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One main location, a lot of nothing happening.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: October 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The graphics aren't too bad, and there's some fun in wondering around the semi-spooky home. The phone conversations add a little something to it, but the storyline is weak, and the ending was feeble.

There's a lot of reading, which I generally don't mind, but some of the type is pretty small- and, on my 15 inch screen I had to squint a bit. I have no issue with detaching from reality and letting myself flow into a game- but this storyline is just silly. It starts off all right, and does a good job of drawing you in. I finished it for sheer curiosity; I really wanted to like this game.

But, alas I was dissapointed.

Music score- good
Spooky effects overall- decent
Storyline- stupid
Puzzles- mediocre. Some are fun, some... not so much.
Horror factor-some terrifying "I realllly don't want to explore the basment" moments, but nothing grand.
Ending- grose.
Lame game. Not really worth it.

A throwback to the boring adventure games

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 16
Date: March 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I feel misled by the positive reviews. I like adventure games when they are not all based on finding the right pixel to click on and when they are not soporific. Unfortunately, this is both. Frankly, it seems as if I'm back in the early '90's playing 7th Guest. The graphics are utterly disappointing, and very, very static. You constantly run into doors that all look the same and most of them are locked. The music is eerie, but so what. It seems there's nothing to do but open drawers, find "useless junk" or yet "another old tarnished candelabrum", or not very mysterious clues, or, at best, endless verbose journals that refer to a "terror" that is "almost indescribable." Lots of British accents, some better than others, couldn't keep me awake.

SOOO overrated!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: March 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I am very upset that I counted down the days for this game to come out... even the extra days since the release was delayed more than once. I found it very boring. I felt myself getting scared a couple of times only because the game was hyped up to be "so scary". It was just BORING. Not only were there not 14 bazillion annoying slider puzzles, there were NO puzzles, at all. Yeah, I mean, you had to figure out what to do with the basic items in your inventory but it was usually pretty obvious. This was one of those games where you walk around to everything again and again only to find out there is some silly little trigger that you hit but not in just the right spot. I kept waiting for SOMETHING, ANYTHING to happen but it just didn't. And wow did I get sick of looking at every painting in the place thinking I might have to for some reason.

On the other hand, the scenery is pretty cool and it is very easy to move around the house and the grounds. It is a bit eerie but no need to think you can't play it alone, nothing jumps out of corners or anything.

And as is common in this genre, the ending sucked. You are left to use your imagination but don't know if you are right or wrong.

Overall, I was extremely disappointed and hope I get most of my money back on this when I sell it on ebay!

Huge waste of time.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: February 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The name "Scratches" must refer to scratching ones head in disbelief at how annoying this game is. I had more fun reading the 40 reviews of this game on Amazon than actually playing this tedious thing. If you've ever lost something like your glasses or car keys and you've gone through your house a hundred times, getting more and more annoyed, fatigued and angry only to find the object you searching for exactly in a place you looked a hundred times..that's what playing this game is like. If that experience is like a fun game for you - please buy this game.

I'm a big fan of point-and-click type games and have played loads of them. All the atmospherics and graphics couldn't turn this into a satisfying game. Like other reviewers point out, Scratches is non-intuitive and requires alot stupid repetitive actions and running around waiting for doors to open (yawn) to fill out the game play. In comparison, Barrow Hill, which I played right before playing Scratches, is a much better game of this scary/mystery genre. It's creepy and atmospheric (yet humorous) and has lots of things to manipulate and hold on to. Although the puzzles in Barrow Hill are "dumbed down" they follow a logical course and a walk-through would only needed for the very impatient player. With Scratches a walk-through is the ONLY way to make sense of the game, not because it's a brilliantly clever game, but because is the opposite of clever.

