Eric The Unready

This game is amazing, I normally like my point and click adventures where I can see my character on the screen however this game works really well in its first person view thanks to a really good and flexible control layout. You can type in text commands to execute actions or use the preset menu vocabulary. Clicking on the compass to move around between areas is quick and easy too. You can even execute multiple commands at once quickly and easily. The intro is absolutely hilarious and the music in the beginning area is amazing. Everything is well written and there is a lot of attention to detail and brilliant humour. I haven't got far enough yet to judge how the puzzles play out however I will update this review later on. So far its very charming and I love that old ms dos font and beautiful pixel art, this game was originally released in 1993 and I didnt know that when I purchased it but so far im having a blast with it. Highly recommended for adventure game fans, even if your not a fan of the first person style. Charming, Hilarious and well executed. 9/10

Take this review of "Eric the Unready" with a grain of salt since I think I've just grown too old to play these types of games (semi-graphical, basically text adventure). But, besides the genre, another problem is that the game is OLD (1993) and feels like it. The interface is bad, the graphics are terrible, and the sound is horrible. Surprisingly, it also seems to load and run a bit slowly on a modern machine (I assume that's an issue with the DOSbox it runs in). That probably would have been acceptable, but the game just didn't grab me (and I don't know why). So, after a mere 1.2 hours, I gave up and I'm Not Recommending it. I don't know if this is allowed, but, if you're at all interested in the game, you could try it out for free at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/msdos_Eric_the_Unready_1993

Absolutely delightful. Fun, and a flashback to good old text-based games. I've had this game for 2 days and at work all I could think of was coming back to see what happened next. I highly recommend this game if you like 90s style, action packed adventure-stuffed gameplay!

To start with, paragraph one, i had already had an "oh if it's how the story/comedy starts, this is going to be fun" chuckle sesh. So, first thing I thought could change, after i realised i was laughing hard for five minutes; at paragraph four, is to give it a Steam overlay - Ok not really essential... but i really wanted it, to write this review, and then again a bit later to upload a screenshot for sharing responses of e.g. 'Talk to Pig" It isnt my style to write a review until I have finished the game - so you see, i quite highly recommend this game to gamers who.. .. have a broad sense of humour .. Quest & Puzzle Lovers I had added on my to do list, "Find Quality Text-Based Games, like sheldon on BBTheory" This feels just what i was looking for, with the added bonus of attention to details & dialogue, i feel immersed in a fun and funny experience. Despite the timestamp, I only been playing about 40min, including 'what does this button do' and cant imagine the adventure becoming less than the joy of events already. Note: The cut scenes run automatically. Reading dialogue without prompting the next page is new to me, and glad for the large font, on large TV screen, while i was optically challenged. The pace has no need for speed reading tho i did miss a few bits, purely as my eyes were too tired that night, and there - as far as i can see - are no ways to re-read missed dialogue. When done promptly, the accompanying graphics are delightful to enjoy, if you need a bit of that visual engagement. Technically - im new to this genre, tho i found the controls mouse and keyboard really user friendly. Comes with a manual to download - did it - didnt read it - if i read it, i would have learned typing 'quit' is how to exit the game. I had typed quit, after it took 5minutes to realise the Esc clears the dialogue, instead of bring me to a Main Menu. (edit: and if i really read it i would have learned that typing 'UNDO' would have undone my curious choice of putting pig love potion on the farmer before it vanished, tho i ddnt learn to type SAVE at this point, so suppose I would have had to play it from the start...again...anyway) Doing this, like my slow reading moments, I had missed dialogue that auto popped up as i was trying to find a way to save/quit game. As far as I can see, there is no tabs/function to back track/ re-read what happened and who said what so far. Could be on a quest - we will soon find out. Could be a challenge to recall whats what, if i play a few other games and come back to this later. (edit: yep didnt matter, I presumed it was auto-save - IT IS NOT :see below) As for challenges, so far have completed one 'puzzle', (could be that it's the first/intro one that it was easy) despite simple graphics, i feel like i am really interacting with items and tasks, which gives me game satisfaction, if the puzzles are standard, i would still be content with the journey's memories. If text-based games are new to you, this is what I learned last night, the hard way, ie not reading the manual first. """""ESC - ERASES ALL THE TEXT""""" **SAVE = save menu : THERE IS NO AUTOSAVE : **Restore = Load saved game ""Quit = Exit game **UNDO = undoes last command **F1 = other screen modes and functions ""TAB - toggles between mouse and keyboard. ""There are tabs and directive words and images to use with mouse, if you're no fan of Keyboard/Touch typing. Unsure how long the game goes for - if the comedy continues like this, i may have to savor it by playing it a little once a week.

