Anybody speak Czech?

[jaz]

Hell, no! I don't want  to see you walking around all lofty... (hint, hint)

Ok, I will do it for you .

[Dave Gilbert]

Lofty? Moi?

Thanks, dude.

[jaz]

Here you go:


Bestowers of Eternity –an esoteric adventure
Bestowers of Eternity are undoubtedly a pearl amongst this winter's freeware adventure games. A story of young writer whose world falls apart  over the course of two  . An esoteric adventure begins.
Just lately we can see a pleasant trend in adventure games as these get more serious. These games don't limit themselves to old Sierra games parody or plain wackiness denying all adventure principles. Humour pour humour's heyday is gone and serious titles with more challenging plot that aren't affraid to go into more serious toppics  are more and more common. And BOE is one of the best. The beginning promises a complicated yet pleasant esoteric adventure full of mystery and you can bet the strong atmosphere of this game will swallow you for sure.


The main chracter's name is Rosa. She is a young debuting writer who lives alone in a small flat in the New York city. No relatives, no fiends. But her family' s past is not free from evil events and she she soon has to feel consequences of these. Her aunt had spent twenty years in a sanitarium and she has a fix idea that her body is permanently in fire which consumes it cell by cell. But she is not the only insane. Even Rosa's grandmother had suffered from the same symptoms – and the doctors are affraid that it could be hereditary and that Rosa could soon suffer the same. Just a few could withstand such a news without a heavy impact on their psychique. Guards (or watchmen, gatekeepers...I don't know the plot so I'm not sure what word to use –jaz) strike doesn't add much to her mental state. She even cannot get back to her appartment (which situation leads to uncomfortable realisation of her own loneliness and melancholy life) Not to mention unexplicable seizures of pain that always ocuur to her while nearby merry – go – round in the park.

Start of BOE is very promising. It introduces numerous characters and player can gain a lot of information on them to draw a picture. The game can be thrilling ans satidśfies player regularly by unveiling another part of complicated mosaic of facts behind the events. But these pieces often raise even more complicated questions which is plain excellent. As playing BOE gave me goosebumps at times, the only comments I would have towards story are its shortness and open ending. Author has promised to add final chapters within a few months though (Will you deliver??? – jaz). Of course the maker of game ids fully entitled to make an open ending but BOE plot really deserves a conclusion..

As for graphics – it's solid, however it cannot compare to the top of the line. Maybe, considering a fairly small number of locations, the author coud have put more effort into creating them. But he didn't thus the game's visuals are not exactly stunnning. On the other hand, there is nothing I could say against soundtrack. The music is mysterious, thrilling and varied. It adds much to the atmosphere of the game. Presence of speech vox file could lead to a conclusion that BOE is a talkie. But it's not. There are only a few loops of dog's barking. But who knows? Maybe sometimes we'll se a talkie patch – just like Tiera's adventures

My  overall rating of BOE is definitely high. It's a pleasant surprise and one of the best freeware adventure games of this year at the same time,in spite other games that may be longer and surpass it technicaly. But the plot and atmosphere of thos game deserve an A+ and maybe even A++.


Excellent! Good work, dude .


EDIT: all those weird &#8211's are supposed to be - . I don't know why it' s all fucked up.

[shbaz]

Hey jaz, I don't have a game review in a different language for you to translate, but I think it's awesome that you took your time to do all of those. I just wonder if you are secretely the person behind them.. hmm...

[Dave Gilbert]

Thanks Jaz!  This definitely makes up for that mediocre "Postman" review they gave me.  

Sigh.  I need to finish the rest of this game.  Can somebody help me find my motivation?  I can't remember where I put it...

[jaz]

jackhammer: no I'n not, otherwise I would add a short English overview to each to save myself a lot of work. But I know who writes these, maybe it won't be a bad idea to suggest him that.

[shbaz]

I was kidding.  

Yeah, it would save you a lot of nagging in the end if you requested that, haha.

