Games
Are You Afraid of the Dark? The Tale of Orpheo’s Curse
Are You Afraid of the Dark? The Tale of Orpheo’s Curse (Viacom NewMedia – ages 8 & up) is a mystery game. You’re trapped in Orpheo’s Palace and must escape before he does something evil to you at midnight. There are trap doors and secret passages to navigate. Unfortunately, the cursor becomes a pointing hand as you head off in different directions. The fingers are clumsy and don’t accurately represent spatial relationships, a big problem when so much of the game depends on exploring a physical location. To move forward or up, point up. Backwards or left, point left. Not very logical. The introduction, story line, period costumes, animation, music, and ambient noises are creepy and do a good job of setting the stage. You can get clues from the video sequences and through the manual. But most of the story unfolds through a series of still images rather than video, which begins to make the game feel static. The concept of solving a mystery is intriguing but, in this case, the actual game doesn’t measure up.
- July 1995
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