What a great adventure game this is, at first it's very overwhelming to see what feels like a million verbs at your disposal, but really the most useful ones are moved to the top. It's interesting that there is no 'Use' command, the most common in all text adventures, but that just makes you think more specifically about what you need to do. I was expecting overly complex puzzles, but they are actually very fair and solvable, and even though I had to check a walkthrough at times when I was really stuck, I feel this game can be beaten without hints, a second person to bounce ideas off would help for sure. This game is hilarious, the fourth wall breaking and just creative insanity keeps you coming back for more, never know what's gonna happen next, tons of homages to TV shows and movies. It feels very alive, time moves, characters appear in the scene out the blue, very advanced stuff for a text based game. Only real negative is the UI due to age, it's pretty sluggish, even though it's fully playable with a mouse, it's slow to click and scroll through verbs, it's best played typing with keyboard, old school. But other than that, an excellent text adventure, 9/10!

It retains the nightmarish difficulty of games of this nature and era, but it is in many way the best of its kind. The interface is clean, many (but certainly not all) puzzles are logical and it's straight up fun from start to finish. Grab a walkthrough and enjoy the ride. Since it's a dosbox game photon ran it perfectly fine from start to finish in linux. Zero problems.

It's a crude amazing game. It helped define my sense of humor, along with the BBC.

Played this game 10 years ago, was hyped to know it was on steam! Awesome game, awesome narrative, 10/10 elite humor 👌 timeless.

Okay, originally I liked it ...... until I got to the part with the gods. What the heck? The puzzles are completely absurd, no logic or sense. I was not able to finish that part even with walkthrough lol. So thanks but no thanks.

I really enjoyed Bob Bates's newest game Thaumistry, so I went back and am playing his old games, some of which I'd played before and some I hadn't. Some of this was familiar and some wasn't. So, I suppose I played this and never finished it. Sadly, I'm finding it a slog today much as it must have been back then. A big part of the problem is that I don't think it's very funny. This is particularly surprising because Thaumistry often made me chuckle or even laugh out loud. Some of the time this game can get me to groan which is better than most of the time which just leaves me irritated. The humor in this game isn't really jokes, it's just references to things. Do you like SNL? Well, here's a Steve Martin character and here's a Gilda Radner character. Do you like Monty Python? Well, here are the Frenchmen from the Quest For the Holy Grail. None of these characters really do anything funny. They just recite variations on the same lines they had in their original incarnation. Is this parody? I don't know. If it doesn't have any point of view on what it's referencing it feels more like plagiarism.... But I don't think anyone would complain. The story is not very front and center. You're given a quest in the opening scene which requires you to collect various silly items scattered around the fantasy kingdom. It doesn't really develop as you play despite cutscenes playing between each chapter. The chapters are little mini adventures where you must solve some puzzles in order to attain the item. These are absolutely fine and generally logical and well-clued (though some of the times the clues came in an earlier section than the puzzle so it's important to play the game all at once). I have no complaints with the puzzles, which is why I'm nevertheless giving this game a qualified recommendation. But you almost have to ignore the environment to enjoy them. Also, an odd thing about the plot. There's some naughty material on the same level as Spellcasting. (it's also similar to Spellcasting in that the main character is portrayed as a completely loser and yet all the busty women immediately throw themselves at him.) I certainly have no problem with adult material, but it's just strange that Spellcasting was marketed as an adult game (that I can't really imagine anyone older than teenager getting excited by) while this was sold for everybody. It's just curious. I thought maybe I'd append to this review a few recommendations for other text adventures that have the level of professionalism that Eric the Unready has: graphics, automap, windows listing your inventory and the items around you, developing stories, a good parser with great quality of life features like an "undo" command, only minor or no mazes, and no way to get yourself permanently stuck--or at least no easy way to do that. There are a lot of text adventures out there--a lot of great ones, too--but there aren't a lot from this time period because they were quickly swallowed up by point and click adventures, and then turned over to hobbyists who were maybe even more creative but didn't have studios behind them. This era of text adventures is neat though because it is kind of their final form and also they are the easiest for modern gamers to get into. Wonderland -- I heard people say this best text adventure ever made. I'm not so sure, but it certainly the best Alice in Wonderland game ever made. This is an expansive game with original puzzles that feel like they belong in the story. I haven't seen anything add to Wonderland successful before. There's a slight negative in that it is possible to get this game into an unwinnable state.... but it's worth the hassle. Gateway 1 and 2: Also, by Legend Entertainment who made this game. It has the same strength as Alice really, The games to not follow the Fredrick Pohl books but feel like new adventures that might have happened alongside whatever the book's protagonist was doing. They have a wonderful driving plot that makes you want to see what happens next. The endgame of the first one is totally awful, both in that it's unsatisfying and unfair, but fortunately that's not the end of the entire saga. Arthur The Quest For Excalibur: This is by Bob Bates who made Eric the Unready but for Infocom. It's just so much better than this game. Journey around medieval London transforming yourself into various animals to solve puzzles. The negative here is that you need to have the manual to play the game. That's par for the course for a lot of text adventures, but in this advanced text adventure era I'm talking about, usually everything is contained within the game. But at the least the manual for Arthur is gorgeous and interesting. Any of those would be better to play than this one, imo.