Darkness

By Richard Otter

Darkness, I think, was a very fun game. It was very short and easy, but still fun. The game is about a lighthouse where "mysterious things" have been happening. You character hasn't heard from the three workers in a week and is starting to become worried. So, you go to this lighthouse to try and figure out where they are and what has been going on.

For some reason, I think the game starts out a little like Myst. You begin on a boat at the Jetty on the lighthouse. You have to move east a few times and then you get inside of the lighthouse, where you have to move up and down a lot. There's actually one certain item in the way beginning that if you don't get you won't get anywhere in this game. So after you have the torch and can see everything, the rest of the game is a bunch of examining. You basically have to go from room to room examining everything you can. Once everything has been examined and every item has been retrieved, all you have to do is put them in the right place, which is very simple. You really don't have to think throughout this whole entire game.

The game is written well enough. It makes you feel like you're in this lighthouse and you're all alone. The game spits out little events every other turn that say things like: You're sure someone was behind you, but there's no-one there.

These lines are a little freaky in the beginning. You actually expect something to jump out at you, but once the 15th line happens and you realize nothing is going to jump out at you, you learn to completely ignore the words. Besides that, there are a bunch of spelling mistakes in the writing. Richard Otter made this game so fast I'm guessing he had didn't take a chance to check for bad spelling. Also, the guess the verb can get pretty annoying. For example, there's a lever in one of the rooms. You can't say "switch the lever", "move the lever", "turn the lever on" etc. You can only say "Pull the lever". It gets a little annoying.

The game is also very short. It took me about a half hour to beat, and I only used the hints once. As I said earlier, the whole game is basically examining things, and fixing a broken generator. However, even with all these minor flaws I still had fun playing this game. This game is for anyone who doesn't want a huge brain-busting game to play and just want a simple, short game they can beat in 30-60 minutes.

5 out of 10

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