The Fool's Errand

The Good
There is something here for everyone. The game tends to follow a story line of a fool walking along a path looking for treasure. Although there is little plot to the story it is a fun read and does offer clues within the text to solve some of the puzzles.

The puzzles themselves range from very easy to rather difficult but the variety of puzzles and the originality is amazing. Some are simply word searches or jigsaw type mixed images. Others require you to unscramble phrases without clues or to trace a path on screen based on memory. The variety here keeps you coming back for more and looking for other types of challenges.

In addition, the overall scope of the game is rewarding. The puzzles are not only inventive but the knowledge gained in one puzzle can be used in others. For instance, you may find a couple of words scrambled in one puzzle and these words show up int he word search for another puzzle. In addition, the final puzzles require knowledge gained through out the Fool's journey.

The Bad
This is an old game and as a result, the interface can be a little unfriendly. Amazingly, the game has little trouble running on modern systems but some of the puzzles do seem to run fast on faster systems. However, there every puzzle can still be solved no matter how fast your systems is.

Some of the puzzles offer no clue as to how to solve them. This can be entertaining for some but other players may find this frustrating. Also, a beginning puzzle solver may have great difficulty with some of the hard puzzles - specifically those toward the end of the game.

One of the worst things about this game is that it does end. It seems like many more puzzles could have been included. As a result and as a nature of this puzzle type game, there is little replay value. Once the puzzles are solved and the game completed, there is little reason to try it all again. There are other similar games by the same designer and if you feel this game is short, I would recommend trying those as well.

The Bottom Line
If you like puzzles and mental diversions, you will love this game. The diverse range of puzzles, from word scrambles to pattern matching, tax a wide range of knowledge. The variety of challenges also makes the game fun for all skill levels.