reviewer Mystery Maven. I have played many adventure games and Scratches has to be one of the most boring ever. The first day of this game is painfully boring. It's like torture with nothing happening. It's just searching through rooms in a dull house, examining everything again and again, opening every drawer in the house, placing a few phone calls, mailing a letter...etc. I had to force myself to stay interested and keep going. It's hard to stay awake playing this game. Yes, it picks up a little on the second day but the first day is so excruciatingly dull that by the time the second day finally rolled around I was not into it anymore. The first day is really that bad. It ruins the game for me.

You also have to do certain things to trigger the game so you can continue.. like searching every inch of the house looking for candles before you are allowed to make a phone call to progress. Also, each of the many doors that you open has a cutscene and sometimes these cutscenes will get stuck. I had the game freeze up during some of these and I had to control alt delete and restart the game. You will also be opening the same doors over and over and over again. This gets old after a while.

I just got through playing one of the best adventure games ever, "Darkness Within, In Pursuit of Loath Nolder". Scratches seriously pales in comparison.

This is one of the few mystery/adventure games that literally gave me the shudders while playing. The story is simple as you play an author who rents a lonely house in the English countryside to help finish the book you are writing. Unfortunately for the author, but good news for the player, there is an air of mystery about this house and you try to unravel the tragic history of the family that lived there before. The game takes place entirely in the house and nearby grounds over the course of a couple of days. Your only connection to the outside world is the telephone to call several people, including your literary agent who gives you some hints if you get stuck. What I found so intriguing was that the more I learned about the house's history, the more I became concerned for the safety of the "main character" (which is me the player) as I began to realize that the main character may not be alone in this house. It lead to some very scary moments, but you have to see the story/game through to the end. In the director's cut, there is an added chapter which serves as an epilogue as you control a different character (a reporter) who visits the house a few months following the events during the author's visit. This is a very good mystery game (with some horror elements) which relies on creepy atmosphere and a growing sense of dread as you learn more about the house's strange history and whether there is still more terrifying events still to be revealed. Thank you for reading.

I absolutely love this game! It takes a lot of time to get through it, which is nice. It has it's creepy moments where I find myself staring at the screen wide eyed haha. There have been times when my boyfriend has come into the room, and I didn't hear him because I was so involved in the game, and he ends up scaring me! I give it 2 thumbs up, and would recommend it to anyone. Sure the graphics aren't amazing, but it's still a lot of fun :)

The game operates as a standard point and click, inventory based game. The pacing is fine if you know what you are doing - it's actually better than most adventure games. I had no technical problems with loading or anything like that.

The best part of the game is the atmosphere and the creepy touches. I REALLY did not want to go down in that basement, and when the music changed when I did - it seriously freaked me out. The artwork around the house is creepy, the back story is creepy (particularly when you read the journal about what happened in Africa). The only negative I have is that the whole African artifact thing didn't vibe with me and the "container" for the big bad was contrived... other than that, great game!