Moby Housekeeper

This is actually the first RM game I have ever completed. It was short and oh-so-sweet. It took less than an hour to finish. The game mechanics could use some tweaks and the translated text isn't perfect but it never took away from the experience of this game.

I wondered why this game had no stars and found 2 old reviews, void of star ratings. They both touched on the issues with gameplay that I had but I didn't feel that they talked enough about the great stuff in this game.


Graphics - 10 / 10

The custom title screen is a nice touch. It really brings the character to life. It's not just a tiny sprite anymore. The "main menu" also has that cartoony charm. There are a few other custom gfx and they all look great.

When it comes to tilesets I can't tell whats "ripped", apart from a few of the major ones. The maps didn't feel like they were from some game I played before. They were used very well. The feel of realism was among the highest of any RM game I've played. Each room was full of what you would expect to see in that location without feeling crowded. A few rooms in the intro were kind of empty, but who cares its the intro. It was just a place to scroll some text. No NPC was used twice (on the same screen) which only adds to that realism.

The shadow overlay in the final "boss" room was sexy ;)

Also, good job on all the little sprite movements like winking and waving and such.

One thing that literally blew my mind, was that zooming into the orphanage through the window during the intro. That was such an amazing and innovative use of 2k3 functions. Bravo *claps*

Apart from a passability issue in one level and a small single pixel missing from his tail in the main menu(that's VERY nit-picky) I didn't notice any jarring map errors or inconsistencies. I tried but ultimately I have nothing to complain about for the graphics so I must give them full marks.


Sound/Music - 8 / 10

A handful of sounds were low quality rips, they had that "dirty" background noise. Not much can be done about that but I did notice it. It was a pretty varied mix of sounds too, the owl hoot didn't really make sense. The MetalGearSolid alert sound was a little cliche, but at least it really drove home that sense of getting caught. The worst sound was the Mayor's car pulling up during the intro, that was nothing like a car pulling up xD

The use and timing of sound effects was spot on, though. The game over "wah-wah" made me laugh. I liked the use of voices, like when the kids were buried in snow. Things like menu movement, item acquired, light switch.. were adequate. Not much to complain about.

The music was all over the place. I didn't expect to hear Simple Plan, and at first I thought it was kinda dumb (because I don't like those bands at all, hate even) but after seeing how the music was synced to the action and the lyrics also went with said action, I was thoroughly impressed!! The Christmas music was well placed. The music did an amazing job in most cases of setting the right atmosphere of a scene and for this it gets high marks.


Story - 9 / 10

In the other reviews they complained about much of the text being cutoff. I only remember seeing maybe 2 spots where it was cut off, maybe it was updated. Also, the spelling/grammar errors are totally excusable because this game was translated. They aren't even that bad and actually I see a bit of charm in seeing the way our language compares to others(was it Russian?). I would gladly run through the text and "americanize" it. I'm taking 1 point away because of this, but even if it gets fixed the overall score of the game would stay the same.

I enjoyed the story. It was a logical reason for this Imp to start stealing. It makes me feel that he's not just a thief, I really grew to like that little Imp ^.^

The best part of the story telling was the cut-scenes. For me that's what made this game so great. The cut-scenes are a thing of beauty. All the actions were realistic, nothing unexpected or weird happened. They had great transitions so it all felt connected. You can see the Imp run to an area where the next scene takes place, instead of just fading here and there.

There were moments where I genuinely laughed out loud and the whole story was told in a serious way. It wasn't trying to be a joke game, it was just a serious game with jokes. That's the kind of comedy that I like to see in games.

The ending scene was truly epic :D Best part of the game.


Gameplay - 7 / 10

First of all, there is no explanation of how to play the game. This can cause frustration when you first start. Especially when you collected 9/10 and get caught when you think you were hiding. However, after a few tries it should be very obvious what to do.

So you just go around "talking" to shiny places until you collected all 10 objects. The shine used indicate objects was small and not-obvious. This was a good thing because the maps were small so it gave me at least a little bit of a challenge without making it frustrating or having to really hide it. A few of them were placed in hard to see spots, but overall the game was easy. At first I only noticed the shiny spots so when I found them all but wasn't done it took me a minute to figure out there are coins and bills as well. A shine on them would have helped.

The biggest complaint about the hiding system is that you seem to get caught even though you are hiding. At first I too found this to be a problem, but I think it's just because the actual rules were not stated. As you play you might assume "I just have to be in a shadow to not be seen". This is reinforced by the fact that any shadow you stand on makes your character appear dark, so you feel safe. However, after some testing I noticed that you also have to hide in places where an object blocks you from view. There are some shadows that are still in plain sight to the NPC and so you get caught. The library does seem like it has a problem though, some places should hide you.. so it's either bad judgment by the designer or just a bug.

That problem never bothered me and I just saw as a harder difficulty.

When I first got caught I tried to run back into the vent, but it didn't work for me and I ended up getting caught. It goes back to the main menu and I can do the level again without losing a life(just resets the items found). After playing again I found that you can go into the vent, but you lose a life! This is very backwards, you get punished for evading capture but get caught and you escape with your life. Which just looks weird because when you get caught you turn into a puff of smoke, so it kinda looks like you die. I guess when you run back into the vent you fall victim to a mouse trap or something. That was my biggest complaint.

Another thing wrong is that as soon as the light is switched off the NPC is still on the map for a few seconds. If you move you hear the alert sound, but the NPC just leaves the room anyways :/

This was still a very fun game and once I understood the mechanics and problem areas it was very easy to just enjoy the game for what it is.


So that's it. My first review :) If this game had the mechanics tweaked (and explained), with the text fixed, and twice as many levels I would have given it a 5/5! There was just so many things done right that everyone should give this game a try, even if it's only to see the ending :D