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Donald Dowell and the Ghost of Barker Manor

OK, one that hopefully most people have heard of this time and it is a beauty!

Produced almost entirely by a one man Italian team, this is a wacky comedy game which is surprisingly big (about 120 playable rooms) and fleshed out with a lovely hand drawn art style and a light and enjoyable tone.

You play as Donald Dowell, a man well into his 80’s and faced with the prospect of living the quiet life in retirement. However, a nagging wife and a desire to stave off boredom leads him to the conclusion that he needs a job, and not just any job, but one full of adventure and excitement!

Undeterred by the refusal of many employers to take on a man in his 80’s, Donald sets his sights on paranormal investigation and sets out to become the assistant of Bob Delano - the foremost occult detective in Ireland! The story tracks Donald’s journey in becoming a mighty ghostbuster and investigating the haunted goings on at Barkwell Manor.

Although off beat humour and wackiness is the order of the day, the story is cohesive and well thought out and there is so much more to the game than a few cheap and infantile gags - although there certainly are plenty of cheap and (occasionally) infantile gags for anyone who enjoys that sort of thing as much as I do!

The ghosts and mystery of the house are not as simple as they may first seem and I was quite surprised to find that there is a fair bit of in-game history and sense to what is happening and why.

The main problem with the game is that there is no travel map and as the game develops the number of locations you can visit does too. When you’re over halfway through getting from one end of the game world to the other can take a serious amount of time.

One other warning - due to a slight misunderstanding with translation (the dev is Italian) there is a point in the game where there is an absolute proliferation of extremely bad language when Donald keeps missing the “o” out of the word “count” - and it happens quite a bit whenever you talk to one particular character. It is intentional, but I understand that the dev wasn’t aware quite how strong a swear word that was in English so it is very out of character for the rest of the game.

Other than that the game really does have some very funny characters, situations and moments. Puzzle wise it’s not a walk in the park, nor ridiculously hard so should fit most people pretty well.

Anyway, it’s a really great game and if you haven’t played it I strongly recommend that you do.

That screenshot is a HO scene, right?

Yes, I know I’m recycling my own jokes. Screw you, that was funny!

I haven’t played it, but I did play the demo of the authors’ newest project Tales, which is yet to be released, and there’s a big potential there. (I was also in contact with the author at some point, to help with the music)