October 31st is a puzzle adventure set in a house full of monsters. Overall, I enjoyed the game, but found its mechanical flaws frustrating.
Writing
Many of the descriptions are rather unclear: for example, I couldn’t tell whether the description of a door at the top of stairs had the door between me and the stairs, or the stairs in one direction and the door in another.
The game often attempts horror, but misses the mark: the writing gets overwrought, or tells me that something is scary rather than convey the actual feeling. That didn’t detract much from my enjoyment since it’s so heavily puzzle-oriented, except at the very last action, which IMO should be spread over a longer multi-command scene rather than delivered in one chunk.
Story and characters
Clearly not the focus: the game is meant to be an old-style puzzle romp. I’m very fond of those, so I don’t mind. The story is a thin pretext: the character came to the house for a bet and finds themselves trapped. The NPCs, whether friends or foes, are rather transparently mechanical and there to serve a puzzle.
In such a game, I’d expect the PC would be a blank cipher, and they mostly are, but a bit of personality comes through in their description: they think of themselves as handsome and kissable, with “piercing eyes” and a “chiseled jaw”. I expected a follow-up to that, and was looking forward to seeing the vain little jerk get taken down a peg, but apparently not. Also, they have no appreciation for good aged cheese.
Implementation
Serious guess-the-verb problems. For example, “dig” and “dig ground” and “hit ground” won’t do, only “break ground”. Likewise, “press fixed thing with portable thing” doesn’t work, only “press portable thing against fixed thing”.
The lack of implicit actions was infuriating. Why do I need to explicitly open every door every time? Why do I need to say “take leather book” and can’t refer to it any other way including by its title?
I’m told these are considered acceptable in the Adrift community, but I still don’t like them.
I did however appreciate that many small details are implemented, especially in the garden, where everything is gorgeously described.
Puzzles
The individual puzzles are fairly classic. My favourite was the kitchen one — still a classic, but a very different kind, followed by the one involving meat, which has an interesting twist in the mechanics (not sure if random or if I just couldn’t figure out the pattern).
They can be solved in any order except at the very beginning and end. However, my enjoyment was spoilt by guess-the-verb problems. Also, many puzzles don’t make sense for the character, who logically ought to leave well alone instead of inviting danger.
Help and hints
Very complete adaptive hints, and a helpful walkthrough. Having those definitely let me enjoy the game much more than I would have otherwise.