Lighthouse - The Dark Being
1996 Sierra On-Line
Designed by Jon Bock; Susan Frischer
Relevance:
*) getting the temple disc -- the pod-thing works by magic, and is an overblown
mechanism for the task, as doesn't not fit into the technological setting
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Real-time:
*) at the tower, the mechanical bird-man will take objects if you don't
lock him out quickly -- but you can get them back before you really need them
*) driving the mechanical bird-man off -- easy constraint, repeatable, but
tedious to fetch more rocks
*) getting the bird-man with the magnet -- not hard in an arcade sense, but
needlessly tedious
*) defeating bird-man in plane loft -- very easy
*) timing versus the monster going for the fish -- not arcade, just an
annoying timing problem
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Reasonability:
*) don't take the lighter or umbrella at the start -- untested, but it looks
like a long dead end; fortunately, it's unlikely with reasonable play
*) the puzzle box -- the solutions are largely arbitrary, not following any
clue or logical deduction, which is fair enough for the story, but is not
much fun for the player (finding the red button, the "fish" blocks)
*) getting stones at the tower -- rocks all over, but you can only pick up
certain stones at one location
*) the cuckoo clock -- why does the little bird scare off the mechanical birds?
*) the key in the file folder -- pixel hunting
*) launching the bat-plane -- a very minor complaint: 14 turns? 4 or 5 would
have done the job as well, and would have been less tedious
*) finale: waking the doctor -- three times, with no clue, is just a random
pattern amongst many
*) finale: opening the portal -- more random fiddling, it's just tedious
(you can only watch the dark man if you haven't already captured him)
*) dead end -- It's possible to strand yourself at a location, but by the time
you are able to you should be able to foresee the possibility, so it's your
own stupidity. It will also be obvious what the problem is, so the dead end
is not a long one.
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Difficulty:
*) driving the mechanical bird-man off -- a good physical problem
*) puzzle box shapes-spin lock -- a ha! that might be trivial or hard
*) navigating the sub through the wreck -- made difficult by a poor interface
*) getting past the monster in the fortress -- annoying because you might have
to look several times before you catch him at the right moment, without
knowing what you should be expecting nor why you should look there again
(e.g., the first three times I looked, I only saw buildings)
*) figuring out the steam pipe system -- tough, since there's a distance
between the controls and the result
*) freeing Amanda with the magnet -- tough because the interface doesn't let
you see what's happening