Play: 9/10 Perhaps it's because I have been playing several text adventures in a row, so the gameplay is growing on me, but this is my favorite of the text adventures so far in terms of gameplay and fun (Colossal Cave and Cottage come close). When I first started playing it and exploring/self-mapping before using a guide to 100% it, I remarked that I like that all deaths/gameovers are within my control rather than purely rng like in Colossal Cave (the dwarves, etc. are in many ways an unavoidable death based on rng). In this game, you can [spoiler]use the mud for the chiggers sting, avoid cutting down the tree before getting the skeletons keys that's up in it, etc.[/spoiler]. I felt that way playing Voodoo Castle, too (apparently Imma just play the first 4 scott adams adventures in a row, woopsy about doing Voodoo Castle first though). Main complaints about the gameplay in these early Adams adventures are, having to say go north, go east, etc. instead of just n or north. Not that it's a big deal, but I know it was doable for the time, in fact made it easier for everyone involved heh. In this playthrough, I enjoyed having a guide that wasn't exactly accurate to the version I was playing, so it was still a challenge to receive 100% (though I liked how memorable each setting was and how relatively straightforward the mapping was compared to other text adventures I've attempted and never completed 100%) without being a complete and utter frustration, thanks to the basic guidance from the semi-accurate walkthrough. Finally, I liked that some of the puzzles even, gasp, made sense (like pouring the water to cool the firestone). Oh, and later in the game, I realized a couple essentially unavoidable RNG instances, main one that comes to mind involves bees to avoid spoiling it heh (indeed, even my chiggers example could be seen as rng-based/semi-unavoidable like if you can't get mud in time, etc.)

Feel: 9/10 Heh, walking into a stump, gotta love it. And oh wow, turns out to be where you drop/store the treasures--perfect :-p Main complaint about the enjoyability of the game is, I would never have figured out to enter the stump, for instance, without finding info online (in this case, having a semi-accurate guide). That's what makes it hard for me to call any early text adventure a favorite game or the genre in general a favorite--but they are growing on me (clearly). Maybe as I get more used to them, I will rely less on guides/hints to solve puzzles and instead just use online maps with my own sloppy self-created maps. At first I thought this one had no RNG/frustrating challenges, but a few appeared, as mentioned above. To add to those examples, the lamp being a certain amount of screens--reminds me, of course, of Colossal Cave's lamp feature. At least it adds that little bit more challenge considering the relative lack of rng and unavoidable deadends/gameovers (when compared, say, to Colossal Cave heh). Anyway, I love the imagination in all this and wanna replay it with the later graphic version, because looking at the images/maps online of it, it looks great.

Attachment: 8/10 Yep, turned out to be a great, fun game. Makes me wanna get through the remaining 2 of the original Adams adventures today, but I have so much to do gah! Luckily there's plenty of info about the games and hints for the puzzles etc. (as well as relative ease to accessing them thanks to Adams himself, though it might be just me, but the browser-based versions he links to seem to be buggy), so I think I will enjoy this marathon. This game was fun, unique, clever enough to get me to keep retrying till I got the right rng and solutions (again, the guide was only semi-accurate, which proved to balance an enjoyable difficulty level). In my opinion, rng isn't the best way to encourage replayability, so I can't really call text adventures a favorite (since they essentially have to rely on rng over skill; one way to resolve this that I loveloveloved was Oregon Trail's hunting based on speed of text response). I prefer that the challenge be from my skill or willingness to grind, etc. Anyway, I can't say I definitely will replay, but if I wanna return to early text adventures later, it'll be either this or Colossal Cave for sure (in addition to Oregon Trail, of course).