Out of Order is a brilliant example on how far you can get in game development with a relatively simple game engine. Out of Order is made with SLUDGE (Scripting Language for Unhindered Development of a Gaming Environment). It is a well-laid game and a fine handicraft. Because of this games nature, a free game developed by a private person on his spare time, I don’t think it is fair to review it according to the same criteria as other games. I am a bit more reluctant to bring out my sharpest pencil in these cases.
As the developers state themselves at their website, it would spoil the surprise to reveal to much about the story. Without ruining anything I can tell you that the main character is a person that ends up in an unexpected place and his mission is to find out why, and how to get out of there. (I know it sounds really boring - I can promise you that it is not!)
Out of Order is a humorous and colourful game. I laughed out loud more than once. It can be put in the same gaming tradition as Discworld/Monkey Island/Gilbert Goodmate… and in the air there is a dash of Leisure Suit Larry.
The graphics are one of the best I have seen created with this kind of relatively simple program. The design of the rooms is remarkably clean and revealingly free of pixel hunting.
The music is partially disturbing, but this does not dominate the gaming experience.
The puzzles feel both fresh and entertaining. Most of the puzzles are inventory based and the game is down right difficult in some places. It is not hard to tell that they have put a great amount of time working on the puzzles. Some of them are a bit farfetched, but what are you to expect from a game that is leaning on the long farfetched tradition started by Monkey Island and Simon the Sorcerer?
The interface is, as said earlier, point-and-click. The game is played from a third person perspective. It is very easy to handle the inventory and the save/load functions – just press Esc during gameplay.
To sum it up:
Out of Order is a wonderful game that is going to give you a couple of hours of good entertainment.
I would like to see what Tim Furnish could accomplish with larger resources, more time, money and personnel. It wouldn't surprise me if he would start playing in the same division as another more established gamed developer named Tim!
If you haven't already done it - download the game immediately. Gnnnnnnnnnn!!!
Developer: Hungry Software
Released 2003
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