

Its puzzles are deep and clever, the imagery and creature design are nightmare-inducing, and best of all, the writing and story are compelling to an almost intrusive degree. Otherwise, Amanda the Adventurer is a startlingly effective horror game deceptively wrapped in the aesthetics of an old analog horror game and retro children's TV shows. As mentioned earlier, there's a lively theory-crafting scene online, but your mileage may vary in terms of how much satisfaction you find there.

Likewise, if you like your games to end with definitive answers to all of your questions, you'll probably be unsatisfied no matter how many times you clear the game. If you can't handle blood, particularly when it comes from an animal, this isn't the game for you. There are a few big caveats to my recommending Amanda the Adventurer. As the puzzles grow in complexity, you'll need to really bust out your magnifying glass and explore every square inch of the attic, not to mention the tapes you've already watched, to solve them. The gameplay elements definitely aren't Amanda the Adventurer's main selling point for me, those being the increasingly challenging - and often very cryptic - puzzles you need to solve to get access to new video-tapes.
