Trilby's Notes is the sequel to "7 Days a Skeptic". However, its only value lies in its valuable plot contribution - as a game it's quite awful. I'd recommend for all but the masochistic to just read a summary instead of subjecting themselves to the experience of trying to "beat" this game. The foremost issue is the interface. The game uses text-based input and direct control. Both suffer from the typical issues with such interfaces. Moving about with the arrow keys is not inherently broken, but the hotel you spend most of the game in has several flights of stairs. You can't go "under" the stairs, as this is still a 2D game underneath, so you have to squeeze yourself down just to get to the other side. Moreover, the stairs are slightly diagonal, so pressing down only goes half the distance, then you have to press right, then down again. It's a minor issue but seeing as most of the game is just running around like a headless chicken, not having any path-finding becomes annoying quickly. The parser is, well, a parser. You will get to play "guess the verb" with it and it will reject plausible attempts with confusing reasons because it latches onto a word in the wrong way. Some commands work only part of the time for some reason. I didn't have the issue mentioned in the AG review, though -- being a veteran of these games, it's always "talk man about woman" for me, so there was no need to remember the name of anything, and I never used the word "shingle". The game suffers from a mortal sin, when it comes to text-based adventures: some items are never mentioned in the description. Because you can't click on objects, text adventures absolutely must, at some point, mention every object you could interact with in the scene descriptions. It doesn't have to be in "look room", but in Trilby's Notes, some items are just never mentioned, neither by "look" nor by "look table", etc. You have to figure out what they are based on the graphics - and I'm sorry, but the graphics are not that good. Beyond the crippled interface, the game itself is also sub-par. The plot is actually quite good, but the mechanics are unbearable. For some reason the game constantly shifts you back to the dark world even after giving you means to shift between worlds at will. It's not scary because by that time you've already seen everything there is to see in both hotels, so it's just annoying, forcing you to leave and re-enter screens. It's also a bit confusing at first, I thought it meant some places can't be accessed in the light world, where in fact the pills just wear off really fast. There is one ridiculous point where Trilby refuses to take an obviously-useful item because if he did it would ruin a part of the plot. There are several sections where you just have to walk around and look for people. There is no way to deduce where they are, you just have to use the awkward interface to move about the entire hotel, looking for them, occasionally being randomly shifted to the other hotel. It's not challenging and it's not interesting, it's just a chore. The puzzles are almost all completely trivial. Off the top of my head, there are two interactions I would call "puzzles" until the very end of the game. The end itself is ridiculous. It could've been clever but it's implemented poorly, the sequence is just way too overdrawn. It's difficult to explain without spoiling, so suffice to say it's a "convention breaker" type of puzzle, and those always need to be handled with care. To summarize: Trilby's Notes is longer than its predecessors, but the extra length is mostly just padding. It takes longer to move between rooms and you often need to do a brute-force search for items or characters. The actual game-play portions total to about as long as the previous games. The plot ties things nicely together and prepares the scene for the next game, but you could just look it up online and save yourself the aggravation.
Time Played: 2-5 hours

"7 days" is the sequel to "5 days a stranger". The interface has been changed for the worse. The most annoying feature is that if you bring up the right click menu, you have to left click in a specific location to get rid of it - clicking outside or right clicking again doesn't dismiss it. Beyond that, it just takes more clicks to get things done, as the left click just walks to places, so most interactions require two mouse clicks (often more, as you first look at items before doing anything more). The plot is similar to the first game, but is worse. The title of the game has nothing to do with anything, the length is arbitrary (this game also features one action days, which could've been cut out altogether) and there's one "tomato in the mirror" twist in the end that makes no sense - perhaps intended as a parody on horror game twist endings. The protagonist is considerably dumber this time around. This is reflected both in his boring observations (none of Trilby's dry wit) and in his refusal to do things which are obviously required. It's one of those games when you see a body peeking out of the box but can't open the box until you've trekked to the other end of the game for someone to tell you "hey, maybe you should look in that box over there" - quite frustrating. Another frustrating feature is the necessity of being careful when operating outside the spaceship. It adds no challenge and is never used in an interesting way, so it ends up just being padding, requiring several extra clicks for no real reason. Finally, towards the end the game introduces some timed sections and some random encounters which are every bit as annoying as you'd expect them to be. They're not very difficult, but the first one of which took me a while because I had an alternate solution in mind, which the game refused to acknowledge. All in all, it's a passable game - roughly as long as the first one, worse plot and increased challenge of the wrong variety.
Time Played: 1-2 hours

