Games

I've been playing more than the usual, recently:

• The Last Door (I played the Android version) - This is a classic point-and-click adventure. Rather simple, but the plot -a homage to Lovecraft's and Poe's horror tales- is interesting. Special mention for the original soundtrack, a real plus in setting the mood. The graphics is intentionally low-res and pixelated, an odd choice that surprisingly played well on a game of this type: I guess it is because the player's mind has to convert the limited detail the images offer into actionable information, thus staying more focused. In practice, I ended up being immersed into the game reality, and that made the scary moments (some of them really upsetting) more effective. Recommended.
• SIM (Sara is missing) (I played the Android version) - In this game of interactive fiction Sara is missing and you find her smartphone. You're supposed to rescue her, looking for clues in her messages, emails and whatnot, with the aid of Iris, an artificial intelligent system running on her phone. The game is very simple and the player is merely instrumental in letting the story unfold. There are a few scary moments, but in retrospective they were more about how the message was delivered, rather than the message itself. To sum up, the game mechanism is interesting but I would have appreciated a more complex plot.