Game Reviews

The Light:
Shelby's Addendum

release 1.1

review by Stuart Beach

You're an apprentice to the keepers of the Lighthouse, who have a very important mission -- protecting a phase modulator, the only preventative measure against a world-destroying dimensional shift -- and who are conducting research for a compelling project called EUNICE. As you return to the lighthouse after a short journey, you discover that something terrible has happened: charred bodies are strewn over the road to the village, the sky seems to be on fire, and a creeping mist is slowly but surely completely enveloping the land.

What's going on here? Reading your employer Holcroft's diary will offer much background material: while working on the EUNICE project, your other supervisor, Barclay, appears to have made a discovery that caused him to lose his senses and take a series of actions that now jeopardize the planet's safety. Barclay has stolen the phase modulator -- the Lighthouse's light -- and gone to a distant retreat. You must learn as much as you can about the situation, prepare a submersible for your travels, then track down Barclay and stop him.

Players must solve a timed, potentially fatal puzzle early in the game, which consists of finding and wearing an anti-phase bracelet within the first 100 turns of play, or your body will turn transparent and you'll die. This was an interesting variation on the timed-starvation puzzle, but I wish the ill effects of the dimensional shift kicked in much later -- say after 200 or 300 turns instead. Before I stumbled across that puzzle's solution quite by accident, I was frustrated by not being able to explore very much of the game's surroundings before that 100-turn limit kicked in.

I really like puzzles in adventure games that include what I think of as many interlocking parts -- for example, in such a puzzle you'd need an object from one area of the game to access another whole section, but you need yet another object first to make the first one functional...I mention this because I think The Light: Shelby's Addendum has a good variety of this kind of interlocking, scavenger hunt puzzles. Your mileage may vary, though, if you don't particularly enjoy traipsing back and forth throughout a game! :)

Although many of the parsing problems that were in the original version of this game have been fixed in version 1.1, I still noticed several bugs that significantly affected play. For example, I'm quite sure that the way I managed to obtain the anti-phase bracelet was a lucky break from a coding error; even after playing Shelby a good deal I'm not sure what the correct steps for the solution are. I was also confused about the logic of a couple of puzzles even after I solved them -- for example, exiting from the secret chamber with the concentric circles.

The room and object descriptions are very well detailed, which contributes a lot to the atmosphere. Very often using the EXAMINE ALL or SEARCH ALL commands is key to finding a missing crucial object or discover how to solve a certain puzzle. There are also many nice touches that add an air of sinisterness, such as the blood-covered mophead or a lingering bad smell.

During the early part of the game, there are not too many interactions with NPCs, except for a scared workman and a chicken. I very much liked the character development of Holcroft and Barclay, especially as you discover the extent of Barclay's actions. The unfolding of this malevolent behavior reminded of Jack Nicholson's character in "The Shining"!

The game contains no online help, but hints are available from the author for registered users (US$10). This is certainly the author's prerogative; I think I've just been spoiled by the number of other shareware and freeware games that do include some form of mild spoilers. I try not to resort to hints of course, but would have liked to have a peek while working out my own parser problems. Without online help -- at least for the beginning timed puzzle -- I think fledgling players are likely to get frustrated and abandon play fairly quickly. To the game's credit, I found it wholly absorbing once I was able to overcome the initial obstacles and get drawn into the drama of the adventure.

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