The Night of the Rabbit Review - Down the Rabbit Hole
Anything is possible on a day in summer vacation.
Read Full Article
Anything is possible on a day in summer vacation.
Read Full Article
The Night of the Rabbit Review - Down the Rabbit Hole
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
This game's style really looks amazing and I'm sure I'll pick it up at some point. Adventure Games were the genre that really got me into gaming and computers way back with the original King's Quest. I backed the Double Fine Adventure.
However, based on this review and John Walker's at rockpapershotgun, I already know that I'm not going to truly enjoy the game. The first thing people say about a great Adventure Game is that it's all about the story. It looks like this does have an interesting story, but I'm not sure if this is really the best way for a game to tell a story.
Something John Walker mentioned was the let-down you get from finishing some of the puzzles. Really, the pacing of Adventure Games is a problem. You move about the world, explore, and talk to people and that's great. Then you get stuck on a puzzle. At that point the game just seems to stop. When you finally rub enough items together to proceed, you maybe get a little more story before hitting the next wall. If the puzzles are too easy you fault the game for being just an interactive cartoon, but if they're too hard the pacing is terrible. I don't see how this can be solved.
Another problem is that Adventure Games are extremely linear. There's usually only one or two ways to solve a puzzle, and you only affect the world in a couple of minor ways. The world's often don't really feel alive.
When I look at Night of the Rabbit, I really want to explore that world, but I'm not so sure that I want to do it in the form of a very traditional Adventure Game.
However, based on this review and John Walker's at rockpapershotgun, I already know that I'm not going to truly enjoy the game. The first thing people say about a great Adventure Game is that it's all about the story. It looks like this does have an interesting story, but I'm not sure if this is really the best way for a game to tell a story.
Something John Walker mentioned was the let-down you get from finishing some of the puzzles. Really, the pacing of Adventure Games is a problem. You move about the world, explore, and talk to people and that's great. Then you get stuck on a puzzle. At that point the game just seems to stop. When you finally rub enough items together to proceed, you maybe get a little more story before hitting the next wall. If the puzzles are too easy you fault the game for being just an interactive cartoon, but if they're too hard the pacing is terrible. I don't see how this can be solved.
Another problem is that Adventure Games are extremely linear. There's usually only one or two ways to solve a puzzle, and you only affect the world in a couple of minor ways. The world's often don't really feel alive.
When I look at Night of the Rabbit, I really want to explore that world, but I'm not so sure that I want to do it in the form of a very traditional Adventure Game.
I never got into the point and click adventure genre because my first experience with one on windows 3.1 was a frustrating experience of repeated death. However, I love games with a strong story and have been looking to try the genre out again so I might try this.
Glad to see some people are keeping the genre alive. Some of the best gaming memories I have are of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Broken Sword, TLJ, etc. I'm glad the animation style hasn't gone for the full faux-3D models too; a lot of the charm in these games is the simplicity with which everything was executed.
Thanks for bringing this game to our attention, looking forward to trying it out.
Thanks for bringing this game to our attention, looking forward to trying it out.
Really late responding to this...Clovus said:
This is a very good point. Some people eat up the ridiculously obtuse puzzles popular in Sierra-style games, others go nuts if they get hung up on anything for more than 30 seconds. I don't mind admitting that I like my adventures nice and simple; give me the characters, tell me the story, toss some simple puzzles my way but don't work too hard to trip me up. That's why I generally avoid really old-school-style adventures these days but love more straightforward approaches to the genre, like Gemini Rue or Primordia.
Night of the Rabbit slips into the "adventure game logic" trap and gets a bit sloggy at the very end, which brings it down somewhat. Even so, I loved it; I'm a sucker for that kind of childlike fantasy and YMMV if you're not, but it left me both deeply satisfied and very much wanting more. If you really don't care for point-and-click adventures, then that's pretty much that, but if you're just on the fence about it, my advice is to find a walkthrough or a good forum, and dive in.