I enjoyed this game immensely but thought (as a game player) it had a lot more potential.

You as Daphne are summoned to Oakhaven to discuss important issues. Your cousin Dominic has also been invited. You are given tasks to complete before your cousin does. These lead to 'dark secrets of the past'.

The tasks involve a series of puzzles most of which to activate you need to collect a few items. Dominic has a separate series of puzzles & you can switch between playing yourself Daphne, or Dominic. For the most part the puzzles are not challenging & in one case I found it a little non-sensical.

Little information is imparted until you both have completed the puzzles & go on to learn the secrets. This involves reading pages of text towards the end. This is satisfactory but I couldn't help thinking that the aspects of the game were out of balance!

The graphics, music & gameplay were all wonderful, but I felt the story needed to have been unravelled more slowly & integrated into the game more. I think it could have been more of an emotional experience.

Anyway, the game concluded but did seem to leave scope for a sequel? Despite what I have said I would be definitely be interested!!!

Thanks, Crissie. Sounds like you enjoyed it overall. Did you switch between players much?

Hi Looney4labs, I did enjoy it! You automatically start of as Daphne in the game and I was quite keen for her to 'get there first' so only switched between players - once in the first place briefly out of curiosity & then once again to see if it was useful!

Hey chrissie -- nice review! Were you rooting for Daphne because you met her first? Or because she is a female? Or did you just like her better as a character?

I had the privilege of beta testing Intrigue at Oakhaven Plantation. The story development was at the center of many of our discussions. We all really enjoyed how the game developer, Cindy Pondillo, fleshed out the characters and added twists and turns to the plot. The most intriguing character for me was Jaques Midnight (hubba, hubba aside!). I'd like to have seen more of him.
Initially I was keeping to Daphne because I wanted her to finish first (female of course!), but then I switched back and forth between the characters because I wanted to get to all the puzzles.

Edit: And to correct my mis-statement above. Ms. Pondillo did indeed develop the game, but it was inferno13usa who wrote the story (which to me was the strongest point in this game). And rewrote the story. And added and tweaked and adjusted the story! It was a great collaboration and it was a wonderful experience to be a part of the birth of an adventure game.

Thanks, Drclvr

I got to psuedo test this one. It was pretty much a last run through before release, so there wasn't much for me to do other than make sure it worked and give some feedback since the real beta testers had done such a good job.

I liked it, it doesn't pretend to be something it isn't. The puzzles weren't overly difficult and I progressed through it nicely. What I particularly like is the diverse locations. There are a lot of unique areas to go through, so things never become stale so to speak. All in all it made for a fun diversion for an afternoon or evening.

How long did it take you to play it?

To answer your question Becky, I think I rooted for Daphne because I thought she deserved to win due to what I assumed (rightly or wrongly!) about the circumstances to start with. <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text"> As the granddaughter it at first seemed that Daphne should be the rightful heir! & why should she have to compete with her cousin! </span></span>

I did really like the story & enjoyed all but one of the puzzles - they were very easy but it made a change to have puzzles I could do!!!
I also liked the little jingle you got everytime you did something right!

The game didn't take very long to play - I didn't count the hours but I started it on Saturday & finished on Sunday - around 4 or 5 hours?

I too would have liked to have seen more of the character Jack Midnight & more about what happened to start with - there is plenty of story there for a prequel!(hint! hint!)

I did think though that a lot of the story came in a block of text at the end & as I said I would have preferred it to have been unravelled more slowly. But all-in-all I have to agree it was a fun diversion for a few hours!

I just also have to say that I appreciate all the time & effort taken to produce a game like this & am always impressed when the game installs & runs smoothly as this one did!

For me it was around 3 or 3.5 hours. I was told many of the testers reported 5-6. I am notorious for clicking through dialogs though when they start getting a bit long, so you could probably tack on another 10-20 minutes to my time.