Merk's Review: Escape from the Underworld

[Merk]

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Game #28: Bobby T. Minion in ‘Escape from the Underworld’
Author: Karl Beecher
Played On: November 11th and 12th (1 hour 40 minutes)
Platform: Inform 6 (Zcode)

Game’s Blurb:
Take control of Bobby T. Minion, the demon who has had a change of heart, and help him escape from the Underworld, the place to where torturing the souls of the damned has been outsourced.

I’ve had a week-long virus that is unfortunately kicking my butt something fierce. In the interest of at least finishing one more review while I’m lucid, this will be a brief one.

The story is good, although it feels a little less than original (and I’m still not sure how suddenly the entire underworld knew this one little minion was on his way out near the end). The writing is okay too, but seemed to stumble occasionally with odd wording choices.

Puzzles are the strongest feature of Escape from the Underworld, but they’re not as smooth as they might be due to implementation problems. Soldering the wire and using the phone are two of the biggest offenders. The author forces guess-the-verb situations, which means “solving” the puzzle is only half the battle.

All in all, I like Escape from the Underworld. I couldn’t think of a good reason to give the bonus point, but with a “2” for puzzles and a “1” in the other categories, that’s a solid “6”. The author has apparently envisioned more games in this series, and I’d like to see where Bobby T. Minion goes from here.