[ozzie]

Okay, since I can't trust the comments feature I will post my opinion of the review here.

I was very delighted when I saw the article on the frontpage since I am a big fan of the game.
In fact, I said for a long time that this is my second favorite game.

It's not true anymore since I realized how important gameplay is and Prodigal is a bit lacking in this respect.
It doesn't deviate from the classic adventure formula, and additionally it has some tedious fetch quests in the middle part.

Still, it's probably my favorite piece of narrative, in a game or otherwise.


All your critic points are valid, but I experienced some of them differently or didn't notice them at all.

For example, the elevator puzzle. I didn't think of it as an unnecessary hindrance, especially, when you think about it, the elevator wasn't used for quite some time.
It was the only puzzle I couldn't solve myself though. I hate it when you have to click on a part of the background to pick something up (like the rock here) because it doesn't exist as a seperate object. Always confusing.

The metal detector puzzle seemed very obvious and clear to me, though. Maybe it is a bit weird that you have to click randomly on the background for some result, so the interaction with the game may be confusing at this point.

I didn't have the same feeling that the Demelza part put an abrupt stop to the horror part. For me, it fitted in very naturally.

There are some other things you didn't mention, but which I personally disliked.
For one, there are still two bugs left unfixed.
The first one can also break the immersion, which is unfortunate.
As far as I know you have to give one guard an item so he will let you in the kitchen. When you want to get in a second time the dialogue will start again in which he says that you can't go in. After that, you can, though, so it's not a critical one.
The second one disables the icon bar on the top of the screen for some time after you go back in the room where the one guy tells you something about the Demelza history.

There's also some inappropiate meta-humour, something like the fake "Game Over"-Screen in Monkey Island 3. It totally pulls you out of the experience. It's quickly forgotten, but the moment was broken.

Now, so much critic for a game I love, how could this happen!?
I probably should mention then why I love the narrative.

For one, I think it has the perfect length. I played Planescape: Torment some while ago and tried to do so as much as possible, with eating and sleeping inbetween of course. After four days, I seem to have only finished the half of it!
While it's nice that it is so expansive, and it's something very typical for RPGs, at one point, sooner or later, you have to give it up. Real life kicks in again, the holidays were over for me, so I had to quit playing.

Prodigal is of course much simpler, but you can enjoy it in one piece. It's still long enough that you can build an emotional bond, a relation to the characters, though.

It's also easy to sympathize with the goal of the main character. He wants to save his brother, and the longer the game goes on, the more you want it, too.

The game is very effective in building the excitement of finally rescuing your brother, like the dialogues in dreams or the flashback with a song they both loved to listen to.

And all of this results in a great conclusion. I don't want to say any word about it, it's something everyone has to experience for itself.

Writing is also high quality, of course. The characterization is great and the game is good in building tension and excitement for the ending.

Basically, it's a great game with lacking gameplay.

It's unfortunate that the game has still those two bugs, but it's probably for the better that the team concentrates their effort on the sequel. I'm very excited about it.

[Dale Baldwin]

Originally Posted by ozzie

Okay, since I can't trust the comments feature I will post my opinion of the review here.

Briefly off-topic - It's got to be down to the length of what you posted - I seem to remember it was a large comment you posted last time that was ultimately lost? Maybe we need to limit the size of comments we allow, so this doesn't happen again.

[ozzie]

Yep, was also a long one, even longer.
Just have to find out what the evil number of characters is from which on the comment is destined to be lost in limbo.

[Dale Baldwin]

Apologies for off-topicness again - I just tried posting a comment with the same text you just posted, and it slotted in fine, so maybe it isn't length after all Meh. This is going to bug me, even though I can't personally do anything about it.

[Marek]

Any comment above 6000 characters will be rejected by the comment system as a protection against flooding. Your post has about 3800 words though so it should work just fine.

Edit: as evidenced by Dale's experiment...

[ozzie]

Well, whatever.
I will just continue creating threads in here when I want to comment on an article.
Of course, I could always copy the text in an editor before posting, but sooner or later I would forget it and then an hour wasted again.
I write so slow in english.

[stepurhan]

Thanks for the feedback ozzie. That was my first review here so it's nice to get a non-staff take on it, especially since you'd played the game.

A few responses to your comments.

Originally Posted by ozzie

For example, the elevator puzzle. I didn't think of it as an unnecessary hindrance, especially, when you think about it, the elevator wasn't used for quite some time.

Hadn't thought of it like that. However, it has to have been used relatively recently

Spoiler:

by the brother

plus you then get on to the question of why so many other things work fine. I can see where you're coming from though.

The metal detector puzzle seemed very obvious and clear to me, though. Maybe it is a bit weird that you have to click randomly on the background for some result, so the interaction with the game may be confusing at this point.

I didn't have a problem with what I had to do. My issue was with how big an area you had to cover. Based on the only clue available (unless I missed something) you had to cover a large cave and a large area in front of some buildings. Seemed a bit much.

The second one disables the icon bar on the top of the screen for some time after you go back in the room where the one guy tells you something about the Demelza history.

Didn't get this one but I tend to use the right-click to cycle the icons so that might be the reason.

There's also some inappropiate meta-humour, something like the fake "Game Over"-Screen in Monkey Island 3. It totally pulls you out of the experience. It's quickly forgotten, but the moment was broken.

I was in two minds about mentioning this. In the end I came down on not mentioning it because you don't die. If it was the other way around I'd have needed to flag it up for people who don't like in-game death.

It's also easy to sympathize with the goal of the main character. He wants to save his brother, and the longer the game goes on, the more you want it, too.

The game is very effective in building the excitement of finally rescuing your brother, like the dialogues in dreams or the flashback with a song they both loved to listen to.

And all of this results in a great conclusion. I don't want to say any word about it, it's something everyone has to experience for itself.

Writing is also high quality, of course. The characterization is great and the game is good in building tension and excitement for the ending.

All agreed and that's why I wanted to recommend it more. Here's hoping the sequel delivers on that promise.

[Henke]

I just downloaded tha game and will play it later next week when (and if) I get some time over. It seems great.