Item - Flown the Koopa

Matt Wayne's first entry in the series is very much in the style of most of Clyde Bosco's work. The tone is light, the game design is simple, and there's even a brief appearance by the character of Wooster. It's not an especially satisfying read, though. For one thing, the plot, though containing some mildly amusing elements, meanders a bit too aimlessly. This isn't helped by the puzzles, which are often an unfortunate blend of mindlessly simple and tediously labor-intensive. There are some exceptions -- the puzzle on page 33 is simple but cute while the puzzle on page 95 is (to me at least) incomprehensible. Page 95 is also the source of another problem -- this page offers the reader the option of picking up an object, but there is no explicit instruction to mark the item on the character sheet; since the rest of the book spells out even the most obvious of instructions, it's easy to miss this opportunity to acquire a critical tool needed later on. In any case, this book is neither great nor awful; it's just sort of insubstantial. If you skip it, you won't miss anything, but if you play it, you'll only waste a small fraction of your life and might find it at least mildly entertaining.

My High Score - 3500

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