Robert DeFord

My initial impression was based on the little blurb for the game:

 

Tex Bonaventure has sought many things... fame, fortune, women.

 

Sought, yes. Found, yes. Kept? No.

 

But now, he must find the fabled Water of Life. Before it's too late.

 

I had a feeling that this game would be written in a droll, tongue-in-cheek manner that would make for amusing reading. This initial feeling proved to be mostly correct. Mostly? Well, let's just say that I found that the text was amusing, but it didn't quite fit together as well as it should, which gave it a vaguely disjointed feel throughout the game. And, sometimes it left things out, an exit here, an object there, and so on. Most of the time, it seemed as if the author was doing it deliberately to add a bit of difficulty to the puzzles, at other times it just seemed like the author was being lazy, or perhaps in too much of a hurry to finish the game. In any case, these omissions did not spoil the game for me; they just made it less satisfying than it could have been.

 

This game is a puzzle fest at heart and it's too light on the narrative for my taste. I don't, for example, like crossword puzzles for much this same reason. Oh there is a back story of sorts for the game, and there is a weak narrative, but they seem to be there solely as an excuse to put the protagonist through a series of puzzles. And the puzzles seem to be somewhat contrived in that they are a bit preposterous and improbable. To give the author credit where credit is due, the text often acknowledges this fact in an amusing manner, so the game is not ruined by it. And, just because I didn't love a puzzle fest, it does not mean that I think you won't.

 

As for the quality of the puzzles, I found that most of them were too hard for me. Frequently, I had to wait for some something to happen, Z, Z, Z... and a clue would pop up, breaking the fourth wall. Or, Z, Z, Z, and a useful object would come into view. I don't appreciate this approach to puzzles, but to be fair, I'm not good at puzzles, and that might be the root of the problems I had. I dunno. It will be good to see other reviews have to say. Also, there were too many guess-the-verb solutions when I had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do. I don't want to give any spoilers in this review, but it's enough to say that when I looked in the walkthrough for one of the puzzles, I was astounded. The one and only command phrase was just too awkward and improbable for me to have ever guessed. But that might be just me and my lack of puzzle-solving ability talking. Oh, before I forget, on a couple of occasions I was sucked into an annoying death while trying to solve a puzzle because of the games textual cluing. You have been warned.

 

The game has built-in help that offers hints. The hint section has a little table of contents where you can pick the puzzle you are stuck on and read its solution without seeing the other puzzle solutions. I like this approach. It worked well for me, though the progressive unveiling of better and better hints was too tedious for me. (Yes, I know lots of other folks like this approach so dont' get all huffy on me if you're one of them.) Unfortunately, one hint that I know of left out a step that was needed to progress past a certain point. Fortunately, the walkthrough had the missing step. I didn't use all the hints, so other hints may or may not have this problem. Again, you have been warned.

 

Speaking of the walkthrough, it was hard to follow because it sort of loops around and doesn't show a continuous, linear path through the game. Also, it has the occasional flippant remark that I didn't appreciate. After all, I was looking at the walkthrough because I was frustrated and I wasn't in the mood for that sort of humor.

 

The narrative ending to the game was okay, but don't expect anything more interesting than running out of puzzles to solve. JUST KIDDING! Actually, the games does end with the normal ending for this kind of pulp action narrative, but there is an interesting list of amusing things that you could try in the game if you wished to go through it again. This list is an added twist that reveals that there is more depth in the game than is readily apparent on just a quick playthrough.