Scratches 6: Getting Busy

At last I managed to get a bit of playing time in, after a Kirkus crush and some life events. OK. 

So I have to find a way to finish out Sunday. It's 5:00 and it turns out there are only a couple of things left to do before we get some fireworks going at night. I searched the whole house and finally had to go to the WT. Easy stuff. We just finally do what we haven't been able to do since we got there. Why try yet again? Except it's the only remaining possibility.

Now we have another exciting night. Not only do we have another dream (which sent me all over the freaking house except that I didn't go to the one room where the event occurs) but we have more scratching sounds to investigate.

And this time, without the WT, I went into the basement. There we get a nice good scare. I did figure out what to do down there, because the icons told me to enter a place I normally wouldn't enter. It was a quite nice effect, although fairly primitive. Don't blink.

But after that . . .

Now I remember why I didn't like this game all that much when I first played it.

In a word (well, two words): deliberate frustration.

The game designers leave things so open ended that you literally have to go everywhere and search everything and use every inventory item on every object in order to advance. Once in a while they give you a clue, telling you to go to bed for example. Now, they have included a personal journal that occasionally contains hints, but mostly it's stuff like, "I haven't explored enough yet." 

I have had to resort to the WT, sadly. Some of this stuff is just so obscure you literally never would think to do it. One spoilerific example: Begin spoiler. You need to find a way to get light into the bottom of the crypt in order to read a plaque. First, you have to find an obscure rock. It's in a close-up, so you won't find it if you don't search during that close-up, something that normally you wouldn't do. Next, you use it and it doesn't work. So you have to find the rock again and do it again. This time it works, but there still isn't enough light. So. You go back to the mansion and use a screwdriver on a little mirror that we've been manipulating since day one. NOW you have to detach the mirror. End spoiler.

I mean, who would think of that? It's just a way to add difficulty to an already difficult game. 

Had they given us just a few clues the game would be so much more fun.

I mean, I'll finish it. But I remember now why I didn't like it all that much when I first played it years ago.

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