Trick or Treat Adventure Quest

Trick or Treat Adventure Quest

8/10

Johnny…poor little clueless Johnny. He’s the epitome of the red-headed stepchild and he has no Halloween costume. Worse yet, it’s Halloween tonight! What’s a kid with no cash and passed-out parents to do? Well in the case of Johnny you’re on your own. Best toss together something so you can get out there and collect that candy. There’s a lot of crude humor in this game so if you get easily offended you may want to take a pass on it. Here’s a tip to get you started; pick up the comic books on your bedroom floor.

Pretty much everything in Trick or Treat Adventure Quest (TTAQ) involves clicking with your mouse. As with most point and click adventure games you will need to combine items in your inventory in order to move forward. You will also need to end up talking to people in order to pick up certain necessary items like the cough syrup, twinkies, and the lighter. Conversation is also amusing in it’s own right so consider clicking through the dialog options to have a good laugh. Aside from your mouse you can also use the 1-4 keys as action hotkeys to switch between your various interaction options.

When you take a look at the game you may feel like you’re playing on a Sega Genesis or SNES, what with the pixelated graphics. This is fortunately a novelty that doesn’t really wear off in the long run. The backgrounds and environments are richly detailed and you can click on anything to get a description of the object. Unfortunately this can lead to information overload as it isn’t exactly clear what you do and don’t need to grab. Item combinations won’t always be intuitive so here’s another tip; stick your pet in the microwave.

There’s music but no voice acting to speak of, though this fits with the 16 bit feel of the game. There’s no mute option, either. Whoops. The music is delightfully cheesy and that gets a nod from me. I can tell that the authors had a certain look and feel in mind when they created this game and I can appreciate that.

8/10. Faux-16 bit graphics never looked so good.

7/10. You’ll find that TTAQ can be pretty slow, especially when you have to backtrack to the house to find something you missed.

8/10. Audio is top notch for a pseudo-console game, but lack of mute does the score in.

9/10. Great concept and excellent dialog that had me laughing the whole time.

9/10.You’re going to be switching back and forth between the various interaction icons to find everything you need. Get used to it. Mouse makes it good, action hotkeys makes it great.

TTAQ has some great features to it and I’m certain it’s going to make you laugh more than once. Give it a shot. 8/10

Bomtoon informed me of a few things I missed, so I’ve re-valuated the scoring accordingly. -Thal

Tomb of Doom

Tomb of Doom

7/10

Fabricant thought it would be prudent to mention that there is a “screamer” at the end of the game, so consider yourself forewarned.

Imagine, if you will, that you’re walking through the desert one day with no horse and no equipment. Somehow you’re upbeat and optimistic about your chances for survival because you’re whistling. Well that all goes to hell in a handbasket when you step on a hidden trap door and fall down into a tomb. Armed with your trusty stick and your wits, you must make your way to the exit of this tomb so you can get out and die in the desert! Some important notes about this game is that the map will really confuse you if you aren’t paying close attention. You start at the bottom and you’ll need to observe how the lines go from room to room in order to move around like you intend to. Also, the glowing runes mostly go in pairs so a switch in one room will activate a door in another.

Our un-named protagonist is controlled strictly by the mouse. Accessing doorways, activating levers, and utilizing your inventory will all require clicking with the left button of your mouse. I know it may seem taxing but it’s possible to play this game all the way through with just that simple interface.

The set and characters are all made of plasticine, which reminds me of the old Gumby shows. Either that or Mr. Bill, depending on your age and sense of humor. Considering the medium that the author chose to work with I was expecting something a little shoddier but the plasticine worked surprisingly well and made for some excellent animations.

There is no music and minimal sound effects in Tomb of Doom. The most you’ll hear is the occasional gasp from your character as you run across something dangerous. Despite the lack of sound it worked to a degree. Unfortunately there was also no mute option so you are forced to listen to the sound effects that are there.

9/10. Smooth animations and great character designs.

7/10. Not too fast, not too slow. Most actions made sense so you weren’t left in the dark while trying to figure out what to do next.

2/10. I won’t make any bones about it, I was very disappointed in the lack of audio.

10/10. I have yet to see another game made out of plasticine. Kudos to the author thinking outside the box.

8/10. Mouse works fine for control and you didn’t need to click on precise objects to get things to work.

If you like point and click adventure games you’ll love Tomb of Doom. 7/10

Hewitt

Comments are now enabled for all reviews and interviews moving forward.

Hewitt

10/10

I must be on a classic game kick or something but you, our faithful readers, still get to reap the benefits. Hewitt is a point and click adventure of the same style as The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. You play a character named Hewitt and you have to find a date for the school dance or you’ll be doomed to the life of a lonely nerd. You will need to wander around the school grounds picking up items and speaking to various people in order to complete the game. Take note that some actions won’t be available to you until certain events have occurred in the game. If you get stuck take a look in your inventory and go talk to people again. The one area you will most likely get stuck is with the “Private Raven” minigame, so don’t bother playing it until you get the Game-Tek hacker.