[jaz]

But on the other hand, I practise my English while doing these translations so it's not a waste of time for me...

[shbaz]

Then send the owner of the site your translations and ask that he post those as well. Offer to help out with more translations, or proofread his.

Whether you enjoy it or not, it's still nice of you.

[Duzz]

If you've got nothing better to do, jaz (or unilin), a translation of the czech review of my game at http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/grr.html would be most appreciated.  Or even just a summary.

I'm also interested in what they thought of Dada...
http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/dada.html

no worries if you don't want to, I know it's a big ask =)

[jaz]

Bearly Sane:

Grr! Bearly Sane â€"Bear's revenge

Dan is a poor fellow. Not only he has to work his ass out under a cruel boss for a minimum wage but he also has to wear a disgustingly merry bear mask and to be nice to little evil brats. What happens when his patience reaches a critical level?  

Grr! Bearly Sane is simply an excellent game. It offers an easy to empathise everyday life story., original puzzles, innovative game mechanisms and it offers a good amusement value. The main character's name is Dan and he is a poor fellow. Why? Well, he works for peanuts, his boss is mean and the job is simply humilating. Kids just kick his balls and dogs take a pee on him. He runs out of his patience faster than it's usual. And what happens if he runs out of it completely? Well, you're going to find out in this game whose name is a clever game with words. Dan finally decides to revenge on his fat arrogant boss after he tells him he won't get no money this month due to improper behaviour towards visitors. (And by „visitors“ the boss meant seemingly innocent boy that kicked Dan's balls once again). That means Dan cannot pay his rent and he is kicked out of his apartment. Misery is complete with a dog taking a pee on his foot.
The Boss Must Die! But â€" how to do this? There is a shooting â€" gallery loaded with potential leathal weapons. But there is also a guy even the owner of the shooting- gallery is afraid of. There are more obstacles scattered through the amusement park/fair. Staff only doors remain closed to him although he technically is an employee. Snack machine allows him to pay for his food but refuses to give it away. And a little graffiti spraying brat won't even let him get close to him under threat of lawsuit since his father is a lawyer. There is an interesting innovation in this game. It's called anger  meter and it simply measures how upset the main character is. It 's not there for nothing. Some actions could be done only if the character reaches a certain level of anger. He has to be red - hot to destroy the snack machine or to definitely get rid of his hated boss because he wouldn't even think about such things at a normal sane state.

Anger meter enriches the atmosphere of course, but at the same time it makes the game more difficult since it's not enough to simply use everything on everything and go through all dialogue branches. But on the other hand, the puzzles are mostly logical and make sense. There is a verb-coin interface which is a bit uncommon for an AGS product.
The game is excellent graphic-wise and it features, apart from beautiful (however a bit off- perspective) backgrounds, a fair amount of animations. It runs in 640x480 resolution and it's a pure eye candy. The tunes are also pleasant to listen to. Ending credits with a folk song are  funny too.
Almost all important has been said and there is nothing more to say than what has been said at the very beginning: Grr! Bearly Sane is an excellent game.

PS: there is also a walkthrough available.

Excellent, Duzz! And it got 96% rating from readers.

[DGMacphee]

And the other review?  

[jaz]

Shut up you m@$#@$&@%ing m%@$$%@$^@er!!!

OK, here you are:

Dada: Stagnation in Blue â€" a double dose of depression

This game is simply insane. Deadly ill, depressive, dark and hopeless. People commit suicide after seeing first few screens. They slide on graters to pools of iodine exhorting nameless gods of death and suffering...
 

