Lure of the Temptress

Lure of the Temptress was Revolution Software's début game who then followed on with Beneath a Steel Sky and the Broken Sword series.

It's a point-and-click adventure game in which an enchantress named Selena has led a race called Skorl to take over the village of Turnvale. A peasant named Diermot is caught up in a battle which results in him being made captive, and the King and his men defeated in battle. Diermot escapes from his prison and begins to plot to defeat Selena.

Released back in 1992, it's no surprise that the graphics are dated and the resolution is poor when played in the modern day. The sparse and basic sounds are very irritating and detract from the atmosphere when a rocking chair and a blacksmith are combining to make a midi-horn symphony. There's no speech either, so it is recommended that you mute the game.

I got off to a bad start when rescuing the prisoner with the stupid name of Ratpouch. For some reason, he didn't get up when I released him, forcing me to restart the game. The game doesn't really improve from there when you realise all the other features are basically broken too.

After reaching the town, I soon realised Ratpouch had disappeared so went back looking for him. There, I found him jerking back and forth between screens. Luckily after several attempts to speak to him, I managed to dislodge him from his infinite loop.

A feature that Revolution implemented was that NPC's travel about the town as if going by their daily routines. This brings a whole host of problems. The path-finding is so bad, even if there is space, NPC's think you are in their way and are constantly saying “excuse me sir”. This causes more problems because only one speech bubble can appear on screen, so if you do want to talk to someone, you have to wait your turn in the queue. Another problem this brings is that when you want to leave one screen, if a NPC comes in, your character starts walking the opposite way to let them in. NPC's also get priority when you both want to leave the screen too, so moving around in the game is very stressful indeed. The final problem with this feature is that often you can only progress by finding a certain character, but when they can be anywhere in town, you end up running around in circles, or staying put and hopefully you will see them walking by. Most of the time, it isn't exactly clear of who you need to find, so if you spend ages trying to find someone, and it turns out they aren't required to progress the game; it is insanely infuriating.

There's a system that is used for a few puzzles within the game which allows you to issue sets of commands using a dialogue tree. Weirdly, you can chain all sorts of commands together like telling a character “to go somewhere, use an item, return, then talk to someone” but the games puzzles only involve using an item or carrying an action on an object, so 99% of commands will result in a response saying they “can't even do that”. The amount of options just makes what should be a simple task such a convoluted process. Here is an example in my game after finding out I can't use a lock-pick to open a door, I ask Ratpouch to do so...
Me: “tell” “use” “lockpick” “door”
Ratpouch: “I don't have a lockpick”
Me: “give” “lockpick”
Me: “tell” “use” “lockpick” “door”
Ratpouch: “that doesn't work”
(I then realise the lock on the door is classified separately)
Me: “tell” “use” “lockpick” “lock”
Ratpouch walks away from the door, around my character, walks to the door then a question mark appears above his head.
Me: “tell” “use” “lockpick” “lock”
Ratpouch: “that was too easy”

Well, it really should have been, shouldn't it Mr Ratpouch? You knew exactly what I meant but you are fussy that I stated “door” rather than “lock” and then you couldn't find the door at first, but after finding it, you forgot what I told you!

Anyway, by the time you have reached the end of the game, you have racked up about 5 hours, yet the game only really has 30 mins of game-play, it's just that there is nothing user friendly about it. All the game's features some how just combine to frustrate you and cause bugs. Despite this game apparently earning praise from the critics and the fact that it is freeware, I would strongly advise against playing it. Given that 'The Secret of Monkey Island' had been released before it and excels in all areas (story, dialogue, humour, puzzles, longevity, lack of bugs, user interface), Lure of the Temptress needs to be disregarded.