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77 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fine work by Jonathan Boakes, March 25, 2006
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
A pleasantly spooky story from the maker of the two Dark Fall games, with some of the same strengths (lovely evocation of an England that no longer exists, some genuinely creepy moments) and weaknesses (erratic plot, bizarre use of English from a native speaker) of those two games.
The atmosphere is the strongest part of this game; the Victorian house is so lovingly recreated you can almost smell the moldy stench of rotting plaster that inhabits these places. The music and sound are a real bonus, with movie-level sound effects and score really amping up the creepiness.
The creepiness can be extreme at times, but it's of the something-unknown-about-to-spring-from-the-dark sort and not the rotting-corpse-shoved-in-your-face sort. If you've been desensitized by over-the-top gore fest movies, you might yawn at this; if you're sophisticated enough to appreciate Hitchcock and Poe, this will suit you down to the ground. Translation: there's no blood, but it could still give your kids nightmares.
As for the less wonderful stuff, well ... Some of the dialogue is downright weird in syntax and word choice. (When you use a shovel to make a hole in the dirt and put something in it, you *dig* the hole and *bury* the item, not the other way around. Shees!) Under other circumstances I'd put this down to translation difficulties, but that doesn't apply here. And there are some strange plot holes and sudden bursts of illogic that leave you scratching your head. The ending in particular is a little anticlimactic -- we didn't so much wrap up the plot as shrug and abandon it. Or is he planning a sequel?
Still, a fun game and an engrossing way to spend a rainy day. Though I wouldn't want to play it in the dark myself.
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64 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Couldn't Wait To Play It Every Night, April 28, 2006
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
I loved this game. I was originally worried whether or not I would like it when the box listed horror and some blood as parts of the game, but I needn't have worried.
Horror? (1) The main character writes horror stories which he barely describes. (2) There is a bit of an overly descriptive diary entry by another character about an African tribe ritual concerning canibalism which he witnessed. Not my style, but easily skipped over. (3)Finally, you see a couple of skeletons. Uh huh. Been there, done that. Not horrific.
Blood? At the end of the game there was a MINOR amount on one skeleton and elsewhere a tiny bit on a table.
As a recent poster said, this game is more the spooky sounds in the night scary rather than anything else. A lot of that has to do with the musical score, which is perfect. There were several times I practically jumped out of my chair...after opening a door...(play scary music here)...about to see...(nope, not telling)...... It was great fun! And not horrific at all.
For the reviewers on several sites who have said this game is boring, there seems to be a common theme among them--they are game aficionados who know all the game authors, their subtle references to other games within the game, etc., etc. I'm not that type of gamer. I love games which let me go where I want to go, which blend in the puzzles with the story and don't bend my brain so much that I think I'm back in math class, and which are not obnoxiously hard yet are not obnoxiously easy. For those type of people, this game is wonderful. You'll thoroughly enjoy playing it, being spooked sometimes, and figuring out where to go and what to do by yourself most of the time. This game let me THINK, and most of the time let me think like a real person would, not like some game developer does. I only had to resort to a walkthrough a couple of times, and usually I need help a lot. I liked that.
So, turn the lights down low, watch out for things that go SCRATCH and bump in the night, and go back to the days when you were young and sat around a campfire telling scary stories to each other before you went to sleep. Scratches is one of those stories, so have fun!
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30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Be afraid. Be very afraid., March 1, 2006
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
This game is exactly what it promises to be, and then some. It's a true adventure game which requires only the ability to use a mouse and your brain. It's scary, atmospheric and leaves you guessing till the end. The story is slowly revealed as you play but some of the aspects are subtle. At the end, you have to actually think about what happened but if you've paid attention everything is pretty much revealed. The truth is in there...
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