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angelus_04CharophyceanLady Kestrel

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Adventure Game Scene of the Day - Friday 4 November

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Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

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Casual Friday

It’s no secret that I think of ERS Games as the poster child for beating game franchises into the ground. The one exception is the Dark Tales franchise. Because the games are loosely based on Edgar Alan Poe’s stories, each game has to stand on its own. The above screenshot is from Dark Tales - Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat.

Black Cat is one of the earlier games in the series. It is also one of the hardest. That’s primarily because there is no Hint button outside of the hidden object scenes. So you are pretty much on your own when it comes to deciding what to do next. I purchased this game back in 2010, and have not played it in a very long time. I re-installed the game so I could look for a screenshot. And I was suddenly confronted with how hard this game is.

The graphics are up to ERS’ high standards. Music is repetitive, and there is no voice acting. The HO scenes are fairly hard and the Hint button takes two minutes to refresh, even on the lowest difficulty setting. You rapidly learn to use it sparingly. Many of the puzzles are quite difficult. Perhaps I should say “were” quite difficult. That’s because, in 2010, many of the puzzle designs had not been seen before in a casual game. They should not present too much a problem for a casual gamer today.

There have been a few clunkers in the series. I didn’t much care for Marie Roget or The Gold Bug. But all the rest are quite good. If you want to try your hand at the best and the hardest though, Black Cat is the game to play.

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

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Total Posts: 1573

Joined 2003-09-10

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It’s been six years since this released? Time goes fast when you’re playing games. This is one of my favorite casuals as well. I particularly enjoyed Inspector Dupin’s laconic style.

     
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Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

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I know. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. I decided to finish it as long as I had it loaded for the screenshot. It was still fairly hard. How did we ever get by without active Hint buttons and/or interactive maps?

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

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Total Posts: 1573

Joined 2003-09-10

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Well, I don’t know about you—but for me, it meant a lot more back-and-forthing (which I’m thrilled not to have to do as much of anymore) and more time spent on certain of the puzzles. But it also occasionally meant that I stopped a game midway through and didn’t finish out of frustration.

     
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Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

PM

The back and forthing didn’t matter that much to me during the original play. But it sure did during the recent play. We are spoiled. And this was nothing compared to the back and forthing required in LSL2.

Despite the B&F, this game was a little ahead of its time. You didn’t always find the solution to the puzzle close by. In fact, the solution may be an hour or so game play away. Example: you found the classic “paper under door/push key” puzzle on the second floor quite early in the game. But you didn’t find the tools to solve the puzzle until much later in the game. At least two hours of game play after you found the puzzle.

I’m surprised you never finished the game. I did a bit of charting on the recent playthrough. And I grant that this excludes a lot of the “wandering around while looking for something to do,” But, until the very end of the game, you are never more than five clicks between your current location and where something needs to be done.

At the end, yes! You find a final key and must backtrack through the entire environment to use the key and get the statue. Then you must reverse the process to use the statue to solve the crime.

But that’s what we did.

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

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