Tag Archives: Cody Gaisser

Game Review: Locked Door VII (2022, Cody Gaisser)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

After taking a month off from playing the Locked Door games, I got back to them this week by playing Locked Door VII: Out of Line.

Again, you start out in the most boring room you’ve ever seen.  Bob is standing around and being useless.  Rex is your faithful companion.  Explore the area and, once again, you’ll find the shed and the stairs and the crate and all of the things that have been present in every Locked Door game.  You’ll also find a few new rooms and a some new puzzles to solve.  It may be because I was rusty after not playing the game for a month but I found the new puzzles to be challenging.  Some of that is because the game still occasionally suffers from the “Guess the Verb” syndrome but, at the same time, some of the puzzles actually are clever and require some thought.  The game is fun but it just needs a little bit of polish.

After I played the latest version, I glanced over the other Locked Door games.  As of right now, there’s a total of 11 episodes, each with its own tag line.  The tag line of Locked Door XI: The U.S. Theatrical Cut is “Can You Beta Test This Thing?”  That does intrigue me.  Could the game’s rough edges and guess the verb moments be intentional?  From the start, Locked Door has satirized the needlessly complicated locked door puzzles that seem to show up in almost every work of Interactive Fiction.  Could all of the Locked Door games be a part of an elaborate practical joke?

Maybe I’ll learn more when I played the eighth installment next week next week.

Play Locked Door VII.

Game Review: Locked Door VI: It Takes Two (2022, Cody Gaisser)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

You’re back in the most boring room that you’ve ever seen, once again trying to figure out how to get Bob to give you the key so you can open the wooden door and get the trophy.

Locked Door VI continues on the path set by the other Locked Door games.  You are once again in the same strange location and Bob and Rex are with you.  Some new rooms have been added and there are new puzzles to solve.  After playing the first five versions of this game, I was feeling pretty cocky dealing with the first set of puzzles so imagine my surprise when I went to the place where I usually found the apple and I instead found an ingot waiting for me.  You’ll have to explore all of the new rooms in order to discover what to do with that ingot and even after that, the puzzles aren’t done. It’s getting more complicated to unlock that door.  Bob is no help.  Rex is a good companion, though.

I’m enjoying the Locked Door games, though there are still too many instances where you have to play guess the verb.  In that way, the Locked Door games feel like a first draft and I think people who haven’t played a lot of Interactive Fiction will probably lose patience, especially when they’re trying to figure out how to unlock the safe.  But the idea of each game adding to the previous game has turned out to be much more interesting than I was originally expecting so I will be playing Locked Door VII next week.

Play Locked Door VI.

Game Review: Locked Door V: Switched On (2022, Cody Gaisser)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Last week, when I played the fourth game in Cody Gaisser’s Locked Door series, I got bogged down in trying to figure out how to unlock a safe.  It was a real case of “guess the verb.”  Eventually, it turned out that I was guessing the right verb but I just wasn’t using it correctly in the game.  Once I got the safe open, I was able to get the key from Bob, open the wooden door, and get that all important trophy!

It’s a good thing that I eventually figured out how to open that safe because I had to do it all over again in Locked Door V.  That’s the way the Locked Door games work.  Each game features the same locations and puzzles from the previous games, along with new rooms to explore and new puzzles to solve.  Locked Door V also adds a new NPC, Rex the Dog.  Rex follows you everywhere and says, “Arf!”

After all of the difficulty that I had during the fourth game, I was relieved that I had a much easier time with Locked Door V.  It helped that I now knew how to open that safe.  Locked Door V‘s biggest puzzle comes from exploring the newly added basement.  Not only do you have to figure out how to make your way through a room that is completely dark but there’s also a puzzle that can only be solved by searching the rooms and being sure to pay attention to the details.  Do that and you’ll get the trophy!

I enjoyed Locked Door V.  Next week, I’ll see what Locked Door VI has in store for me!

Played Locked Door V: Switched On.

