HOUSE HUSBAND
by C. Henshaw

Review: David Whyld

There were a number of problems with House Husband, the main one being that nowhere in the game does it actually state what you're supposed to be doing. Fortunately, the author had posted a message about the game on the ADRIFT forum a while back about the game so I'm aware that the general idea is to pick up items and drop them in the bin in the kitchen then drop that bin in a wheelie bin outside. Unfortunately anyone who didn't read that thread is most likely not going to have a clue what the game is about or how to make any progress.

Another problem, although not really a problem in the usual sense of the word, is that at heart this isn't a very interesting idea for a game. You wander around your house and tidy it up. Hmmm… I hate housework in real life and don't have any more enthusiasm for it in a game. Quite why this would be considered a good subject for a text adventure I'm not sure.

There are a few peculiarities with the way the game handles certain things, which I'm guessing is down more to the fact that this is the author's first game and she's probably missing quite a few things that people with a couple more games under their belt would spot. In the first location are several bottles but none of them can be referred to as "bottle". In fact, the bottle of tiger beer has to be referred to as "tiger beer" as neither "tiger" or "beer" on their own work. In the same room is a television that can't be watched or turned on. There are also some curtains which can't be opened because the player, apparently, isn't in the mood! The same applies to the window. While that's certainly a better default response than "you can't do that", it still leaves a lot to be desired.

Wandering around the house and tidying things up seems to be just about all this game has going for it and it wasn't long before my patience was beginning to wear thin. It isn't helped much by the fact that most of the items you need to find are concealed either under or behind other items, meaning a good part of the time spent playing House Husband was spent typing "look behind [item]" or "look under [item]" which isn't a thrilling experience by any means.

The score is displayed on the status bar at the bottom of the screen but, irrespective of what it currently is, typing "score" displays a message saying that your score is "[number] out of a maximum of 0". Even when I'd remembered enough about the game from forum posts to realise what I needed to do and managed to boost my score above 10, I still kept getting this message.

For a game, House Husband has too many flaws for me to recommend. It looks to have gone through nothing more than minimal testing and the basic idea, tidying up your house, just isn't interesting enough to make forgive want to play it.

3 out of 10

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Review: Robert Rafgon

This game is mainly about a husband who has to clean up the house before his wife returns home. A fact, which is probably unsurprising, is that I find doing lots of household work boring, both in real life and on the computer. Unfortunately a lot of this game is just repetitive tasks, where you know what you have to do, and it just takes a lot of turns and effort to achieve it.

I hope I do not put off too many people with these comments, as this is a well written game, which does make the mundane more fun. There is also an interesting plot that you gradually discover and I do not want to spoil here. This review is far more negative than the game deserves, but at times as you play through, you just find yourself wanting to get on with the story, rather than repetitive tasks

The biggest problem with this game is the fact that you have to clean up absolutely everything before reaching the game's successful end. I solved about 90% of the tasks, before giving up and going to the walkthrough, as I was completely stuck. I gradually checked off and completed the tasks that I hadn't done, but it took me a long while to figure out the last missing task was where I had forgotten to look at an object in the first room. I think it would be very difficult to figure out everything without the walkthrough. This made the game very frustrating, especially as I had already figured out the plot from unsuccessful endings. It would possibly have been better to only need to complete most of the tasks rather than all of them, or allow a shortcut to the finish.

One error I noticed was that looking in the shed interior gives the same message as when you enter the shed, which is no longer appropriate.

Overall I did enjoy this game, but I think it could have been improved by not being quite so fastidious. That is how I like my housework.

SCORE - 6/10