The Adventures Of Thumper: Wonder Wombat

By Sarazar

When I was looking for a game to play, the description for the Adventures of Thumper - Wonder Wombat caught my attention and I decided to try it. The first thing I discovered is that this is a very funny game, although it is a fairly crude sense of humour. That doesn't worry me, but it may offend some people. There is a No Swearing gameplay option, which may improve it a little, but if you want to use this mode, then this game is probably not for you. Unfortunately this kind of humour does become a bit less funny after the first time.

One of the best features of the game is the many, many distinctive NPCs and locations. These all have humorous descriptions and it is fun to wander around and see what you can find. Unfortunately, the consequent large number of interactions has also made this into a weakness in the game, as there are some problems with sparse implementation. Whilst the game contains lots of rooms, these rooms are often empty of objects that can be interacted with. The objects that are there often do not have logical interactions included. I did not like that the "Ask Character About" command generates the same amusing response, no matter what topic is chosen. If this is the case in a game, I feel it would be better to instead just use a "Talk to Character" command, rather then give the illusion of choice.

Another bad feature is that there are timers that you regularly have to fulfil, which is a feature I really dislike in IF. One of these timers can kill you, if you wander around for too long without taking precautions. This is very frustrating, as when the game is restarted you have to sit through the long introduction again. The introduction was funny the first time, but grew progressively more annoying as I continued.

This game is very hard, which is mainly due to the illogical nature of the game world. This provides humour, but also creates puzzles where you are trying to guess the one solution that the author had in mind. The game sometimes failed to hint adequately as to what this one solution is. At times I found myself trying randomly to use all of my many inventory items, hoping that one of them would work (and generally none of them did). Many items do not have multiple uses and finding their one specific function is difficult. Unfortunately the longer you persist in trying to solve this game, the more you will probably become disillusioned with the game's weaknesses, especially when your sensible solutions keep failing.

The game suffers from being unclear, especially in not explaining why what I was doing would actually help me achieve the game's ultimate goal. Despite being a fun environment to wander around aimlessly in, I would prefer more of a sense of purpose. However, it is a testament to the game that I kept trying again and again (and failing again and again) to succeed until I eventually did, rather than just give up. In general I enjoyed playing the Adventures of Thumper - Wonder Wombat, but it could have been designed much better.

Score - 7/10

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