Game Review: Locked Door IV (2022, Cody Gaisser)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Once again, you are in a white room, with  locked door that needs to be unlocked.  Actually, there are two this time.  There are other exits that are not locked and which lead to other areas that were not featured in the previous Locked Room games.  Search the warehouse.  Examine the garden.  Or talk to Bob, who is again standing in the room and holding a key that he won’t just hand over.

Safety in Numbers is the fourth Locked Room game.  Again, the aim is simple.  Give Bob something he wants.  Get that key.  Unlock that door.  Get your trophy.  But this time, there are more rooms to explore.  There are extra puzzles to be solved.  And there is a safe that needs to be opened.  Finding the combination for the safe should be easy.  Any experienced IF player will know where to look.  Using that combination to unlock the safe is much less easy.  As much as I appreciate what the Locked Door games are doing, the fourth entry leads to one of the most frustrating cases of “guess the verb” that I’ve ever come across.  Turn, set, spin, what the Hell am I supposed to do with this dial?

Play Locked Door IV and let know if you figure it out.

Game Review: Locked Door III: Crate Expectations (2022, Cody Gaisser)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Once again, you are standing in a white room that is the most boring room in existence.  There are two archways, one to the east and one to the west.  There’s a man named Bob who you might remember from a previous game.  And there’s a door to the north that’s locked.

Can you unlock the door?  You’ll have to figure out how to get the key first!

This is the third Locked Door game.  You’ve now got slightly more rooms to explore.  And you’ve got a puzzle to solve.  Unlike the first two Locked Door games, you now have to use your IF skills if you want to unlock that door.  Luckily, it’s a very simple puzzle and your trophy awaits!  I solved it in 27 turns and scored all 3 points.

Like the previous two games, Locked Door III works best as a parody of the locked room puzzles that every IF player has gotten frustrated with at some point.  It’s amazing how there’s always something just lying around that the player can use to open whatever needs to be opened.  Most houses don’t have crowbars, hammers, and and wooden planks in every room.

Next week: Locked Room 4!  As long as I can keep figuring out how to unlock the doors, I’ll keep playing each installment.

Play Locked Room III.  

Game Review: Locked Door II: Fair Trade (2022, Cody Gaisser)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

(SPOILER WARNING)

You’re in a room.  There’s one door.  It’s locked.  Does this seem familiar?  Maybe you played Locked Door, to which this game is the first of many sequels.  Can you figure out how to unlock the door?  In the first game, the key was just sitting in the room.  In this game, the key is not mentioned as being in the room.  Instead, there’s some schlub named Bob and there’s an apple.  Can you figure out what to do?

Like the first game, Locked Door II will be appreciated by people who have played and struggled with games that require them to figure out some sort of complex puzzle in order to open up a door.  Locked Door II does have a puzzle but it’s so simple that it makes a statement about how needlessly complicated some other games can be.

If you get that door unlocked, you’ll get a prize.  Unlike the first game, you’ll have to find prize, though.  Just look in the most obvious place.

So far, there are seven different Locked Door games.  From what I understand, each game gets progressively more complex.  Eventually, I’ll probably end up in a room that I can’t get out of and I’ll have to stop playing.  Will it happen with Locked Door III?  Tune in next week to find out.

Game Review: Locked Door (2022, Cody Gaisser)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

(SPOILER WARNING)

You are in a room. A wooden door leads north. That’s the only exit. But, the door is locked!

This is a puzzle that has faced many a player of Interactive Fiction. We’ve all had to deal with the locked room scenario, where you have to find the solution for how to get that door open. You can play guess the verb. You can look for things to examine. You can check your inventory to see if you have something on you that could be used in some clever way to unlock the door.

Or you could just pick up the iron key and see what it does.

To quote the game itself:

Room A
A plain white room. A wooden door leads north.

You can see an iron key here.

Can it be that simple? Why not? One side effect of playing too much interactive fiction is that you reach a point where you assume that every solution has to be complicated. Sometimes, you can just pick up the key.

There is another room, though. Be sure to go in the other room and read what you find.

Keep in mind, this is only the first Locked Door game. There are at least three other adventures, all asking if you can unlock more doors. I’ve been playing the fourth one. I’ll review it as soon as I figure out how to open up the damn door.

Play Locked Door