Blue word doesn't know nor remorse, nor joy nor joy, nor love. It knows only hate, violence torture, suffering, darkness and horrible, insurmountable disillusion. It is a remarkable experience to play this game. We haven't seen such an atmospheric (yet depressive) title in a long time. Also this game could claim to be an interactive art because it was created using dada methods of random collage. Maybe not exactly using famous Tristan Czara's recipe but Dada is visually completely different from all the rest of freeware adventure games. It's one huge collage of seemingly random elements. But these are part well crafted bigger picture. Dada is also a proof that you don't have to draw well to create a good game.
We don't recommend the children to play this game since it can have a heavy impact on human psychique. And I'm not kidding or exagerrating. Also depressive or mentally unstable persons should beware of this game. It's strange but also judging from discussion forums posts it can do nasty things to your mind. The plot, if there is something like that, spins around suicide. It's the main goal of weird newspaper avatar aka player. While searching for suitable knife he meets a ferryman who gets paid by diamonds, hopeless woman who cries days and nights and hides her face because she doesn't look like beatiful model and - at the first place â€" a disrupted family psychedelically potrayed by huge shadow of father â€" alcoholic and bully, with bottle of beer in one hand and knife in the other, ready to make his wife cry. Why? Because her tears please him. One would expect that player will try to help the poor woman. But no, not in Dada. On the contrary, Dada will force avatar to leave her and her little child at the mercy of her brutal husband. End of this delirium cannot be but bloody and depressive. The story itself is not much dadaistic as you see. Maybe we could see some parallels to expresionism or decadence. On the other hand, as surrealists let their subconscious thoughts flow during their automatic writing, they sometimes even didn't know what they wrote as they fell totally exhausted. Regarding this, Dada could be considered an attempt on „automatic game“  But it's not much positive thought. What more horrors hide inside the author of this insanity?

Audiovisual elements of this game are, how I have said before, formed by dada or surrealistic collage of elements. Graphics are all cut and pasted. Music is a collage of classical melodies of Bach, Beethoven and Pachelbel. Presence of Anne Saxtons lines of verses is also worth mentioning.
However, in this case, using unoriginal artwork is if not legal then it's legitimate for sure as this game (successfully) attempts to be artistic.

Dada was probably a catharsis for it's author. If you want to try something extraordinary amongst more than 1200 freeware games on the AGS site, don't hesitate. But beware. Not everyone could handle all the horrors. Luckily this game has only about ten screens because otherwise… Sanitarium couldn't hold a candle to this one.


It seems you made something unique, DG. Congrats.

[Duzz]

What more horrors hide inside the author of this insanity?

stickmen 2?
only time will tell

Thanks jaz, you're the czech czar!

[DGMacphee]

Whoa -- that's awesome! :o :o :o

Thanks jaz!

[jaz]

Whoa -- that's awesome! :o :o :o

Hah! You didn't expect this, did you???

[DGMacphee]

You got that right I didn't expect it!

The bit where the reviewer says "It is a remarkable experience to play this game" gives me goosebumps!

[Tomus]

WOW, great work, jaz! I appreciate your translating efforts....

I'm the author of the czech reviews at Plnehry.cz. I'm also active at the AGS scene - I voted in the AGS Awards and I visit these forums often. But I don't have enough time to do these translations on my own - and also my English isn't as good as Jaz's, so - thanks! :-)

[MrColossal]

Hey Tomus, thank you for the reviews and keep up the good work

[Tomus]

I'm trying to have at least one adventure review on plnehry.cz each week, but I don't review only the AGS ones. But for example, tomorrow I'll publish A Friend Indeed review and I plan to write about some other games, such as Duzz Quest, Garfield, Perils of Poom...

I write also for a paper mag Level and I have a lot of other activities, so I put in the first place the games where a walkhthrough of some kind is available - it's not because of my laziness or lack of intelligence, but I hate wasting time when I got stuck... hm... I generally hate getting stuck! :-)

So if you want to increase your chance of being published on Plnehry and getting about 2-3 000 people who'll read and maybe also download your game, you can post it on http://plnehry.idnes.cz/lokace.html (it's simple, you'll understand it even it's not in English) and send me a solution to tomus@bonusweb.cz :-)))))

And Jaz, if you could copy your other translations of my articles here, it would be great, I'd like very much to read them. And maybe I could post them also on some special page on the web, I have to think about it and how to realize it...