The House at the End of Rosewood Street is a game which has raised quite a few eyebrows with its players. It includes an interesting plot, it is stylistically well written, but it does not work as a game at all. I guess we agree this far?
Well, unless you have a very lose definition of what constitutes a 'game' and what is rather cumbersome work, I can fully agree with this. As with every work, something can come to fruition from it. However, the question to ask is, whether it is really worth it.
Alert: Princess trapped in a dungeon below a castle; hero needed to rescue her! Castle Adventure delivers exactly what it promises: An old-school treasure hunt set first in a forest (where else?), then after a brief interlude in a cave going into a castle and its dungeon where you will encounter a mildly amusing, because completely politically incorrectly portrayed princess. Along the way, you will encounter predominantly undescribed or at least underdescribed locations which you have to map, nice and logical puzzles, mazes and lots of dead ends. To put it another way: It was a delight to play, because it did everything right – if you like this sort of thing which was heavily in style in the 80s.
In May 2021, the winner of a small competition for self-created text adventures was voted. The PunyJam participants had the task of starting the game in a room called Broom Closet. The description of the room was also precisely specified. The rest of the game was left to the imagination and creativity of the author. This resulted in 8 different text adventures which were evaluated by a jury. The decision was very close. The difference between first place and second place was only a tenth of a point.