Pastel Games has just released a new point-and-click game, Morbid, designed and illustrated by Maciej Palka with programming, animation and puzzle support from Mateusz Skutnik.
While everyone here at JIG agrees that the artwork contained within is well-conceived and the atmosphere is enticingly moody, we weren't as impressed with the gameplay. Hard-to-find hotspots turn this game into a disappointing exercise in frustration. The art just seems to get in the way of an entertaining experience, and it makes the game more difficult to play. Sometimes you can't differentiate between stylistic scribbles and objects you really need to pay attention to.
Sacrificing the interface for the sake of art was a poor design choice. The lack of direction also feels a little sloppy, since unlike Scene of the Crime, in which you have a reason to be searching around, this one just sort of plonks you into the countryside where you might not have any reason to think of peeping inside a tree trunk or picking up a random pot. A bit more story direction would have helped things along, instead of leaving us to stumble about clicking on seemingly random places.
Play both games in the Morbid series:
But decide for yourself (and please let us know what you think in the comments). We were on the fence about whether to feature this one, so I decided instead to compromise with a blurb that expressed the reasons for our disappointment. My hope is that it sparks some worthwhile discussion about it for this talented group of game designers.
Walkthrough Guide
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Complete Morbid Walkthrough
Go down the road. After getting most of these next ones, you need to back up a few steps to go to the next place.
Left tree, hole in tree, get parchment.
Middle fence, get pot on fence.
Graveyard, left tombstone, get holy water.
Woodshed, get hammer. Click on middle log, and get wooden stake in upper right corner of screen.
Go back to road, follow road to water wheel.
Follow wheel piping to swamp, get ladder.
Back to house, use ladder on front door (not while looking at door, but back a step).
Up ladder. Up again to roof of house. Yikes! What's that in the back yard?
Look in the chimney. Get carbon black.
Back up to bars, use hammer to open them.
Enter cellar. Put pot into keg of salt water.
Back up to the fire. Put pot on hook, grab torch from fire, grab salt from pot.
Back up from fire, click bottom left corner to see inside front door. Get lever. Open door. Go outside.
Fence on right side of house leads to crypt.
Use torch inside crypt, find garlic on left.
Back up to road, go to water wheel again. Use lever to move the wheel.
Back up one, left side of wheel now leads to path. Follow it.
Up the stairs. Ignore the skull. Find the door.
Put garlic on door. Put carbon black on door. Open door.
Before approaching grave, lay down salt.
Put holy water on stake.
Put stake on corpse.
Hammer it in.
Posted by: Otto | June 8, 2009 5:50 PM