What an excellently fun game! I played this with my (nearly) 8 year old who is now a bit of an expert at these sorts of games and we spent a couple of hours over it. Apart from the opening and closing scenes, the Christmas theme sits nicely in the background which is quite a refreshing change from the more overt reindeer and elf -ridden settings of other games (not that I have anything against reindeer and elves, you understand), and the falsely accused Bigfoot storyline is a fun and motivating premise (I was burning with righteous indignation throughout). The puzzles are just the right level of hardness to keep grown ups and kids interested without becoming too frustrating and I'm a sucker for teleporting in adventure games - it's a great device for breaking up the uniformity of the experience by zapping between disparate locations, and scattering the puzzle elements between them helps to maintain an overall coherence. There is certainly a satisfying sense of achievement on completion.
There are a few bugs to highlight and specific comments to make (compiled from my child's notes, so there may be one or two other things that are not listed here - but these are the main things we spotted):
- Santa's desk= "Santa's desk is filled OF [with] letters and lists..."
- GET TRASH CAN (in Santa's office) = "What trash?" / GET CAN = "You can't find it";
- The teleport graphic is great but it is crying out for an accompanying sound effect!;
- You can't cancel the teleport once you've ENTERed COORDINATES (provide an option to cancel and stay in Santa's location);
- There is no TAKE message for the ratchet;
- PUT BATTERY IN x produces the standard "not a container" Adventuron message (the same issue I've seen in several of these games). I'd suggest you anticipate and override that system message as I find it really does break immersion (for me, probably because I'm looking out for it in Adventuron games by now);
- Typos when finding the band spray paint evidence: "must have been A [delete] their REBELIOUS [rebellious]..."
- Typo in end scene: "you deserve a special COMMODATION [commendation]..."
- we struggled slightly with guessing the verb to deal with the play apparatus: UNBOLT doesn't work, RATCHET (as a verb) doesn't work, BREAK doesn't work... but we figured it out in the end.
All the above are easily fixed and don't detract too much from the overall experience of what is a very jolly game. Well done!