The Strange and Somewhat Sinister Tale of the House at Desert Bridge

3 The Exceedingly Peculiar Review of the Strange and Somewhat Sinister Tale of the House at Desert Bridge
Odd. Strange. Snarglefargitz. Genius. Potato Salad. These are all words that I would use to describe TSASSTOTHADB, and one of them is an utter nonsense word created by my father when I was in preschool, which should tell you a good deal about the tone of the game.

TSASSTOTHADB is sheer and utter brilliant nonsense from a scripting point of view. Clever puns and hidden jokes come at you around every corner (quite literally). The puzzles are well-constructed, if a bit obscure and difficult at times. And the non-sequitur nature of the game tends to surface at the oddest moments… for example, using the “EAT” command on the dialogue menu causes you to eat your words, eliminating every possible option. Fans of Douglas Adams will be immediately at home with the wordplay and the utter insanity that pervades the game.

Now why would a hoopy frood like me who obviously knows where my towel’s at only give this game a 3 stars out of 5, if it’s so good? Well, the idea is excellent, but the execution is rather stilted. Navigation is awkward at best; it takes a while to get used to the idea that each room is 4 screens, one in each direction, and even then it’s easy to get turned around. There’s no map function, making navigation even more difficult. Menus are a bit unreliable, you can only use actions on things that are puzzle-specific, and thus, you can’t take a closer look at any of the myriad possible red herrings and other potential easter egg spots… some people would consider this a good thing, but I still have fond memories of licking a building in the opening screens of Space Quest IV to find Roger Wilco responding with “MMM! Wild berry!” The graphics, primitive as they are, work well enough, and help to give the game its flavor, but a shade more polish would be appreciated. The main part of this game that I was frustrated with, navigation aside, was the download. 40 megs normally isn’t bad for me, but it took a dozen attempts – each time I tried, it crapped out around the 80% mark. Frustration, thy name is “no mirrors available”. So by the time I finally got the game, I was bound and determined that it had better darn well deliver the best possible gameplay imaginable.

And it didn’t, so, y’know, 3 out of 5. Which still isn’t bad, but take it with a grain of salt… unless the same thing happens with your download.