Jacaranda Jim Reviews
Author: Graham Gluley
Date: 1987

Reviewed by Alex Freeman, appeared in SPAG #24 -- March 24, 2001

Jacaranda Jim is another game by Graham Cluley. It was actually written before Humbug, but there are many similarities between the two games.

In Jacaranda Jim, you are... Jacaranda Jim. You have crash landed on the planet Ibberspleen IV. The game starts with you waking up from a dream. When you do wake up, you find that you are in a dark cave with Alan the Gribbley. In case you're wondering what a gribbley is, it is some strange creature that is a cross between a neanderthal and the aftermath
from a night with Malcolm Muggeridge. Alan has a rather disgusting beard also.

Anyhow, you don't really know what to do, but you figure (no doubt correctly) that it would be at least a good idea to find some way of getting back to Earth. As you explore Ibberspleen IV, you find that it is a lot like Earth: There are a post office, a zoo, a grocery store, a church, and other Earth-like buildings. While you're doing all this, Alan is constantly at your side even when you're out in the rain, but he leaves when it becomes night (the game goes through the cycle of day and night).

The NPCs are generally not as well developed as they are in Humbug, but you get to know them better (or at least the well developed ones) by asking them questions. My favorite NPC is the thief. When you're on the beach, you better beware because he may try to rob you. When he does, he says, "Har, har! Give us yer valuables!" If you ask him about the police he says, "They aren't after me; are they?" Also, don't think that running away from him will help you any because he'll chase after you and smash your head with his mallet.

My favorite place in the game is the cave. It contains interesting areas and plenty of puzzles. It also contains one of my favorite puzzles: the wall of fruit. As you explore the cave, it becomes less and less like a cave (it contains stuff like a telephone booth and a safe).

Its parser is quite good. It is easy to use and understands fairly sophisticated commands. However, it can't do really fancy stuff like recognizing multiple commands.

Like Humbug, it is humorous but not as much. It is still rather witty, and it sure adds to the game, though. My wildcard points are once again for the humour.

Its main flaw is its puzzles. Many of the puzzles were too hard, such as the colored buttons one. The hint system solves this problem partially, but it is no substitute for good puzzles. Don't get me wrong, though. It has many good puzzles such as the wall of fruit that I mentioned earlier, but there should have been many more.

Overall, Jacaranda Jim is a good game and worth playing, but it could have been an excellent game if the puzzles had been better.

Atmosphere: 1.3
Gameplay: 1.5
Writing: 1.5
Plot: 1.2
Humour: 1.3
Total: 6.8
Characters: 1.3
Puzzles: .8
 

Reviewed by Grimwold

"Howdy! My name is Jacaranda Jim. I was on a routine space-journey to Jupiter (Sol system, Mutters Spiral) when my cargo-ship was taken over by a crack squad of homicidal beechwood armchairs. Desperate to avoid one of those really silly adventure games with words like "flip-flops" and "placid" in them I crashlanded into the wacky world of Ibberspleen IV. (Where the most ridiculous word in circulation appears to be "plinth").

"I was rescued from the burning wreckage by a smug little Gribbley called "Alan". This was just too much and I decided it would be wise to call it a day and lose consciousness.

"At the moment I am still unconscious and this is all a dream - you've just interrupted a game of tennis I was having against a rhinoceros called "Hilda"."

- So the introduction to this PC adventure goes. Many of you will already have heard of this game, it's been around for a while. As far as I can tell, it's not been written by a 'popular' utility, I've heard that Graham uses his own utility for writing adventures and if this is so, he's very talented in general programming, not to mention the adventure in question. Jacaranda Jim is a wild and frenzied trip through a variety of strange locations, not to mention some strange creatures and characters.

The humour is a bit restrained throughout, despite the introduction, but can afford a laugh on the odd occasion. I personally think this is a good thing, the humour taking second place to the puzzles. Some authors prefer to squeeze the puzzles in amongst the jokes - it works sometimes, but often doesn't. With JJ, however, the whole humour-puzzle interaction works very well, each one complimenting the other.

Some of the puzzles are a little tricky, I would've preferred a few more hints, but perhaps that's just me being dim. All in all, though, this is a worthy game and a definite addition for anyone's adventure collection.

Grimwold's rating: 8.5/10

 

Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.