Keep it up, guys!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: March 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've been eagerly anticipating this game for a year now, and it was well worth the wait. It's a sorely-needed oasis in a barren desert full of shoot-'em-ups. Never in my years of adventure game playing have I been so down-to-the-core *scared*, and to me, that's what makes an excellent game. In fact, at one point I was pulling my hair out because I had to find out the secrets of this creepy old house, but I literally was afraid...afraid of going down in that basement...
Graphics were unbelievably real! There was a certain picture hanging on the wall of the library that had this beautiful old wooden frame, and I knew if I put my hand on the screen I could feel the covering of dust and the nicks in the wood.
Lynn, enjoyed your comments about the game but have to correct you on its creators, because these guys need to be given their just praise. Agustin Cordes and Alejandro Graziani of Nucleosys are the game's developers, and they have the honor of developing the first commercial adventure game to come out of Argentina (you go,guys!!) Jonathan Boakes does indeed have his talented hands, or should I say his voice, in the project as Jerry the realtor, and a very reassuring presence he can be, believe me!!
So, kudos to these incredibly gifted independent developers, as well as Jonathan, Daniel Cordes, Cellar of Rats (his eerie music was dead-on--pun intended),and everyone involved with this. Hope their success continues in a big way!! Ok, fellas, sequel? Yeh-yeh-yeh-yeh...

Made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: August 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is different. Requires a bottle of wine and a notepad. Turn the lights out. Crank up the audio. Prepare for some tedious searching and running back and forth, but that's what it's all about. Works in a psychological way that takes you by surprise. The puzzles (or things required to implement a logical progression of the story) make sense and work in your favor. It builds on you... takes you into its own little claustrophobic world, and begs you to solve its mystery. The ending works wonderfully if you pay attention to what its all about. The Blair Witch jolt comes to mind. Give in only if you like unsettling moments achieved through sheer, frustrated, mystery solving determination, and enjoy feeling those Goosebumps on your face.

Such a boring, hard, pointless game...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 15
Date: August 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Let me give you a REAL review. After reading all these reviews I'm like oh wow this game sounds freaky!! I LOVE horror movies and being scared, so after reading these reviews I'm like, "This game sounds great." Boy was I WRONG!!
What was scary about this game? The scratching noises?? They are only in the game a couple times and sound more like a hand saw sawing wood... NOT creepy. The ending? It wasn't really scary and ended abruptly. If you understood the story they were trying to depict in your reading of the previous owners journals, your still left questioning the ending. I don't know if they wanted you to interpret it yourself or planned on making a sequel, but it too was vague.
Heres the scoop: You are an old guy you never see. You have no instructions and walk around a huge mansion and the property alone looking for clues? Basically clicking on anything it lets you. I wonder how many hours it took people to figure these things out because I did NOT have the patience to wander around with no purpose trying to figure out what to do next! This game is so VAGUE I had to consult a walkthrough soooo many times, and when I read what I was supposed to do I'm thinking, "Who would have thought of that!!" There was no point and not a good story.
You shouldn't be scared... I CANNOT see a guy being scared what-so-ever. I even played it in the dark at 1:00 in the morning!! I'm soooo DISAPPOINTED!! PLEASE tell me someone agrees with me?

Wake me up when the next Nucleosys game comes out

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First of all, this game was not from Jonathan Boakes, although it is in the style of Dark Fall and he does provide voice talent. Nucleosys is an Argentinean studio, and this is the first adventure game from Argentina.

On the plus side, the graphics were exquisite, the house layout was easy to navigate, and there is an interesting (albeit underdeveloped) option to turn on hints.

Overall, it's clear that Nucleosys has the potential to do some really great adventure games. This isn't one of them, though. There were enough bright spots of cleverness to give me hope for the next Nucleosys game, but many of the puzzles were incredibly non-intuitive. If you can finish this game without resorting to walkthroughs, then I congratulate you.

Also, the story was weak. The only goal of the first part of the game was trying--ultimately unsuccessfully, mind you--to turn on the electricity. None of it was scary, and some of the plot twists were tired (please, can we not have any more exotic african curses?)

I can never find enough games like Dark Fall and Syberia, so I recommend Scratches as adequate entertainment until the next really good one comes out. Maybe it'll come from Nucleosys...?

