Death
in Sakkara is a charming, tiny edutainment adventure
created for the BBC website. It’s snappy, stylish, fun, and
best of all, free.

The story of the game concerns
the player character, the journalist Charles Fox. It’s 1929,
and the discovery of King Tut’s tomb has everyone in the world
crazy for ancient Egyptian mysteries. Fox is summoned to a meeting
with the curator of the Hull Museum. It seems that the curator’s
daughter, a young archaeologist, has gone missing while investigating
some ancient ruins! Only you can save her!

So
you’re off to Cairo, where you sweet-talk your way into the
missing girl’s bedroom. You begin picking at clues which take
you through the dangerous streets of the city, to ruins in the desert,
and ultimately into the creepy tomb itself.

The game is simplicity
itself, with simple dialog options and easy controls. Exploration
is never frustrating. The puzzles and mini-games are varied and fun,
and provide motivation to play through the game multiple times.

Puzzles
and minigames include a chase through the dusty streets of Cairo,
a locked safe with clues hidden in a cryptic telegram, and a claustrophobic
ramble through an underground maze.

Playing through the game
multiple times won’t take you too much time. This game consists
of four episodes, each of which can be completed in less than an hour.
It’s more of a tasty appetizer than a main course.

One
of the nicest things about Death in Sakkara
is that, in addition to being free, it’s
played entirely online, with no download at all. And it’s
in four bite-sized episodes. Therefore, though I would never recommend
anyone do this, it is the perfect game to, uh, play at work.

I’ve always been
fond of infotainment games (remember Crusader?),
and I thoroughly enjoyed myself on this Egyptian adventure. I recommend
you enjoy the pocket-sized charms of Death in Sakkara.

System Requirements:

• CPU: 1GHz
• 128MB RAM
• 32MB graphics card
• Flash Player

This
review is copyright Ray Ivey and Just Adventure and
may not be republished elsewhere without the express written consent
of the author. Republication of said review must also contain a link
back to Just Adventure.