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Earthly Delight opens with an intriguing premise: you woke up in
the middle of the night to discover that a painting you recently inherited has been
stolen. Already at this early stage, the game allows a wide variety of actions you
can perform to end the first episode: if you are quick enough, you can catch the
burglar in the act, and even fight with him. If he is gone by the time you reach the
room, you can still discover clues that will lead to the next episode. Each episode
opens in animated book style, with its own (PC speaker) music and well-written
introduction. Although the game is "shallow" in a sense that the non-player
characters are poorly developed and two-dimensional, the intriguing plot and many
optional puzzles and alternate solutions more than make up for the deficiency. The
game has one curious parser characteristic: you need to use "GO TO" command a lot to
reach certain places, although you can only GO TO that place when you are near enough.
Given the expansive and confusing layout of Paris, finding a place can quickly become
the most time-consuming action in the game, and truly exasperating. Despite this
quirk, Earthly Delight is definitely a cut above average game of its time and is well
worth a play through. |
