Fun, Sun and Mishaps 1.0

The adventure game genre is a bit of an oddity. It was incredibly popular for a brief period of time, then it almost disappeared. While it's coming back in bits and pieces, most of the games that are released have very little in common with those original games. Most of the games that have connections to the older designs are released for free or from independent publishers. That means the games have very little in the way of impressive visual design and that they live and die by story and puzzles alone. The games that do well in the genre are often prized by those who are willing to wade through the games that don't do quite so well.

Fun, Sun & Mishaps is a lovely little game that helps to keep alive the spirit of traditional adventure games. There's nothing here the redefines the genre, but rather a lot that calls back to the earlier days of adventure game design. This means that the narrative has to mostly speak for itself, with relatively little in the way of graphical spectacle to help carry the story. Fortunately, the story is well-written and engaging, at least enough to keep players moving from one puzzle to the next until the story is finished.

The puzzles in the game are very competently done. That might seem like faint praise, but it's perhaps the best thing that can be said about any adventure game. Adventure games live and die by their puzzles, especially when they don't have top-notch design teams. The puzzles in this game all work as they are supposed to and you rarely feel cheated by their solutions. Again, it might seem like this is the bare minimum for a game in its genre, but fans of adventure games will tell you how rare this kind of design really is. It's definitely a stellar entry for something that's relatively low budget.

That's not to say the game is perfect, of course. It's a fine game on its own, but it doesn't really measure up to many of the classics of the genre. While most of the puzzles are good, there are a few that are uninspired. There are also a handful of points where the narrative drags and some of the lines fall flat. That's not enough to make the game bad, per se, but it is enough to remind players that they aren't playing a top-tier title. It's clear the game could have used just a little more polishing before going out.

So, what's the verdict Fun, Sun, and Mishaps? It's a decent game. It'd be easy to say that it's nothing special, but there are some bright and shining moments within that help it to stand out. It's not going to compare to the classics of the genre, but neither is it as bad as some of the adventure games out there. It is competently designed and made and will give most players a good time if they look past the flaws. At the end of the day, that's about all you can ask of a game of this caliber.