Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle

Hey! It's Halloween! So I thought I'd replay one of my favorite adventures, Barrow Hill. I knew I could get through it in one day rather easily because I'm so familiar with it, but I haven't actually played it in years. Today seemed like a perfect time for it, especially because I didn't have it in my games list. It needs to be there, because this was one of the games that really cemented my enjoyment of adventures.

The things I enjoy so much about this game are, first, the place that it creates. We get to know it so well that when we got to return to it ten years later in Barrow Hill 2, the nostalgia almost creates tears. It's so great to get back to it because it was so great to be in it in the first place.

The second thing I love about the game is how well it's put together. There are clues to everything. You just have to keep your eyes open. The game is essentially one puzzle with many parts. I didn't have to go to any walkthrough to figure out the final placement of the items--it's all there in the diaries and paperwork and other clues that you find. However, that doesn't mean the puzzle is straightforward. No, you have to notice that things are not in the order that you'd expect. 

Also, the atmosphere just pervades everything. We're alone in this game, mostly. We meet Ben, the terrified service station worker, only through the door of his office, which he refuses to open. We meet Emma Harry, the local DJ of Barrow Hill Radio, only through the mobile phone (once we find it, charge it up, and restore the local signal). We walk through the dark woods, finding mushrooms and other plants, exploring an ancient well, a swamp, and a deteriorating shack. 

There have been people here, but they've disappeared somehow. Now, I admit, there are a few things rather cheesy about the game. The radio ads of course are intentionally cheesy, but frankly, the monster involved here just doesn't really terrify too much. 

However, let's plunge into the game and see what's there!

I've always admired the menu screen, with it's candle. It lights when we load the screen, and snuffs out when we quit the game.

Super menu screen

The spooky atmosphere starts with our drive into Barrow Hill, a black and white film with Emma Harry telling us that it's the autumn equinox, and we're going down the rabbit hole.

Driving in

Whooooo's watching?

We walk down a long dark road and finally find an oasis of light: the service station.

Civilization

We explore the service station and it's three hotel rooms (to which we will have to find numerical door keys). 

The lobby, with important clues

Read the pamphlets

The café menu won't help you, but it's fun

I really enjoy it when I find references to other games from Jonathan and Matt! They always have some recognizable items from their other games!

These "Mountain Cakes" turn up in other games

Once we start looking for the items we need for the final puzzle, we branch out a bit. But we can find the first one right in the café. Each time we find the seven "offerings" we need, there's this great effect that really gives you a charge!

A really nice effect when we unleash the magic

And we find some items that will turn up ten years later!

This old slot machine turns out to be useful

Authentic looking celtic design

And the surrounding area has some nicely atmospheric items too:

Scarecrow

Can we use the phone?

And of course, the stone circle itself, out there in the darkness, looms over everything:

The Barrow Hill Stone Circle. What is it for?

When I first played the game years ago, I thought there was a bit too much reading. However, I read it all again this time and didn't think it was too bad at all. Plus, nearly everything you read has clues!

And it contributes to the atmosphere

The longest read in the game, but without it you can't solve the final puzzle

When I first played, I was able to solve the game without looking at a walkthough. This time I had to peek to see why oh why I couldn't find the flask of whisky when I knew exactly where it was! Also, I missed the first room number (although it's extremely easy to find) and learned that Matt anticipated that players might make that mistake. You need Barrow Hill Radio's phone number, but you won't get it the first time you hear it on the radio--usually in the motel room. This time I encountered what is usually the second time you hear the number, but as it was the first time for me, the number was masked out, just as it should have been.

I discovered a few things I had never noticed before. You can look through the windows, for example. Also, this time I noticed subtle music or sound effects that are just barely there but that contribute to the atmosphere. Nice! Just shows the amount of care that went into making the game.

The game plays fair, which is another reason I enjoy it so much. The clues are good if you just read the stuff and look around thoroughly. It's imminently solvable, and it's a lot of fun getting to that solution (plus there's a marvelous effect out in the stone circle when you solve the puzzle, but I won't spoil that).

I watched the video playthrough by CJU a while back. On his first playthrough he didn't give the game a very good review. However, when he played the sequel much later he went on and on about how much fun it was to be back at Barrow Hill and see all the old items and locations! He was really excited about it, and that's because this first game is a lot better than he gave it credit for at the time. 

