Doom Keep
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Last modified 2011-09-22 21:12:40
Doom Keep is an overall likeable inventory game with a few major flaws. It kept me interested enough to figure out its puzzles, even when I had to go to the editor.
The story is pretty basic (and generic) -- you have been imprisoned in a dungeon and must escape.
The gameplay consists of using various objects you find laying around to get past obstacles, which is where this game is simultaneously brilliant and flawed. The present interactions are well done and some of them will even make you feel smart for figuring out. However, what's lacking is other interactions that you'd THINK would work, but don't. For instance, there is a guard that demands 50 coins. At this point, you have a diamond, but you can't bribe the guard with the diamond (you need it later, but why tell the player that?). What you actually have to do is smash bottles (or look in the editor like I did) to find that there's a pouch hidden under overlay with exactly 50 coins in it. Did anybody actually figure that out without editing the game? Another instance of this is the dagger -- you can't use it on the guard, either. I found out in the editor that this is because of a mismatched label, but what would have happened is that the guard would have killed you if you tried. D'oh. Finally, there's a seemingly insignificant vase you can break early in the game, next to another vase that you have to break to get a key. You actually have to turn this second vase into a candle after you get the magic staff, and there's no way you can continue if you don't do exactly this. It's like this game is expecting you to play from the editor... no good.
The music doesn't stand out, but conveys the mood of each area very well. I found it very fitting.
The graphics mostly consist of dithered slants... what would have probably worked better here is more palette changes and using different colors instead of dithered chars. This would have saved chars and looked better... the objects themselves look like what you'd expect, and nothing seems horrendously out of place.
This game is worth a playthrough, but I don't find it particularly replayable. A game like this needs multiple solutions to its puzzles if it has multiple items that would work in a situation, and multiple ways to solve puzzles that would require an object that could be used as such. A few of its solutions didn't make sense at all, even. Turning coal into a diamond makes sense, but a vase into a candle doesn't, especially if you broke the vase 20 minutes ago to see if there was something inside of it. I think that's where this game is the most lacking, and it hurts the game a lot. Save frequently, but expect to have to backtrack almost as frequently for reasons that the game will never mention unless you look in the editor.
The story is pretty basic (and generic) -- you have been imprisoned in a dungeon and must escape.
The gameplay consists of using various objects you find laying around to get past obstacles, which is where this game is simultaneously brilliant and flawed. The present interactions are well done and some of them will even make you feel smart for figuring out. However, what's lacking is other interactions that you'd THINK would work, but don't. For instance, there is a guard that demands 50 coins. At this point, you have a diamond, but you can't bribe the guard with the diamond (you need it later, but why tell the player that?). What you actually have to do is smash bottles (or look in the editor like I did) to find that there's a pouch hidden under overlay with exactly 50 coins in it. Did anybody actually figure that out without editing the game? Another instance of this is the dagger -- you can't use it on the guard, either. I found out in the editor that this is because of a mismatched label, but what would have happened is that the guard would have killed you if you tried. D'oh. Finally, there's a seemingly insignificant vase you can break early in the game, next to another vase that you have to break to get a key. You actually have to turn this second vase into a candle after you get the magic staff, and there's no way you can continue if you don't do exactly this. It's like this game is expecting you to play from the editor... no good.
The music doesn't stand out, but conveys the mood of each area very well. I found it very fitting.
The graphics mostly consist of dithered slants... what would have probably worked better here is more palette changes and using different colors instead of dithered chars. This would have saved chars and looked better... the objects themselves look like what you'd expect, and nothing seems horrendously out of place.
This game is worth a playthrough, but I don't find it particularly replayable. A game like this needs multiple solutions to its puzzles if it has multiple items that would work in a situation, and multiple ways to solve puzzles that would require an object that could be used as such. A few of its solutions didn't make sense at all, even. Turning coal into a diamond makes sense, but a vase into a candle doesn't, especially if you broke the vase 20 minutes ago to see if there was something inside of it. I think that's where this game is the most lacking, and it hurts the game a lot. Save frequently, but expect to have to backtrack almost as frequently for reasons that the game will never mention unless you look in the editor.