Hamlet Review

No, not that perpetually procrastinating dude from Denmark, but a little bean-shaped blue fella from outer space who looks like a not-too-distant cousin of Mr. Peanut. Well, don’t worry too much about either the plot or the tenuous links to Wm. Shakespeare because this Hamlet is a cute, fun, though not too long puzzle-adventure in the vein of such earlier what-do-I-activate-next? casual classics as Samorost, Hapland and Gobliiins.

In each of the five scenes of the game’s five acts, Hamlet arrives and it’s up to you to figure out how to get him to the next scene. Mostly you click on things, but the real trick is figuring out what you can click on and what sequence it’ll take to open the door or beat the baddie or whatever. There’s no smart cursor and several times you’ll be scratching your own bean (while clicking wildly all over the place) wondering what it is you’re expected to do. If a few minutes of cogitation and experimentation fail, you can click on the question mark in the lower right for a one-shot hint. It took me about three hours and one sitting to get through Hamlet, and I am not the fastest of players.

It is open for debate whether Hamlet is an adventure game or a puzzle game or some other ilk. The story and exploration in the game are nominal at best, but it ran without a hitch and was largely logical in its puzzling. The graphics are pastelish 50’s Termite Terrace style (see “Road Runner, Chuck Jones“) and the soundtrack is laid-back jaunty. The sound effects are minimal. There are several reflex-reaction puzzles in Hamlet. If you have an accurate mouse and normal hand-to-eye coordination, you shouldn’t have too much trouble.

Hamlet is the sort of thing you usually find for free, rendered in Flash, on one of those Escape the Room and other Flash game megasites (my faves are jayisgames.com and www.lazylaces.com). Hamlet was made not with Flash but with another now common game-making software, the Wintermute Engine. Hamlet is, of course, a download game, but you could probably get it even if you’re still stuck with dial-up. It’s a roughly 90 meg download. As is so often the case with casual games, you can download the whole thing, install it, play an hour to see what’s what and then decide to buy a registration code or not.

In the old days, Hamlet is what would be called shareware. Nowadays it all seems to fall under the umbrella of casual games. As long as the prices stay iTunes app-store reasonable, this sort of thing should be encouraged. After all, these companies require some sort of revenue stream to stay afloat. Casual games are never (I hope) going to replace the full-blown commercial graphic adventure, but they are ideal for a late night mental snack, when you want to play something but not get embroiled in a twenty-to-forty hour saga. Call Hamlet a bite-sized adventure, if you will. At the end of the game they seem to be setting up a sequel with Romeo and Juliet. I suppose if the series catches on we’ll soon be playing a cute casual game version of Coriolanus. Anyway, for now, I award the little fella a B.

Minimum System Requirements

• Windows XP, Vista or 7
• GHz processor
• 512 MB RAM
• 128 MB graphics card
• DirectX 9.0