I mean, when you have a game that really immerses you in a unique atmosphere and world, well, that's a big reason we play! And when the puzzle is as elegantly pieced together as this one is, with actual clues that mean something, what more do you need?

OK, I admit that the monster is a bit on the lame side. Aside from that, this is a super little game!

Play it!!

To the Moon 2: Further Back in Time

Now I'm seeing why this game is considered to be more an interactive movie than a game. It is a game, make no mistake, but the gameplay and puzzles almost never change.

We're traveling ever further back into our subject's memories, giving a nice perspective to the storyline. But each time we have to find five objects that will load onto another object which we will "prepare." That preparation, always, is the same puzzle type:

This time it's a rabbit

That's sort of getting old. Actually, these puzzles appear to be getting easier, or I'm getting better at solving them. Once they're solved we "activate" the object, and we then travel back to the next earliest memory, where we do the same thing all over again.

Of course it remains interesting because of the story. And there are some nice references to Doctor Who (I only wish I'd grabbed a screenshot of the TARDIS reference). Plus, our subject's wife is named "River," also the name of the "wife" of the Doctor (yeah, I noticed that right away). So the game is a time travel sort of experience, which is nice.

I'm now about halfway through the game, as far as I can tell. Somehow the lighthouse is a major figure in the lives of the subject. Here are some nice shots of it:

Again, it's a very simple art style. Sometimes that's a bit difficult to deal with in the gameplay. It took me a minute or two to realize that there are stairways in this area, for example:

I couldn't figure out how to advance here--but there are stairs!

So it took me a minute or two to understand what the art was depicting. It's also often difficult to spot all five mementos you're looking for in each sequence. Most of the time you just stumble onto them automatically.

But the simplicity of the artwork and of the gameplay really just focuses your attention onto the storyline, which does appear to be the major point of the game. And it's an intriguing story.

I'm still enjoying it quite a lot!

Next Entry.

To the Moon 1: A Journey Back in Memories?

I heard a lot of talk a while ago about this little game. I had an idea it was almost an interactive movie, but no, it really is a little game. Pretty simple. Easy to navigate. A few puzzles that are pretty self-explanatory. 

It seems that two scientists are helping a patient achieve his lifelong wish: to go to the moon. To do so we are accessing his memories. We travel with him through time by finding objects and activating them through a simple game:

Puzzle Partly Solved

Another Puzzle Solved

So, there's more gameplay than I expected, but it's pretty easy.

Also, there is a hauntingly lovely melody that seems to have a prominent place in the patient's memories. I'm not going to recount the story, but it does seems to be quite sentimental. One doctor, our main character, has plenty of empathy, the other doesn't. Also, there are a couple of children involved. No doubt we'll learn how that came about as we go through the game.

Presumably this turns out to be bittersweet, and clearly it's headed in that direction. A lighthouse features prominently:

To the Lighthouse?

So I'll continue! However, there seems to be a similar problem to the one I had with Fran Bow, although this time I can take screenshots. The artwork is extremely simple, even more so than in Fran Bow. I tried opening the game from my desktop shortcut icon, but it crashed fairly quickly. When I opened it directly from the Steam page it worked just fine.

I'm almost afraid to continue it today because I think I'm going to get caught up in the story and right now I have stuff to do. But I'll be back with it soon!

Next Entry

Lemony Snickett's A Series of Unfortunate Events

So this is a bit outside my usual point and click adventures. This one's a platformer. I'm not really all that into platformers, mostly because I'm so bad at playing them, but I wanted to play this one because Tim Curry did the narration, and I am a major fan of Tim Curry. I'm not doing a series of posts on this one, just this entry.

I bought this game on disc many years ago, and the disc appeared to have a flaw. I got halfway through it three times (twice on my Dad's Vista PC, and twice on my Mac's Virtual PC running XP) and hit a spot where the game just froze. It had to be a flaw in the disc. I tried it a fourth time on the Mac virtual XP and managed, with a hiccup in the gameplay, to get through the flawed spot. But I'm a really bad player, and I couldn't get beyond one of the fight sequences, so I quit playing.

Yes, the game not only has you jumping onto things, often moving things, but every now and then you have to have a fight with one of Count Olaf's minions. I got better and better at the jumping, but I remained absolutely terrible at the fighting. So I stopped.

That was several years ago, and I never really tried to finish the game, although I knew I was closing in on the endgame. 

