Previously released as The Dark Eye in 1996, this is a self described piece of "narrative driven exploration," involving stop-motion puppetry and video collage that will take you literally inside three Poe tales.

In each of the tales you get to play both the protagonist and the victim, either sequentially or by jumping from one character to the other at certain moments. Flickering eyes are the giveaway, and whilst I have yet to take up that opportunity in this first 60 minutes, I remember it as an intriguing aspect when I played the original. I intend to give it a go once I proceed further.

You inhabit each of two characters in the particular tale, and progress by finding and engaging with the relevant hotspots. There is no puzzling as such, the challenge being to do what is required to progress the proceedings. You might engage with other characters, pick up an item here or there, but it's fundamentally about the storytelling.

Whilst it's all point and click, the nuances of how the experience works is a little opaque, but you can consider that part of the puzzling. Or you can get the 'survival guide' from your original boxed version (a very good box it is too) and review how things work. It relevantly explains the Soul Jump (the flickering eyes), the various versions of the Hand of Fate cursor (including the little side to side caress that is essential at times) and how the phrenology map works. It doesn't tell you everything though, not least of all that when the 'waking world' goes blue, you are looking for a reflection to trigger the alternative Poe reality.

As I said, you can consider how the worlds work to be part of the challenge, but I do think the availability of the manual somewhere would be helpful.

It looks surrealistically interesting, even given its age, and the sounds and the voice acting are rather good (did I mention narration is by Wiliam S Burroughs?). Animations can take a little while to trigger so be patient. The game autosaves exclusively, and I have yet to fathom its intricacies.

That is largely because of a number of lock-ups that required me to control-alt-delete to overcome, which tended to happen when I wanted to save and exit (double click Esc). Half the time I ended up with a black screen of death. More frustratingly, the load screen on activating the second character in the first tale refuses to move on, in effect preventing further progress. I might be able to work around it by replaying the previous character and 'soul jumping' into this one, but having gained early access I am hopeful that this will be sorted by the makers somehow. Having bricked up Fortunato, I am keen to get his perspective.

Released in 2013 and criminally overlooked by me, who doesn't like a bit of platforming spelunking, courtesy of Ron Gilbert.

I don't know how I found it, but about 90 minutes in I am glad that I did.

Caves have been at the forefront of adventure gaming since the get-go (a colossal one comes to mind) so why wouldn't Mr. Gilbert use it as a setting? And why not make the cave the narrator?? A very sultry and droll one it is indeed.

Whilst it's a single person game, you control a party of three, each of them with their own special ability. You have to choose your three explorers from seven available at the very start, and off you go. I have yet to actively choose any ability, but have benefited more than once from the ability of one individual.

You progress through the cave scrolling left and right, and all three have to regularly work together. You can mouse-wheel between them, or utilise the little diagram bottom left; just choose the appropriate image and you switch control. Get one to pull one lever, another to pull a second, and run the third through the opening to be able to move on.

Usefully there are times when they all follow whichever character is active, eliminating the need to go back and gather them individually. At other times, generally whilst in the throes of solving a puzzle, you have to work them individually. Which is part of the problem solving fun.

You can't die in the cave, as the cave will tell you, which really means you can die but get to try again. My deaths so far have largely been as a result of missing a jump, or failing to run away quickly enough from a dynamite blast. As far as platforming goes it has been fairly gentle to date, the main difficulties being how to move forward. I suspect that might change as I move on.

You will pick up items, but each character can only carry one item at a time. It hasn't proved to be an issue to date, but I may have to make choices later on.

None of my characters have spoken to each other at this stage, and apart from the cave's narration, the only other spoken word has been courtesy of the gift shop attendant. Most of the sound has been ambient and soundtrack.

It has a quirky and colourful visual style, and despite the lack of dialogue has been sardonically amusing thus far. I have found a few comic book pages, which suggest a deeper understanding of things once I get to the end.

I look forward to what else this cave has in store.