It Sucked

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: February 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've played a lot of adventure games and this was one of the worst. There were things about the storyline that didn't make sense. Warning: Spoilers ahead.

- If Catherine wasn't in the coffin, who was?
- If the maid took a photo through her bedroom window (as it says in the newspaper), then why was the body on the other side of the house?
- How did the main character just "know" how to assemble the amulet. There were no clues. I mean, if I was going to rid a house of evil spirits, it wouldn't occur to me to grind up someone's tooth.
- Who was dropping food down the grate for the demon thing?

I have more questions, but you get the idea. There was just too much that didn't make sense.

Pixel hunting is always annoying. Have fun with it in this game.

There's an option to turn off the background music. I tried to turn it off, but it stayed on. So I was forced to listen to that one piano note over and over again.

Basically, you walk through a house 30,000 times trying to figure out what to do next. There could have been shortcuts put in. For example, it would have been easier to be able to walk from outside the front of the house to the backdoor, but nope. You gotta walk through a bunch of rooms and listen to the doors creak each time. It's best to save your game in different locations so you don't have to walk from one end of the house to the other to explore one room.

The ending was anti-climactic, rushed, and downright laughable. "...And then I became a great writer." What?! That's it?

Scary, but inconsistent. 1 spoiler warning!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: June 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I just finished playing this game, then I re-played Barrow Hill for comparison, as they are both scary games. I mention this because there are some comparisons to be made. Scratches starts with a good premise and typical point & click gameplay. You have the option to turn off the 360 mouse movement (which makes me sick), and go with the more common click to move the screen around technique. There are plenty of places to click and explore in this game, which is really nice if it serves some kind of purpose, such as telling the story or dropping a hint. But there were just too many worthless clicks. The house is full of about 5000 pictures that you can click to get a close-up. That's all well and good, but for the most part they serve no purpose except to do just that. After the first few rooms, I thought that if I needed to see a particular picture, the game would be nice enough to hint at that later. It didn't and here's the spoiler. It turns out that there is a safe hidden behind one of the pictures in the house. How do I know that? I cheated with some hints. There was nothing that I saw or heard in the game play to indicate that there was any kind of safe in the house. I think you were supposed to wander around the house forever clicking away at pictures. Worse still, the hotspot on the picture close-up for the safe was very small, so if I had clicked on the picture without knowing I was supposed to hunt for another hotspot, I probably would have missed it. That was really annoying. And there were a few instances where no hotspot was made available until after something had been done, so that I had no idea I could use/see/interact with something. The particular spot just looked like part of background. Then there is one particular nightmare involving a 5x5 pixel hotspot you have to find just right or it doesn't work - VERY annoying.



Overall, the game play felt a bit disjointed and some of the puzzles lacked a flow that made sense. For the most part, I was bored. The music was totally uninspired and didn't match the visual sense of forboding. It actually distracted from the atmosphere. I thought the makers would have done much better to leave out the music tract and add in more ominous ambient sounds & choice bits of music to accentuate the mood (like Barrow Hill did). The voice acting was teetering on the absurd, just plain bad accent AND bad voice acting. A shame really, for the price.

The Good: I don't scare easily at all. This game had a few memorable moments where I just about screamed. I mean that, in the literal sense and not the "I'm a girl that screams at everything just to hear my own piercing wail." I'm talking heart-racing, chills up the spine, oh my god where's my teddy bear moments. These few precious moments make the whole mess worth while in my mind. It's at these moments when the game is at it's best. The music stops being camping and adds to the forboding atmosphere, the graphics, sounds, etc all work towards the penultimate moment where the dread really begins. Unfortunately, it's short lived and really punctuates where this game falls flat. But, by God, it was something I have never experienced in a game before, or movie for that matter. Definitely a 10 on the scare-o-meter.

Can I recommend this game? Maybe. If you aren't strapped for cash, then go ahead and get it. But if you need to make a choice, get Barrow Hill instead. That game packs a wallop for the cost, and delivers the ominous atmosphere, gameplay, and music that is so lacking in Scratches. Oh, and it has a few of it's own scary moments.

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