Hewitt’s movements are controlled by either the arrow or WASD keys and you can make him interact with the environment by using the mouse. Your actions include picking up items, looking at things and people, and speaking with people. You will also need to combine items in your inventory in order to create new items and you can do this by picking one item up, putting it back down, then picking up another item and clicking on the first item in Hewitt’s hands over on the left. One very nice thing is where you can increase the game speed so Hewitt moves moderately quicker. Just look for the speed slider bar at the bottom of the screen.

I was really surprised to see how good the graphics were in this game. You can tell a lot of work went into creating the world as there are little details everywhere you travel. Most of the characters have comically exaggerated features and the only “normal” character you’re going to see is the Australian exchange student. The drawings and animations make for a great game experience, but you may have to reduce the quality if your game is running too slowly.

The music is pretty much top notch for this game. In addition to the excellent music there is a ton of voice acting, which you rarely see in flash games to this extent. If you don’t want to listen to the music you can use the other slider bar at the bottom to reduce the volume or mute it altogether. Keep in mind that this will also mute the voices but text is presented alongside the speech so you can still play just fine.

These scores may shock you.

10/10. Detailed environments and a large play area make this game shine.

10/10. Game speed can be increased so the game never really feels slow.

10/10. Original songs and excellent voice acting.

10/10. A completely classic concept applied to a modern game. The items you get and have to combine actually end up making a great deal of sense. No random guessing here.

10/10. The controls were designed with both left and right-handed people in mind. Kudos to the author on this.

The author says this game was a year in the making and it definitely shows in the polished end product. This game gets a well-deserved 10/10 and I strongly urge you to play it.

w00tness

w00tness

8/10

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

If you recognize that quote then that means I’m not the oldest person on Kongregate 🙂 I had to go to wiki to look up the intro to Zork, so “Ha!” W00tness is a text-based game that really can throw you for a loop if you aren’t familiar with the genre. On the other hand, if you’re familiar with text adventures you’re going to love w00tness. Don’t forget to save.

Since w00tness falls outside of our normal rating categories this won’t be a standard review. There are no graphics, there is no music or sound effects, and you don’t have to do any fancy key combos to avoid the Grue. You will, however die. And when I say die I don’t mean you’ll fall over and stop moving. No, I mean you’ll die horrible gruesome deaths that you can only imagine in your worst nightmares. Did I mention you should save frequently?

While playing w00tness you’re going to come across a variety of items, creatures, and people. Hardly any of these creatures\people are friendly so play defensively! The one exception to this rule is when people are giving items to you. You want to pick up pretty much everything you can or you’re going to die later. You should save just in case you mess up somewhere along the way.

?/10. Heh, what? This is all text. No graphics for you!

8/10. Nothing too original about this game, but dang it’s fun. Replay value is high due to the excessive death rate.

?/10. Audio…nah. This is a Zork clone, so you had best enjoy the silence.

7/10. Like I said, it’s a Zork clone. Nothing too original about the game except that it’s a bit out of place amongst most any other games.

8/10. I hope you’re a good speller because you’re going to need to type out all your commands for this game.

This is an excellent homage to Zork. 8/10

Treasure Seas Inc

Treasure Seas Inc

8/10

Sailing the oceans blue, searching for sunken treasure. Ah, the life of a salvager. Unfortunately for you, this salvager only has three lives and a submarine that can withstand hull crushing depths but gets crushed like an egg when a shark rushes you. Can you say “This bites”?

Your keyboard is pretty much all you need to get by in Treasure Seas Inc (TSI). The arrow keys control movement and the “A” key controls your claw. “I” opens your inventory and from there you can view various items you have picked up. Take note that each area has a map you can find that will show you exactly where each treasure is for the level. Also, the seagrass can be picked up and sold at a vendor for additional cash.  I noticed that people are searching for walkthroughs on this game so I’m updating the review to mention that each “route” has a map of all the treasures and seagrass.  You won’t be notified when you have gathered all of the seagrass but you will be alerted when you’re down to three treasures or less.  The maps are far enough down that you’ll want at least one level of plating to pick them up.

Visually this game is rather cutesy. There are lots of harmless looking characters and even one person tagged the game with “fisher-price”. Admittedly it does look like a collection of kids toys, but the graphics are fun at the same time. It looks a bit like something you would find in a Legos game or in Motherload.

There is no mute button for TSI and that’s a shame. While the music and sound effects are good, there were times I wanted to turn them off. The game uses a combination of visual and audio cues to tell you when you’re running into trouble though, so turning off the audio can have a negative effect.

8/10. Candyland with sharks? I think not. Cutesy graphics with grown-up appeal.

7/10. Only three lives to pick up 50+ treasures? Dude, you’re killin’ me. Though the game is fun enough to have me keep trying.

7/10. Mute really should have been included here, but oh well.

8/10. I’m a total sucker for adventure games where you can upgrade your gear and this game hit right on target in that regard.

8/10. Solid controls but the sub moves too dang slow at first and you might die from sharks before you can get very far. Save up the $8,000 to buy the large prop as soon as possible.

This game was really enjoyable and had some replay value. Though by the time I get to the final treasure I may not want to pick this game up again. 8/10