The Curse of Crowley Manor (1981)

Look: 6/10 The graphics are pretty beautiful, the London at night view could've been better for sure (when you think about games like Oo-Topos that were released the same year...). Poor Davonn dead, his dead graphic was fun to look at. Even if the graphics aren't much to look at, I appreciated that that made them fast to draw/render so I could move along in the game. Overall, though, the settings and potential were squandered, like the all-crystal room with Gafala was very meh.

Play: 9/10 The other Other Ventures/Jyym Pearson works I have tried so far have not been it heh... Pretty clever parser, and some of the scenes/settings are beautiful enough. Not much description in the text, though. Jyym definitely loved the use of Look, like in Saigon. This grew on me: the storyline was captivating and fun. Mix of Resident Evil and Clue or something ha. Love when the dead officer falls out of the cabinet. After being spoiled with the option to turn off the graphics in Oo-Topos, it's hard not to expect that when backtracking or trying to rush through a part heh. I'm probly overrating this a bit, but I guess today I am just in the mood for graphic text adventures, especially Apple II ones, and I can't deny I truly had fun playing this one. It was the right length, right difficulty, right complexity imo. This really should be an 8, but :) I do what I want..

Feel: 9/10 I don't care that much about London, not to mention they didn't actually draw the sites you can "Look" at on the way to the manor ha. Gotta love a Victrola appearing in a graphic text adventure! This one actually appealed to me, though I came in skeptical due to the series and author. Like with Oo-Topos some of the silly "puzzles"/item retrieval steps reminded me of Resident Evil 1 and 2 hehe, love that feeling. I love the Growth concept, that was surprising and exciting. Again, very Extermination/RE-esque. Felt like a survival horror game lol. I love the puzzle where you have to know what music was playing in the portrait-filled music room and then recognize the ghost playing piano later, thereby telling him to play the song that was playing. reminded me of parasite eve and re puzzles, again. Lol washing the sword in that nasty green liquid, funny that guides describe that room as "beautiful": it's frankly ugly :-X The Gates of Hell, nice... though what is that graphic... how lame lol. Cool that the puzzles/"treasures"-collecting was for a straightforward goal, even though I usually prefer the "put treasures in a room" adventures this one executed an alternative formula well.

Attachment: 8/10 This one would be on my list if I replay early graphic text adventures. The graphics were disappointing, but since I like to try to represent each company/series with its "best," this one definitely would represent Jyym/Other Ventures series (at least from the ones I've played so far).