The Shivah

Unless I'm very much mistaken, this is ones of the first games that Dave Gilbert produced and published. As such, it is notably less polished than his later work. Even so, it's a good AGS point-and-click. It focuses on the personal drama of a small cast of characters in a few rooms in New York City, and makes a decent story and some good puzzles out of it. Of particular note is the dialogue-based "Rabbinic combat" that is featured in a few places, as well as the first to use the Wadjet-eye-only internet search system for puzzle and story advancement. If you liked Wadjet Eye's other games, then the Shivah is a good way to kill an afternoon. Just one afternoon, mind you - the game is only about 3 hours long. Maybe 4-5 if you replay it to get different endings.

A good game with a lot of interesting aspects that unfortunately feel underdeveloped. Your "inventory" will contain about three items total and is useful only in the information they provide. There is also a "clue" system which you can use to question people with, for the most part never leading anywhere. There's also a "clue-combining" feature which is used exactly once. There are only a few locations to visit, all of which provide exactly one thing you can meaningfully interact with. The conclusion alludes to something far larger and more sinister than what you'd been lead to believe but this is sort of brushed aside at the end. Knowing this is a remake of WE's first game I understand why it skimps a bit, which is why a sequel that furthers its story along would be nice to see. The dialogue choice system is by far the game's most interesting asset. One of note is the "rabbinical response," which basically is just answering a question with another question. This is more than a bit of whimsy, as remembering the nature of a "rabbinical conversation" is essential to your survival when situations turn deadly by the end game. Overall if you're an adventure game fan you'll find this of interest if you're mindful beforehand of its relative lack of gaming content. For $5 I'd say it's worth a look.

The very fact that (after having bought some 30 games) this is my very first review should speak for itself. This is one precious little gift of an adventure: wonderfully tight, beautifully realized mise-en-scene, and brimming with atmosphere and melancholia. Think Chandler with a Rabbi instead of Phil Marlow, or Lew Archer having a crisis of faith. There are two things I really admire about this particular setting: 1. It's an uncommon setting with fresh characters, and 2. yes, it's an adventure featuring religion and Judaism in particular, but it's not a game _about_ either of these. Granted, it's rather rough around the edges and the story sometimes borders on clichée, but do not let them deter you from giving this game a shot. I promise you won't regret it.

I got this because I very much enjoyed the Blackwell series by the Wadjet Eye Games. I was baffled when this turned out to be one of the worst point-and-click adventure games I've ever played. Good: - The setting is promising, having a rabbi as a main character felt very intriguing beforehand. - Price was cheap. - Voice acting was well done. Neutral: - Graphics are OK, got the job done, but did not offer any aesthetic pleasure. - Music fit the mood, but was repetitive and monotonous. Bad: - The story made zero sense. The protagonist's actions made no sense, the antagonist's motives were ludicrous. - Every character in the game was unlikable, it was very hard to care what happened to any of them. - The game mechanics were crude and counter-intuitive. The game was like a hybrid between a very primitive point-and-click adventure (basically it was only possible to interact with people and use computers in the game) and an extremely limited text adventure parser, and as a result it was very hard to understand what the game wanted you to do. Some clues were automatically collected and displayed to you as a result of your actions, while some clues from identical sources and situations were not, you had to figure out somehow which other things were relevant and what kind of actions they required. Especially one "puzzle" I would not have been able to figure out ever without online FAQs, because 1) I did not know an action like that was even possible in the game, 2) I did not seem to have any reason to do anything like it. This was especially frustrating as a single simple hint to nudge the player towards that action would have turned it into a rewarding puzzle instead. - The game is extremely short, less than two hours even if you take your time to ponder things. - The game's end scene is both highly illogical and extrenely annoying. To start with, it makes no sense that the main character even ends up in that situation. Secondly, the whole end scene consists of pure guess work on a trial and error basis; there is a long row of actions you have to get just right, with no way of knowing which actions are the right ones, wrong decisions either causing you to die, or in one case, to be arrested (effectively ignoring everything you have found out during your investigations). In a nutshell: this game is short, illogical, and annoying. Can't recommend.