Rain Check-In
This is a great premise for a puzzle game: self check-in in some Airbnb type apartment. When I went to Lisbon for a conference this summer, the instructions told me to first open the main door with a code (and you’re always praying that it will work!), then get the key from the electricity cupboard, then pull hard on the door while trying to open it. I had to pull really hard; without that part of the instructions, I’m not sure I would ever have been able to enter! Now it’s easy to imagine a situation where the way to get into the apartment is a bit harder and the instructions are bit worse, and suddenly you are in core IF puzzle territory.
That’s what Rain Check-In is. A thunderstorm might start any minute, the check-in instructions have been mangled by horrible translation software, it is dark, and your phone is almost dead. Can you get into the house?
The game is small but mostly well-made. I had little trouble getting into the house, and in fact the mangled instructions were fairly easy to follow. On my first attempt I got a mediocre ending, because I had used the spade to open the lockbox, even though I had already found the dial. On the second attempt I used the dial and got the best ending.
My only real criticism is the dial puzzle. It doesn’t make much sense to me; as I understand this kind of combination lock, if you take out the entire part which allows you to set a combination, the lock will no longer keep the box shut. But perhaps it’s a type of lock I’m not familiar with. More importantly, the interface was rather obnoxious, especially when the game is played on a phone, with just too many commands required after you already know the solution to the puzzle. On the positive side, I’m happy that you could find the spade based on the photo alone, without having to turn on your lamp. That allowed me to feel smart.
The game achieved what it set out to do: a nice little puzzle game with a relatable premise.