GAME: It's Easter, Peeps!
AUTHOR: Sara Brookside
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 4 http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/new/adrift.cgi
SOUND: no
GRAPHICS: no
REVIEWED: 14th June 2006
WALKTHROUGH: n/a
DOWNLOAD: http://www.shadowvault.net/games/easter.zip


The sole ADRIFT entry in a recent one room comp (it came sixth out of nine entries, although as it was an Italian website hosting the comp and seven of the entries were in Italian, that's not as bad as it sounds), It's Easter, Peeps! is quite a charming little game. Little in the sense that it takes place in just a single room.

The premise is a simple one: it's Easter and you've got to collect items for an Easter basket for your son, Max. To make matters easier, Max has helpfully provided you with a list of the items that he needs. All you have to do is find them and place them in the basket given to you by the shopkeeper the moment you enter his candy store.

Unusually for a game by a newcomer, It's Easter, Peeps! shows a good level of testing and has responses for most of the things I tried. The faults I came across - examining the candy coin shows me a description of the candy in the display case being the worst - are relatively minor and forgivable given ADRIFT's often poor handling of items with similar names. It was also kind of annoying when I tried to open the display case, had the shopkeeper tell me that he had the key to it (albeit a figurative key rather than a literal one) but attempts to ask him about the key resulted in the game asking me WHICH KEY. HOUSE KEY OR CAR KEY? and then responding with SHOPKEEPER DOES NOT RESPOND TO YOUR QUESTION no matter what I typed. The shopkeeper is quite a helpful chap for the most part and questioning him about various things is a good idea, but here he was less than forthcoming.

Most of the items are easy enough to find but the means of getting hold of some of them are a little odd. I found a number of the items by vandalising part of the store, yet the shopkeeper, rather than getting all irate over me smashing up his livelihood, instead seemed quite pleased that I'd thought of this course of action. Then again, the shopkeeper is an unusual character full stop. He doesn't even ask me for payment for the items that I took from his store!

I finished the game after quite a bit of head scratching (and the occasional peek in the Generator! (yes, I'm weak)) but a few things were never explained to me. What was the significance of the coded note? I never did discover if it actually does anything or was simply a red herring. As I finished the game without discovering what it meant, it clearly wasn't a big deal. The phone, too, I never discovered a use for, even though a message I found indicated the phone might well serve a purpose.

All in all, It's Easter, Peeps! is a nice enough game which ought to keep you occupied for a while. It's certainly way better than average as far as games by newcomers are concerned.

6 out of 10