Off the Record: The Final Interview Collector's Edition - New IHOG on Big Fish

Today's game for Club Members, tomorrow's game for all.

You can download Off the Record: The Final Interview Collector's Edition here.



As always, please remember to come back and tell us what you think.

Happy gaming!

Thanks, Marian.

Ana

So far this is a pretty good game. I am hedging what I say because what tends to happen is that games go down hill after a certain point, so I should say that based on the demo and a few minutes of the game thereafter, this is good. I have decided to come back to the game in a few days because I am deliciously stuck on a worthy puzzle, the most difficult (barring puzzles requiring quick reflexes which I am usually forced to skip) I have encountered in a casual game. In fact, it's so difficult that I keep thinking I am missing something obvious. It wouldn't be the first time.

Good luck on the puzzle, and I hope the rest of the game remains good.

I just bought this one since CEs are on sale. I've played 2 previous games in the series and I really enjoy the non-paranormal mysteries.

Have fun.

Thanks Marian. It looks good.

Thank you, Marian.

This is a buy for me! Great series!

Lots of people seem to like this one - I hope you enjoy it.

There is a second interesting puzzle, not as good as adventure game fare but a cut above most casual sliders conceptually. However, the game has deteriorated in terms of sense well beyond my normal tolerance. For beautiful graphics crisply rendered I will happily sacrifice coherence. Such graphics are not present. I am continuing to play only because the subject matter and setting conjure both Dick Francis and Miss Marple. Also I am wondering why the story and object hunting are so banal. The game misses out on the great visual and narrative possibilities that horse racing, a breeding farm, an English village, and a stately home present.

Note: 30 seconds of Google would have pulled up the information that the Jockey Club in the U.K. did not use the electric starting gate until the mid-1960s. If this game itself were better, I wouldn't have cared about the facts enough to check. I did so because all that wasted potential makes me sad enough to push for better products. I also realize that production schedules for casual games must make old time, low budget Hollywood schedules look relaxed in comparison. Nonetheless, casual games do seem to be evolving. As I look forward to entertaining myself in my dotage, I want a vast library of coherent immersive games.

I have two questions. First, who on a development staff/team makes the call on which objects to find? I mean, who decides if a key from the hardware store or Renaissance niello buckle with removable key is required within a particular game? Or if a latch is to be coaxed open by a modern ruler or ancient bronze ferrule with mini-javelin?

I want to compliment the person in Final Interview who decided that so simple an object as a hoof pick was the appropriate item to find and use in a stable. Developers, please, promote that person. In both HOPA and adventure games, attention to the choice of setting in general (lots of unrealized potential in Final Interview) and objects within that setting are important in distinguishing a particular game from the jumble of games available, piled like a poorly thought out HOG scene in consciousness of potential buyers. That hoof pick told me that someone was paying attention. I was grateful.

Second, who decides on thematic puzzle integration? On the puzzles themselves? In addition to the two puzzles in Final Interview that kept my poor old mind busy (one of these was a 5x5 slider lock, I'm just not as quick with sliders as I used to be), there was a simple steeplechase puzzle--the kind a grandmother might want to play with grandchildren--which offered several minutes of well integrated with theme and setting play as different fences and hurdles had to be set so the horses all arrived at the finish line at once, oddly appropriate for the crooked racing theme. The person who came up with that deserves praise as well.

(BrownEyedTigre, if this is stacking, I apologize.)