Opening Night
David Batterham (2008)
Opening Night is an interesting piece that sets up many questions, but delivers before
the curtains fall. It's a tight design that only took me an hour to finish, unveiling a back-story
that really draws you in, but some of the puzzles might force you to turn to the walkthrough early on.
You play a factory worker attending the opening night of Miranda Lily's latest show. This game
focuses on story over puzzles, though in the beginning the direction wasn't clear; but as the story
progresses, it smoothes itself out, with game play becoming more playable. The implementation is
solid, with almost all the scenery present, but it lacks any real NPC interaction. Also, a few of
the puzzles do bottleneck the game, which caused me to turn to the walkthrough. A bit of redesign
would really help here.
There's a really enjoyable narrative going on, that's propelled by the undercurrent of the back-story.
The code is solid, though some of the puzzles are a little hard. If it throws you in the beginning,
stick with it. The game does pay off in the end.