Bog standard text adventure
For players of daring bent and who seek games full of mystery and adventure, this game should be right up their alley if they are just judging on the title. However, despite the best efforts of this interactive fiction game, it only half-heartedly delivers on either the mystery or adventure fronts, coming off as something of a damp squib rather than an explosive adventure classic. The story is a simple enough one, finding the player on a supposedly deserted island but which of course contains a number of secrets and surprises and to say too much of the plot here would be to spoil what limited enjoyment there is to be had from the game. Of course, this being a text adventure, the narrative all unfolds via written descriptions and with the player exploring by inputting commands. In the former respect, the game does a serviceable job of conveying the appropriate atmosphere with some well written if unspectacular descriptions that contribute much to its blandness. The parser system is pretty standard stuff too, making use of the expected range of verbs but lacking the sophistication of the best examples of the text adventure genre like the Zork series and which again marks this out as little other than standard genre fodder. The interactive fiction market is a competitive one, with a number of fine examples out there from The Mist to the Sherlock Holmes games but unfortunately Island of Mystery Adventure just doesn't quite cut the mustard. It's not a bad game as such, just a little lacking when compared to the competition, making it hard to recommend to anyone but the most determined of text adventure fans.
