I demoed today's TGT earlier today - The House on Usher by Red Aphid Games - and my comment at the end of my notes was ... NO! Not even if it were free! 

It was SO slow on my laptop I think a sloth would have been quicker!  It's an almost straight HOG (well, I didn't play long enough to do anything but play 4 HOSs, use one inventory item, and not come across anything resembling a minigame or puzzle) where you have to also find bugs and cobwebs in every scene, every HOS and every zoom-in scene and they're SO small and pale that I couldn't find all of them, even with my nose up against the screen!  You're told how many there are in each scene and how many you've found and I only found all of them twice.  Sometimes I just clicked everywhere - with a clicking penalty - just to try and find the invisible bugs and cobwebs. 

Other negatives:

  -  very old school
  -  you have to click to open the inventory
  -  you have to drag and drop inventory items to use them
  -  you get messages on your mobile from but you can't fast click through them
  -  you have to exit out of everything, even the HOSs
  -  one of the HOSs had more than one of several items and you had to get the right one
  -  very minimal Options - On/Off only - Sound FX and Music
  -  On/Off - Windowed and Fancy Cursor (if you use system cursor, 2 cursors)
  -  only 2 Difficulty Modes - Easy (with sparkles) and Hard (you can change)

A couple of things I did actually like:

  -  I quite liked the graphics
  -  however, it was very dark as you're in an abandoned house at night
  -  the 4th HOS had some items that had clues, not just object names
  -  eg. "Key To The Highway" was, I think, a car key (it was hard to tell, I had to use a hint)
  -  eg. "Famous Record Label" was an actual apple, not just the name, "Apple"
  -  but boy was it hard to find these things on a 70s psychedelic abstract painting!

I was going blind trying to find all those invisible cobwebs and miniscule bugs, I was so frustrated with how slowly it played on my laptop and not being able to fast click through anything, and I was bored out of my mind, so I stopped. 

My Rating:

Never in a month of Sundays. 

However, it might have been better had it not played as slowly as molasses on my laptop.   And I have my laptop attached to a 22" screen and even then I coudn't find half the cobwebs and bugs. 

My Recommendation:

I like you all too much to recommend this game to you.

However, if anyone likes straight HOGs - okay, you have an inventory and get an inventory item from each HOS, but still, it felt like it was a straight HOG as I only lasted long enougy to use one item, a hammer to get in the front door, and I didn't come across a puzzle in the short time I played - and if you like dark games where you can't see the invisible, miniscule items, then this game may be for you! 

LoveToMissLisa liked it and will get it if all the bugs are sorted out.

JustTheFacts hated it as all the HOSs are way too hard and impossible to see.

This is what Belamba posted:

This has to be one of the weirdest games ever! Couldn't understand what I had to do at first.
Quite cute, but all the bug finding along with cobwebs gets a bit tedious after a while.
Played the full trial hour, and still don't know if I like it or not.
The music gave me a headache but the worst is the tiny, tiny things you have to find to clean your house up and increase its value.
Really a strain on the eyes, even more so as the scenes are quite dark.

Strange word games too along the way, although mildly humorous.

Think you'll either love it or hate it. It is different which makes a change though.

CS can be so nice!  I wrote back to Kaila, explaining that the 60% comes off the purchase price, not the retail price, and here's her response...

Thank you for getting back to me and for letting me know that the discount was taken off of your member price instead of the regular price.

Not to worry, I've issued a coupon code that will allow you to get a Collector's Edition for $2.99, since I don't have access to coupons that are closer to the $5.60 price that you mentioned.

In addition, feel free to go ahead and use the other coupon code that was issued.  Just think of it as an extra thank you for being such a great customer. 

.
I sure am glad they consider me "such a great customer".    What a pity she didn't have any coupons closer to the $5.60 price that I told her the coupon should have given me. 

Now I just wonder what sort of coupon I'm going to get for downloading MC yet again.    It's always fun to see what sort of response and coupon I get from all the different CS people.    Especially when I end up getting 2 from them. 

I haven't as yet come across a single CS rep who has access to the 60% promotion coupons and, if they can't match it, they have to give you a better deal than the one offered, hence normally it's a coupon for a CE for $2.99 - or free if you're lucky - as they all seem to have access to those. 
 

I have finished Demon Hunter- Chronicles From Beyond. It was very loong. I liked it very much but had to skip some of the puzzles as I didn´t understand what I should do  There where different set of collectibles, and I missed one . A good SE game with CE content.

lilyr, your comment about stusue:  

DOWNLOADING FOR DISCOUNTS!! I love it Tirama!