What I'm Doing Here

Because I enjoy adventure games, I decided to start this blog and record my fun and frustrations as I play various adventures and some RPGs. I try not to spoil the games, so you can read and play, or play and read. I'm also reviewing some games, as I used to do in the past for Four Fat Chicks. I hope I'll spark your interest in playing, or at least entertain you with my musings. Please note that my musings are only speculations. You, or the game designer, may disagree with my opinions. At the end of each entry is a link to the next entry about that game, and you'll find a list of beginning links to the right, just under my cat's photo. Feel free to comment and play along! Enjoy!

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Carol Reed Shades of Black 1: Some Good fun


So! Jonathan Boakes released a surprise Halloween mini-game that takes place on Halloween and falls between The Lost Crown and the forthcoming (later this year!!) The Last Crown: Blackenrock. Natch I grabbed it on Steam for less than $5.00.

I got it installed with no problem and accessed the main screen. Thought I was good to go. That was two days ago. But now, when I want to play it on Halloween, it's a mess. It's eating up the disc space I have on my Fusion XP program. So I deleted it, because I can always reload when it's fixed. I also deleted my TWO copies of The Lost Crown, because I've got both of them too. Deleted more stuff that I have online. 

But I had bought this latest Carol Reed game when it came out, and I decided that if I couldn't play the Halloween game on Halloween, then I'd play this instead.

And it was a great choice!  

Of course it's a typical Carol Reed game, but what I like about these games is that while much of the game is pretty easyish, large parts of it require some thinking. And this time the in-game hint system isn't working too well (it's giving me a clue to a puzzle I haven't found yet--UPDATE: this turned out to be my own misunderstanding. The hint system works fine.). Fortunately, there is always the Gameboomers walkthrough. I've had to look at that a few times.

Mostly you get into trouble in these games by missing something. Often the hint system will tell you that, but that doesn't make the thing much easier to find. I traipsed back and forth looking for a bird house that just was not very visible. Finally had to go to the walkthrough to get a hint of where to look for it. At last I found it!

I've kinda zoomed through much of the game. It's pretty good at pointing you in the right direction, giving you a hint of where to go next. Of course, sometimes you have to backtrack. Right now I'm in the murderer's house, poking around, and I'm pretty firmly stuck. I've been playing for much of the day and enjoying myself quite nicely, but it's getting dark now so I think I'll do the rest of it tomorrow.

There are some really lovely shots in this game. Yeah, Nyqvist throws in a few derelict places (I really cannot imagine where he finds this stuff, all of which is photographed), but for the most part this is a really pretty game to look at.

For example:


A Nice View

A Night View from the Treehouse

And we go to various places, such as the Furniture Museum (are these places real??) with it's very impressive "sign":

Yes, it's about chairs

And we meet nice people, such as this nice lady who runs the motel with the underground room:

A very nice Swedish lady

Note that you also will meet another Swedish lady with a rather different agenda. Just sayin'.

And of course, you cannot have a Carol Reed game without Bigge:

He always has a little extra puzzle to solve

Or Jonas:
Not in the garden this time

So far the puzzles have been quite fun. My problem right now is that I'm missing a key somewhere. I will shamelessly go to the WT for that, because I play these games to enjoy them!! I manage to figure out a good 95% of the game. Although I will say that I do look forward to doing one without a hint someday, but not this time.

And I think I know who might be the true culprit in this game. I also think I know where the body might turn up.

But I figure that I'm a good four-fifths finished. I'm gonna watch some Doctor Who tonight, I think, and then I'll finish tomorrow.

After that it's back to Baldur's Gate! But fun with Carol for now!



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