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Shades of Gray
| Authors: | Mark Baker, Steve Bauman, Belisana, Hercules, Mike Laskey, Judith Pintar, and Cindy Yans | | Genres: | Surreal
Historical | | Released: | 1992 | | Review: | WARNING: High Tarot content.
An imaginative psychodrama of self-confrontation and moral dilemma, by way of
Haiti, Sherwood Forest, and an American Civil War battlefield. One of the
most intriguing storylines I've seen in any game. You wander the city
streets, or possibly the castle grounds, with a sense of temporal dislocation
and confused memories of vampires, until a friendly fortune-teller helps you
put your head back together through a series of visions about your past and
what it means to you. Written by seven strangers, the game is divided into
self-contained segments of highly variable style, subject matter, and quality.
This is at once the game's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Just
about everything you hate in games can be found here - mazes, time limits,
obscure "guess-the-word" puzzles - but the flawed parts fit into the
frame-tale so well, the effect is dazzling. Given a better parser and the
removal of some of the more annoying puzzles, this one would easily rate five
stars.
Rating: ****
Reviewed by Carl Muckenhoupt (30 Jun 2000)
| Competitions/ Awards: | Group Effort, Softworks AGT contest 1992
| | Related Links: | SPAG reviews
| | Downloads: | - soggy.zip (411.35 KB)
- AGT executable (bundled with MS-DOS runtime, Original release)
- soggy97.zip (414.54 KB)
- AGT executable (bundled with MS-DOS runtime, hint menu, Includes UHS hints plus, for some reason, LGOP hints)
- sogpop.zip (65.73 KB)
- pop-up hints only. MS-DOS only.
- soggy.hnt (5.83 KB)
- hints
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