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Couldn't Wait To Play It Every Night

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 60 / 65
Date: April 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I loved this game. I was originally worried whether or not I would like it when the box listed horror and some blood as parts of the game, but I needn't have worried.

Horror? (1) The main character writes horror stories which he barely describes. (2) There is a bit of an overly descriptive diary entry by another character about an African tribe ritual concerning canibalism which he witnessed. Not my style, but easily skipped over. (3)Finally, you see a couple of skeletons. Uh huh. Been there, done that. Not horrific.

Blood? At the end of the game there was a MINOR amount on one skeleton and elsewhere a tiny bit on a table.

As a recent poster said, this game is more the spooky sounds in the night scary rather than anything else. A lot of that has to do with the musical score, which is perfect. There were several times I practically jumped out of my chair...after opening a door...(play scary music here)...about to see...(nope, not telling)...... It was great fun! And not horrific at all.

For the reviewers on several sites who have said this game is boring, there seems to be a common theme among them--they are game aficionados who know all the game authors, their subtle references to other games within the game, etc., etc. I'm not that type of gamer. I love games which let me go where I want to go, which blend in the puzzles with the story and don't bend my brain so much that I think I'm back in math class, and which are not obnoxiously hard yet are not obnoxiously easy. For those type of people, this game is wonderful. You'll thoroughly enjoy playing it, being spooked sometimes, and figuring out where to go and what to do by yourself most of the time. This game let me THINK, and most of the time let me think like a real person would, not like some game developer does. I only had to resort to a walkthrough a couple of times, and usually I need help a lot. I liked that.

So, turn the lights down low, watch out for things that go SCRATCH and bump in the night, and go back to the days when you were young and sat around a campfire telling scary stories to each other before you went to sleep. Scratches is one of those stories, so have fun!

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 29 / 33
Date: March 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is exactly what it promises to be, and then some. It's a true adventure game which requires only the ability to use a mouse and your brain. It's scary, atmospheric and leaves you guessing till the end. The story is slowly revealed as you play but some of the aspects are subtle. At the end, you have to actually think about what happened but if you've paid attention everything is pretty much revealed. The truth is in there...

take time to smell the Black Oricids of Death

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 26
Date: March 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Cats got nothing to do with it. This is the best game I've played since Highschool. A graphic adventure set in some obscure English Village in particular a rickety old mansion and it's surrounding estate(in totallity huge). By day, the dismel grey sky of peace yet forboding all the same. The music very Myst-like violins in the house; but by night a macebre of horror and inscensent scratching. You are a british storywriter of a famous book and want to go full time as author yet have no inspiration in town so you move to an obscure little(as in huge) Mansion on a Hill in a dark estate. If you play it alone(and your appartment is bigger than eye's veiw) you'll be as jumpy as your cat by the end of this game. By no measn are "cats" involved, dispite the title. You'll have a good idea of that and what it "might just" mean come nightfall... By the end of the game, you'll know...

Scratches is great!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 12
Date: March 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

A scary adventure game in the style of Blackstone Chronicles, the Dark Fall games and the creepier moments of Amber: Journeys Beyond. A must for fans of the genre.

great horror for adventure fans

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: March 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

If you are an obsessive drawer opener and poker around in crooks and crannies and pride yourself in finding a way behind expected routes rather than following them, even if it disrupts linear game play, this adventure game is for you. If not, don't go near it.

However, if you are of this turn of mind, it was, as the other reviewers attest, incredibly immersive and creepy. Having finished it, I have no temptation to go back and play the ending again, or review any of the compulsory midnight explorations or encounter a certain carved wooden object, in any form, ever again. In fact I was happy to uninstall it from my computer the minute I'd finished it, just in case it should try to get up to something on its own in the middle of the night (which for a game as static looking as this is high praise).

I've played the Darkfall games with a mixture of excitement and frustration, and this game outcreeps them both. I'm not sure I liked it, and I know that I couldn't play through some of the sequences with the sound effects on, but it was a triumph of its genre, even for a wuss like me. Have fun with it.

The best of it's kind

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: March 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I went into this game hesitant because a) I usually don't care for "horror" settings and b) games where the main draw is "only three people made it!" tend to be more flawed than they are made out to be by hardcore adventure fans.

This game did everything almost everything right. The atmosphere was amazing, you really start to feel claustrophobic at some times and a sense of dread at others. This is a psychological horror game, similar to movies like Session 9 or The Blair Witch Project. In other words, if you really get into the storytelling like I did, things will get really really scary. If you don't care for the story and skip through the journals, it won't be so scary. For me personally, it worked wonders. I couldn't sleep for days afterwards.

As for the claim of some (like Sharon West below me) that the ending is poor, I completely disagree. If you like your stories spoonfed to you, then you'll hate the ending. If you pay attention to everything you witnessed, there may still be things you'll uncertain about, but for the most part you can figure out what happened. You'll want to work out your theory with others who completed the game, just like a good movie that makes you think. I don't understand these people who want to play an adventure game because they supposedly like puzzles but then hate an ending that they have to think about. Kinda ironic. Personally, after playing games like the recent Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes incarnations I found it a refreshing change to play a mystery game where they actually let YOU solve the mystery.

Puzzles are uncannily well thought out and logical. There isn't a single puzzle where afterwards you'll go "well, how was I supposed to figure that out?" Well, maybe one, but it wasn't that obscure. They are all based on real world functionality.
One other thing: it's been noticed on forums I frequent that even though the game is in a first person perspective, people who usually prefer third person adventure games are more likely to like the puzzles in this game. Interpret that as you will.

My only caveat is that the pacing is a little slow on the first day, mostly because it seems to behave as if you're not an adventure veteran.

If you're not a fan of point-and-clickers, then this game isn't going to change your mind. But if you are, this is easily the best one I've played in years.

Not to be played alone in the dark!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: March 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game has a lot of virtues and is destined to be a classic. The interface is fairly seamless and there are no contrived puzzles for the sake of adding puzzles. The highly detailed and beautiful graphics work perfectly together with an amazing sound track and special effects to set a sinister and forboding mood. The game really shines in this respect, and I must say, I have never experienced better visuals or audio in a game of this genre. The mystery itself is quite original and revealed in bits and pieces. Things start to get scary after a while, and I found myself on edge, afraid to open doors or even turn around, for what I might find. The mystery was so captivating that I wanted to know what happend, but I was also afraid to find out. The only shortcoming, in my opinion, is that not everything you need to do or find, is intuitive. I found myself stuck in a few places, but had no problem finding a walkthrough to help me out. Overall, this is truly one of the most captivating, scary and enjoyable adventure games I have ever played. If you like adventure games and don't mind getting scared out of your wits, this is for you.

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...

awesome game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 9
Date: April 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

worth every penny .. it's like memento or mullholland drive for the pc gaming genre .. will have you discussing the story and trying to make sense of it for days after you finish!

If you wanna be CREEPED out, play this game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: July 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The description on the box for this game is pretty accurate: the game IS quite scary! The story comes together bit by bit, and the real horror is developed by your own mind: left alone in the game, your mind is always on alert, waiting for something frightening to happen, and maybe it does, maybe it doesn't! It feels like you are there, and the plot is fairly believeable. I personally can't make it through a lot of scary movies and games, and this one was just enough for me; I almost had to stop a few times because I got scared, but I made it. :)

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