"5 days" is a nice little horror adventure. Five people are locked together in a mansion with colorful history, looking for a way out. A murderer starts picking them off one by one, and it's up to you to stop him and find a way out. The first day is mostly spent running around the mansion rounding everyone up and picking up loose inventory items. Not so much about puzzling as it is about learning the layout of the mansion. The second day is a bit more puzzling. The third day is the meatiest, where the entire mansion is unlocked and most of the deductions are made. The fourth day is mostly there so the game can be called "five days", and the fifth day is the grand finale. Puzzles are okay - logical within the context (no standalone puzzles) and fair for most part. The fifth day is considerably worse in that regard. It has a magically appearing inventory item you need to notice, as well as staunch refusal to use some perfectly logical items in lieu of other, functionally equivalent, items. Other than that, I've seen no issues with the game. It's not particularly horrifying, but it still creates an atmosphere using some nice subtle touches.
Time Played: 1-2 hours

I must say that I really liked the first 2 episodes of Cognition (they both scored 4 out of 5 by me), however I must say that I LOVED the third instalment. It is actually the best adventure gaming I have done in a very long time when playing a newly released adventure game. The developers almost nailed everything with this game and took the good parts from the past episodes and made them even better. Really fun and fair puzzles to solve in this in this episode, and what I particularly liked was that you play as 2 different characters both in the present and past, which is a really nice way to solve puzzles with help from Erica's cognition powers. This episode alone is worth waiting for even if you did not like the first 2 episodes. Also the story and the character development are both awesome. 2 thumbs up Phoenix Online, you just became one of my favourite contemporary adventure game studios. :)
Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Just Right

I never thought I'd say this but the weakest part of this game is on the technical side - "casual" animation just doesn't bode well with the glory-esque backgrounds and epic setting. The other drawback is the often limited movement - even though linearity isn't the bad thing per se in an adventure, much of the time you feel like moving through a "tunnel" - do this and then proceed to the next set of couple of screens. There're exceptions to this, particularly at the beginning in town, and in, what I've found to be one of the strongest adventure chapter in recent years - the Fairy world - it's brilliantly designed, accompanied by imaginative puzzles. The finale could have used more challenge, as they decided to put the hardest puzzle right before it - which is a brilliant logic puzzle (there could have been more of these) with a well-thought red herrings. I've found voices to be pretty good - Geron does sound like a complete idiot with a missed voice dynamic on couple of occasions, but overall - Geron's and other voices are done with great care. Music needs no praise, as it would be welcomed in any fantasy movie blockbuster. All in all, the game lacks a bit here and there and it's hard to call it an instant classic, and is probably slightly weaker than The Whispered World, but it has SOUL! Can't wait to see Geron again in action and what they'll make of Memoria.
Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Easy

Well... A good game. Not excellent. The story drags too much in places and changes tone considerably every hour or so. So-much-so that it isn't horror. It starts horror, turns into torture-porn, then melodrama, then... something. The final parasite is so over-the-top nonsensical that I can't really say if it was intentional or not to have him be so out-of-place.
Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Just Right

Simon 2 fixes some of the problems with the first game. However, it adds new issues and the overall tradeoff is negative. By far the worst problem is Simon himself. He's simply an insufferable prick. Where in the first game he offered sarcastic quips, in this one he's just plain mean. There's not much to add beyond that, it's just not fun watching him do some of the things he does. Like the previous game, the puzzles in this one are almost all inventory. Unlike the last one, there are some downright illogical puzzles. Getting the perfume, for instance, should rank up there with the infamous "pose as Mosely" part in GK3. Fortunately, the poor puzzles are grouped near the end of the game. There are no "filler" screens this time around, which detracts from the exploration, but also somewhat mitigates the problem with hotspot highlighting not containing exits and saves a lot of time. Puzzles clues are hit and miss. It's now a lot more obvious what you'll get if you help people out, but the game does a poor job of guiding the player. The very first objective you're given can only be accomplished after over half the game is complete, so until then you sort of wander around, noting who has what and who needs what so you can start figuring out ways to "progress" by making an impact on the world. In other words, you'll be doing a lot of things that have nothing to do with winning a magic contest until the point where you actually win said contest. The other characters in the game are as one-dimensional as in the first one, and still are boring to talk to. The plot is likewise idiotic - Simon chases a McGuffin, things come between him and it, obstacles are overcome and both are whisked to the next act. Like the first game, there's actually no interaction (and thus no tension) between the bad guy and Simon until the very last minutes of the game. The game is also less humurous. It certainly tries to be funny, but the comic timing is off on many of the lines, there is an overabundance of slapstick and reliance on "accents are funny", and there is one tribute to Benny Hill in the end that you just wish would end already. There are some amusing minor characters, but most exist to trade poor jokes with Simon. In summary, the charm is gone. The game isn't funny, the puzzles are often lacking and hearing Simon blather on and on is simply painful at times. Since the game's terrible ending sets up the scene for Simon 3D, one of the worst adventure games you might be forced to play, there is simply no reason to play it.
Time Played: 10-20 hours
Difficulty: Hard