Shady Brook
By
Oldmariner
Storycentric Games
Developed by Unimatrix Productions
Released 2016
Genre:
Adventure Cult Classic, Dark
Focus:
Dialog
Rating:
Appropriate for ages 17 and up. Contains adult content, including
violence, sex, nudity, and language.
This review will read much like the Lifestream
review that I wrote a few weeks ago. It is from the same developer and
follows the same format of game play. Shady Brook is another of those
old interactive fiction games popular in the early days of home
computers, brought up to date in an Adventure game presentation. As with
Lifestream, there are no action scenes or fast reaction fight scenes to
contend with, and no voice acting. The graphics are very good, as are
the background sounds and music. The game is a hybrid, a blending of the
old text-only adventure games and a modern point and click interface
with good graphics. When you can play a text adventure without typing,
that is always a bonus.
The length of the game will vary based on the
player. It should average about eight plus hours. Due to its origins,
consider it like reading a book and as a player you determine the
direction or path you take. It is the text equivalent of a full-length
novel!
Basics
It is a text adventure with point and click
mechanics. You have a musical soundtrack as a background and sound
effects which are good. You have a choice of two difficulty levels: easy
and medium. I did not compare one version against the other. Having
played the medium level, I did not encounter any difficulties or “hard”
gaming. See the screen shots to view the quality of the graphics, which
I found quite good in still picture format.
Saves are of the automatic variety. You cannot
create saves; this feature has always been off-putting for me, however
the automated saves are well done in this application. When you reopen
the game, a play button takes you back to where you left off. For me it
worked without a glitch. The downside is you cannot go back to a
previous save to replay a scene.
This is a text adventure game with a unique
interface that is pleasant to navigate. If you have played Lifestream or
read my review, you have seen this before. Your navigation is by
compass, meaning on the bottom left of your screen is a compass where
you click various directions that you can move to. The left side of your
screen features a panel with a vertical listing of icons. The first is a
stick figure which you click to engage the play screen where you
interact with the game. The second is a backpack containing your
inventory. The third is your map. Clicking on the map will bring up a
pattern naming the rooms in your locale. The room you are in will be
blinking. It helps to orientate you regarding your choices or routes
available on the compass. It does not allow you to simply click to go to
another location. The fourth icon is your notebook where you store and
read items such as letters that you have picked up. The fifth is a
character icon showing the character that you are playing and the bottom
icon is for accessing options. They are pretty much the same as found in
Lifestream. You have the ability to adjust various settings and access
the main menu to continue or quit. The game does not provide a
walkthrough.
In inventory you can combine items, to create
another or select one to apply to solve a puzzle.
There are puzzles in the form of questions where
you select the correct answer or from a list to do things in the right
order. You pick items up as you go along as in any adventure game. One
of the screen shots shows your basic screen. The title shown in the
graphic is labeled “Your Bedroom.” It is not your opening screen of
course but it typifies the game screen. It is where you play the game.
You are in the bedroom and you have choices of what to do next. ( “Look
at the bed” “Investigate the safe” or “Pick up the tape recorder” ) You
will note the compass offers only one direction where you can go from
here. Click on the compass or look at your map to see where you are.
With this type of game the story determines whether it is for you or
not.
Story
Author Jake Torrent, alongside his blind father
Wayne, moves to the small, peaceful country town of Shady Brook. At
first, everything seems idyllic. His neighbor, Tim, is always willing to
lend a hand, and the Ekan family invites him to dinner. But soon Jake
learns that his home's previous occupant committed suicide, and
mysterious things begin to occur. When another resident also commits
suicide, Jake starts to suspect foul play. Could this town take part in
a conspiracy to cover up a murder? As Jake investigates, he gets more
than he bargained for – a town secret so terrifying that there is no
turning back. You explore a small town to interact with nearly two dozen
characters. As noted above, you choose your path through the game by
choices made. I found no alternative endings. The path you choose will
bring you to the same ending. To me this means you can wander. The game
does not limit you to go from A to B. There are a variety of puzzles,
both inventory and reasoning variety where you choose a correct answer
allowing you to advance through the game. This type of puzzle tends to
open other doors, ( places that were not available before. )
Jake is tasked to discover the town’s terrifying
secrets and it is a dark, mature storyline. There is an achievement
bonus allowing you to view a special post-game bonus scene if you unlock
33 achievements through game play. No it’s not attached to any tracking
website.
Summary
I found this game to have a well
written storyline, though as I went through it there was a sense that
I’ve seen this before. And no, I had not played the 2005 adventure game
version. It must have been the story itself being too similar to a
hundred made for television movies in this genre. I give them points for
blending an old interactive fiction text-only format with point and
click graphics. However the game is dark, bordering on horror, and the
story was too fatalistic for my taste. Whether this is a game to play is
up to you. At a budget price you cannot feel cheated after 8 hours or
more of game play. I could not find it available online at any of the
usual download site so I’ll include a link to where you can find it - at
the
developer's website.
GameBoomers Review Guidelines
August 2016
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