[Bumstead]

Wow, its really great to see a review of The Dark Eye here on AGs. I first saw a trailer for this game years ago, on the CD for Bad Day on the Midway, another Inscape game. It looked sooo creepy, and sooo interesting, I still watch it every once in a while and, you know, they really don't make trailers like they use too.
The part that sucks though is that I've still never played this game. I really enjoyed the soul jumping in Bad Day, it was interesting to see the other character's thoughts as the story progressed. It'd be nice to see this kind of originality in today's games, maybe if adventure game popularity gains more steam we'll see more quirky and original works coming out.

[Garyos]

I'd never even heard of it, but that review made me very interested.... A well-written review!

[Peccable]

Hi! I'm the article's author, Dan Ravipinto.

I'm really glad you enjoyed the review. Like I said, THE DARK EYE is one of my favorite games ever. In fact, all of the iNSCAPE games that I've managed to get my hands on (THE DARK EYE, BAD DAY ON THE MIDWAY, DROWNED GOD) have been wonderfully well done.

In response to Bumstead's comment about the soul jumping -- yes, it definitely worked in Bad Day. For those of you that don't know, BAD DAY ON THE MIDWAY was a game in which the whole point of the game was to leap from body to body in an attempt to find understand the strangely twisted stories of a set of people living in or visiting a carnival. You literally get in side their minds, and their disjointed thoughs are printed on the screen at various intervals as you wander about.

Unforunately, it's not as interesting in THE DARK EYE, probably because the stories there are linear (BAD DAY had tons of endings, many of which revolved around who caught the deadly virus that was slowly spreading through the fairgrounds) and the jumps don't have any real effect.

Speaking of iNSCAPE, has anyone here played 'Aventures of the Smart Patrol'? I think it's the only game of theirs I haven't managed to play.

-- d

[Bumstead]

Aventures of the Smart Patrol was another trailer on my Bad Day CD. It looked like a really goofy story, but it didn't show any gameplay. I've never even heard of Drowned God, what was that like?
Since you've played so many of their games I was wondering, is the soul jumping feature something common to all their games? I remember reading that it was a typical iNSCAPE gamplay feature.

[ragnar]

The review states that the game is based upon three works by Edgar Allan Poe, it would be interesting to know which three that is. I couldn't find that information in the review.

[Tamara]

heh, I had loved Bad Days on the Midway, but perhaps paradoxiaclly couldn't really get that into it .. the freedom and non-linearity of it all kind of scared me .. I was afraid of doing the wrong thing or not seeing it all, so I just didn't see any of it at all, ultimately I guess I gotta get to re-installing it sometime soon .....

[Moosferatu]

Originally Posted by ragnar

The review states that the game is based upon three works by Edgar Allan Poe, it would be interesting to know which three that is. I couldn't find that information in the review.

The Tell-Tale Heart
The Cask of Amontillado
Bernice

I believe that you also hear The Masque of the Red Death and Annabel Lee read to you.

[Garyos]

Originally Posted by ragnar

The review states that the game is based upon three works by Edgar Allan Poe, it would be interesting to know which three that is. I couldn't find that information in the review.

He said he wouldn't tell....

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by Garyos

He said he wouldn't tell....

Yes, but I can't see why that would be.

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by Moosferatu

The Tell-Tale Heart
The Cask of Amontillado
Bernice

I believe that you also hear The Masque of the Red Death and Annabel Lee read to you.

Thank you, Moos.

[Peccable]

Hi again.

Yes, Moosferatu (love the name, by the by -- I can imagine the sort of terror you can unleash, just look at the Invader Zim's "A Room With A Moose" those are the three Poe works, as well as the readings of Annabel Lee and The Masque of the Red Death (which I did mention in the review).

The reason I didn't say what they were, ragnar, was because saying the actual stories basically results in giving spoilers. If you know the Poe tales, you already know how each part of the game is going to end.

Being a fan of Poe, I knew all of the works, generally. Bernice was the only one I'd had only a passing aquaintance with. I noticed that when I played the game, it was the Bernice section that had the most profound effect on me - simply because I didn't know what was coming.

Even still, there was something about touching one of the items in the game and then realizing as I looked out across the canal at Fortunato, that *I was Montresor* was ... eerie. And I didn't want to ruin that for anyone else.

Still, the cat's out of the bag...

Bumstead, DROWNED GOD was a very strange game. Its tagline was "Unlock 40,000 years of lies." It's a fascinating and very strange game based in a several 'worlds' all connected by a 'Bequest Globe'.

Basically, it's a point-and-click first-person post-Myst adventure game (much like The Dark Eye) with big empty worlds with strange puzzles that seem to exist for no explainable reason (the game implies they're symbolic worlds, or at least on a higher 'plane' than earth, but you really don't get a lot of answers in general).

I really liked it, though. There's lots of obscure references in it to numerology, the Kabbalah, Arthurean legend, the Holy Grail, Roswell, Egyptian and Mayan mythology, Men in Black, and pretty much anything else you can think of that's vaguely connected to conspiracy theory.

It's a beautiful game - it's got a wonderfully twisted imagination with regards to the graphics. My absolute favorite section was activating a machine and realizing that I was looking at a 'reinterpretation' of Da Vinci's notebooks. Imagine if Da Vinci knew aliens existed, found one and discected it, and then drew a set of anatomy charts that had precisely the same style as those he did for humans. Wonderful stuff.

Unfortunately, some of the puzzles just don't work (both logically and with regards to the story), and a lot of the references are simply unexplained, not to mention that the audio is so quiet in certain sections that you can't even understand what they're saying.

I enjoyed it, but my current nickname among my friends is Obscurio (He Fights With the Power of Obscurity!), so that might have something to do with it.

There wasn't any 'soul jump' in the game as far as I can remember, though. You just play 'yourself' throughout.

-- d

[Christina]

Hi Dan! Welcome to the staff and congratulations on your first review.

I must say though that I have to disagree with your final scoring of the game. Personally I think it is one of most brilliant things I have ever played and I probabally would've given it 4.5 stars. Maybe even bordering on 5.

Also,(and perhaps this was just me) I first played the game when I was 12 years old and I obviously hadn't read Poe at that point but I didn't have any problems getting through it or figuring out what to do next, which was one of the negative comments in your review.

Still though, nice review. I just wanted to post my mini rebuttal for those that absolutely love the game.

[DustCropper]

I loved how they did the poem "Masque of the Red Death" in the Dark Eye. Probably my favorite part of the game. Anyway Dan, nice review!

[mycroft]

Originally Posted by DustCropper

I loved how they did the poem "Masque of the Red Death" in the Dark Eye. Probably my favorite part of the game. Anyway Dan, nice review!

Same here for Annabel Lee.The absolutely haunting scene presented while the poem is being recited is probably my favorite part.

I appreciate the poem a little more since then.


Great Review Dan !

Looking forward to any other lesser-known games you may review.