But I went ahead and loaded the game onto the new Win 10 laptop, and decided just to try it. Not only did I get through the glitch this time, there wasn't even any kind of hiccup at all. It seems that I must have bumped off whatever was obstructing the disc because the game played perfectly.

The Orphans

A Tragedy?

So, I did the entire game in one day. A child would have taken about half the time I took, but I finished it. I finally figured out that I had to pick up a lot of ammunition to have any chance of winning the fights. If you have lots of ammunition it turns out the fights are easy. Really easy.

So now I'm a better platformer. And I've finally finished the game! In fact, I made sure that I got all the letters this time. You pick up letters throughout the game and Tim Curry reads the definitions.

At the end of the game you can access your saved games and replay all the audio--so I can listen to Tim Curry's fun definitions whenever I want. Yay! 

The collected letters

I also picked up "eyeballs," every ten of which get you a poster about Count Olaf. I didn't find all of these, but Tim Curry provides commentary for the posters as well. I really tried to get all the eyeballs, but didn't, so I'm not going to go back for them. Maybe someday.

An Eyeball. Ten get you an Olaf poster.

First Olaf Poster

This game didn't get very good reviews when it was released, but I enjoyed it. It's really for kids, who are better platformers than elderly ladies like me. But you've got not only Tim Curry, who is worth playing the game for just on his own, but you've also got Jim Carrey voicing Count Olaf in an excellent performance. The rest of the voice acting is average to bad. Sadly, the kids really aren't very good at all. 

Jim Carrey as Count Olaf

But Curry and Carrey are worth the time!

So finally I finished it! It was fun! And now I suck slightly less as a platformer!

Yay!

Fran Bow 7: WIERDNESS (Beyond Curiouser)

Oh my. Alice overload doesn't actually begin to describe it. First, I stopped playing the game and finished by watching CJU's Let's Play videos, and I'm actually glad I did that. The game isn't really that difficult, although it is absolutely beyond weird, and that turns out to be the major reason to play it, not to figure out the pretty easy puzzles. I stopped because:

I found that my new 65" curved smart TV has an app for Steam. So I tried it, found my laptop, connected it, and voila! My game appeared on the TV screen! Cool beans!

However, this copy of Fran Bow has always had issues. I've never been able to take screenshots of it, so that was the first clue. Something is missing in the video overlay. And, unlike the other Steam games I've tried, the game runs on Steam, but the laptop shows a black screen. Normally you just get a mirror of what's on the laptop, but this completely took over the laptop. I still used my mouse and was able to reach the main menu via the escape key, but other than that I had to play on the TV.

The problem was that I couldn't get any visuals in the game even when I tried to play it on the computer with the Steam app completely turned off. The screen was just black, and I had to "end task" to get out of it. So the only option became to play via the TV Steam app, and that posed a problem.

I have guests. This game often, quite often, is deeply disturbing. I didn't want to expose my guests to that. So, I stopped playing and just watched the videos while I was alone in the house.

Up to that time, however, I was doing just fine. Really, if you look around the screens effectively enough you can pretty easily figure out these puzzles. As always in games like this, you really only get stuck if you miss something somewhere. 

Still, as we get ever deeper into the game things just get ever stranger. Really, seriously stranger. The art work is so deceptively simple, but the storyline and dialogue are super sophisticated, bringing up all kinds of alternate reality scenarios and just ever stranger stuff. 

Did Fran kill her parents? If she did, is she in Hell (one screen seems to say so). Is she in some kind of purgatory? Is she alive or is she dead? Is she mentally disturbed or some kind of supernatural heroine, as is also suggested. Is her Aunt Grace the villain, or is the Asylum director, or is it the supernatural being that might exist only in Fran's mind? Is Mr. Midnight real?

Is there a sort of happy ending? The game lets you think so if you want to think so, so I think so. 

I really enjoyed the whole relationship with Mr. Midnight, the cat. I like cats, and it was great to see how much Fran and her kitty loved each other.

But wowzers, this thing is strange. Absolutely worth playing, because you don't want to miss this weirdness. Absolutely worth playing. If I hadn't messed up my game with the Steam streaming app I would have finished it on my own, but I also wanted to get it done because I've been interrupted too many times and spent much too long on it. I want to get on to other stuff.

So. Fran Bow. Yeah. Play it. But fasten your seatbelts before you do.

Seriously wow.