I just took a peek at this game the other day. I had not seen the previous releases.
intial reactions:
Feedback from my browser is slow. There is a delay of 2-3 seconds between clicking a button and seeing a response from the game. This makes it frustratingly slow to play. The button clicking felt very tedious, especially when it came to things I do repeatedly, like looking around (pretty much required to interact with the environment in this game). I am using the latest version of Firefox and Windows 7.
Maybe once you’ve looked around a single time, there should be buttons available to interact with each item in the vicinity. Rather than having to look around, click a hyperlinked word, and then interact with it every time.
There are a couple of bugs, or annoying bits that I would call bugs. Specifically:
[spoiler]the Blades can only be accessed from High on the Ridge, and they are used down in the valley, several steps away. This wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t melt away to nothing several turns after being summoned, or if I didn’t need to summon the Hunter to follow the tracks every time. It was frustrating having to go back and forth to get the Hunter, the knives, and me all in the right place at the same moment. Since it’s such a short game, I would suggest having the knives and harp just stay put in the player’s inventory once they’re acquired.
Once the hunter has pointed out tracks and helped me follow them, I should be able to follow my own tracks back and forth from there.
In the Wastes, “Follow the bear tracks” and “follow the new bear tracks” give different results, which was confusing. (The former takes you back to your house, the latter takes you on to the icy area.)
I expected to be able to pick up the cooked seal meat, and thought it was strange that it remained “too hot to touch” long after I put the fire out. This made me stuck for a little while, since I thought the bear wanted the meat.
When the seal meat is in the pot and the player carries the pot, you can’t interact with the seal meat; you have to put the pot back on the hook and THEN try to get the meat.[/spoiler]
The plot reminds me a lot of the book Julie of the Wolves, with a couple twists from Norse mythology. The ending scene feels a little dissonant compared with the tone of the rest of the game, but maybe that was the point. I ran through the game twice, found two slightly different endings, but I would’ve been more impressed if
destroying the port had some greater effect on the text, or giving the amulet to Father had some sort of effect. That said, I did like the story and setting. It was well written.
Having commands limited to buttons was good in one way: it made the rune business very clear and not difficult. I was also pleased to find that you can play two runes in any order, and they’ll still work. That may be unrealistic (depends on the language syntax, I guess) but it certainly makes the puzzles easier.
It would be nice if certain tricks were automated after the first time doing them successfully. For instance, the button that says “Summon the Withered Tree” could automatically play the 2 runes, look up, and summon in one click after you’ve proven you know the Tree’s rune name. Repeating the same sequences of 3-4 actions many times got tedious.