Played during the Backloggd’s Game of the Week (10th Oct. – 16th Oct., 2023).

Evoking the quirky spirit of LucasArts' point-and-click titles, No Rest for the Wicked is an intelligent adventure that strikes a subtle balance between inspiration, reference and its own identity. The plot and structure borrow directly from the first act of The Secret of Monkey Island (1990), reusing timed puzzles or reinterpreting the iconic verbal jousts through three different objectives. The initial puzzle is very similar to the one behind the tavern at the very start of the game, while the bookcase is a rather ingenious reinvention of the sword duels. The dialogue and the introductory cutscene are written with the same light-hearted, gently sarcastic glibness that characterised the Monkey Island series, with a protagonist forced into bizarre situations against their will. Similarly, the title takes the liberty of constantly breaking the fourth wall or mentioning elements that the characters are not supposed to know about, including fairly direct references such as Metallica's 'Master of Puppets' (1986).

Rather than taking sterile inspiration from a design that is sometimes more obtuse than it needs to be, No Rest for the Wicked manages to keep its puzzles in confined spaces, while making it easy to experiment with the objects. No pixel-hunting is required, as the cursor adapts contextually to the correct action. Although some may feel that the solutions are sometimes too explicitly given to the player, No Rest for the Wicked is more about creating an atmosphere than just mimicking old games. In a way, the title is emblematic of a recent trend in point-and-click games, which contrasts with the heaviness of titles by Wadjet Eye Games, Faravid Interactive and, more generally, games that border on detective stories - which are longer and coloured by a slightly pessimistic or melancholy view of the world. On the contrary, No Rest for the Wicked is a defence of shorter titles, infused with intelligent, respectful wit.

This was cute! Comedic takes on Dracula, I feel, are a bit more common nowadays than works that take him seriously — moreso than any of his gothic horror contemporaries — but the writing here did well to take it in a different direction than most and genuinely caught me off guard during a couple of moments. I also appreciate the small scale of the adventure game design: with only a handful of rooms and only a handful of things you can interact with, it's much less likely you gloss over anything during your search, and worst comes to worst it's not too much of a time investment to brute force anything. The puzzles felt inventive and possessed some fairly clever solutions, though one of them in particular I felt like I could've received more direction on — I thought I had the right answer but I wasn't entirely sure how I was meant to apply it, the obvious routes in particular either not being selectable or resulting in generic dialogue. The voice acting is... hit or miss: while a good portion of it works fairly well, other parts stand out for... not having great sound quality, or otherwise feeling kind of off. Overall, though, I enjoyed this! It's maybe more of a 👍/10 for me than anything that'll really stick, but even then looks neat, it's fairly short, and I like this particular take on a comedic Dracula. Check it out! I wouldn't sleep on this.

I know I know, this wasn't in my personal bucket list of spooky games for this month, but I just had to jump into the Backloggd Game of the Week tradition at the very least once, and hey, this indeed has the spooky thematic so it still counts!

Y'know, I wouldn't say that I'm someone who's difficult to charm, I'm very easily enthralled by bizarre or charismatic worlds and characters if they are unique or appealing enough, but I'll admit, I'm a bit of a picky bastard when it comes to humor. I massively respect games that try to go for the humoristic angle A TON, but that also results in me being a lot more strict with, for a lack of a better term, ''comedy games''; if you are trying to be funny cheeky game, then you better not miss (I say this, being the worst '''''''punster'''''' in the entire site...). Graphic adventure games are probably the breed that's most familiar with humor, and that's everything but a secret, Monkey Island and Sam&Max are two perfect examples, while far from the only ones. Whether its poking fun at the tropes of the genre they are part from or just breaking the fourth wall more directly, this more sarcastic, satirical and surrealist is one that I cannot get enough of. I was initially scared that No Rest for the Wicked would fail in this regard, since I didn't really enjoy a few jokes in the beginning, but luckily, it didn't took long before it put my concerns... to rest!... Oh my god that was the worst one yet holy fu-

It has been a while since I've been charmed by a bunch of morons this hard; the nameless servant is a fantastic main character and loved his dry and sarcastic commentary and I actually really enjoyed his voice (the voice acting in general is pretty good to be honest), the count/master is everything I could ever want from a pretentious and dumb as bricks vampire, I adore the depressive son of a bitch that is Otto with every bone in my body and Carla was a really funny character that I wished it had even more interactions with you and the prisoners! The writing is on point, there are indeed some jokes at first that felt too sarcastic or direct to my own liking, but after those everything is a hit; it's not a game to which you'll be constantly laughing at, but the smile will persist during the entire playthrough and will get a chuckle or too out of you.

Puzzles are pretty simplistic for what they are, tho that's not a negative. It's a quick experience after all, and considering the run time, the game is pretty clever with the problems it presents and it has a puzzles that I would call stellar, it's nothing mind-breaking, but it is very creative and it took a while for me to realize what to do. The only negative that I could point to is how many major objects blend with the background and other objects, but at this point, this is more of a generalized problem with this style of game that a particular fault of No Rest of the Wicked.

Weirdly enough, even the negative kinda connects with the biggest positive I can say about the game: if it were to be a bit longer, I could easily see this as a classic of the genre, both in visuals, design, and above all else, script. It goes for that very particular way of writing and nails it, while at the same time managing to feel completely unique. In the end, it is what it is, a very enjoyable albeit short and not very deep experience, but it is like a good pun; clever, lasts as long as it needs to, and it may take a while to get some parts of it, but it's very worth it.

Also, I kind of saw the end coming, but it didn't make it the less funny. All in all, you could say this game is pretty wickedI'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SO-

An enjoyable half hour of pointing and clicking.
You play a Dracula’s servant who after a two hundred year kip needs to get up and also fill the world with eternal night so he can stroll about and do what he likes.
During this short adventure you’ll meet more of the Dracula’s staff and, let’s say guests.
All of these characters are well voice acted bar one exception that was more an issue of audio quality than line reading.

Sprite work here is good and mostly clear. I believe all modern point and clicks should give you access to a highlight button, however even without that I didn't find myself pixel hunting - the only issue I had in that department was the use of a bookcase and several titles on it, these weren’t separated or marked too clearly for my liking.

The music was fun and the puzzles all had some playful but solid logic.
These include the usual combining, “enhancing” and strange use of items.

Everything here is a standard affair when it comes to an adventure game. However with being made in two weeks and being this tidy and smart, there is not really anything to fairly criticise.
Every element "could be" better, but each element is also at a very strong standard.

My main comparison for this would be Loco Motive and I think whilst this isn't leagues below that, it just doesn't quite have the same level of writing and the locations just don't feel quite as original in NR4TW even if "a train" isn't the biggest brain idea for setting either.
There is nothing “wrong” with this game but there wasn’t anything that will probably keep in my mind all that much longer.

If you enjoy point and clicks, give this one a look.
It's very short, you can pay as much or as little as you want and maybe you'll find it funnier or more endearing than I did.