Independent Gaming: 5 Days A Stranger

Monday, May 08, 2006

Reviewed by Peter Mackay.

5 Days A Stranger is a great adventure game from well-known AGS developer Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw. You take control of Trilby, a gentleman cat burglar who finds himself trapped in an english country estate known as the Defoe Manor. Quickly you discover you are not the only one trying to escape and that is when the murders begin.

Those familar with any Sierra or AGS game will feel right at home with the point and click interface. However even for the novice it only takes a couple of seconds to figure out.

The graphics are tight and consistent. There are several cut scenes throughout the game and they do a great job of adding to the tense atmosphere.

The writing is well-done, characters are developed through a clever use of dialogue and feel unique. While there are some jokes they are not overly used.

The puzzles work well, are quite logical while not too obvious. The team work element was a nice touch. The length will vary depending on experiencing but I would expect it to be in the range of 3-5 hours for most players. At under 2 megabytes its small enough to download even for the slowest of connections, a testament to the AGS engine.

Winner of 5 AGS awards it certainly speaks for itself: best gameplay, best game, best scripting, best dialogue and best puzzles for 2003. For adventure fans this one is a no brainer, even if you are not a fan of the genre I would still highly recommend giving it a go.

Name: 5 Days A Stranger
Developer: Yahtzee - Ben Croshaw
Category: Adventure
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB
Reviewer: Peter Mackay

Posted at 1:58 AM by Tim

Post a Comment

Anonymous said at 5/02/2006 07:50:00 AM:

Seriously guys give it a try and if you've already played it feel free to comment :)

Anonymous said at 5/02/2006 08:21:00 AM:

Nice review. I found the game quite fun at the time, although, as with all Yahtzee games, the build up is always way, way better than the payoff. It's worth pointing out that although you can only die in one or two places in the game, you *can* die, and the way you clear at least one of those sequences is not immediately obvious. Save accordingly.

Anonymous said at 5/02/2006 10:53:00 AM:

I had much fun playing "5Days..". I guess it was the first Horror-P'n'C-Adventure I ever played. Although I have nerves of steel, I was kind of scared here and there. But as you say: "this one is a no brainer" so it's a quite short experience. BTW, the sequel is great, too.

Anonymous said at 5/02/2006 08:41:00 PM:

Yeh the sequel is enjoyable too. I will look at posting something about that soon.

Anonymous said at 5/03/2006 12:06:00 PM:

This one is pretty old news. But likable, yes.