With nearly every purchase of their puzzle games, I've found Big Fish's products to be very well programmed, challenging, visually appealing, and they tend to take a while to solve. "The Missing" turned out to overly simplistic, both in terms of the overall gameplay as well as the low difficulty level of nearly every puzzle and hidden object scene. Maybe this game was designed for a much younger audience than is typical for them, but this one was over way too fast, and really didn't provide the challenge that I'm used to from them. Definitely not worth the price in any case. Just for the record, until now I've never rated a Big Fish puzzle game below three stars, and usually think they deserve four or five. Hopefully this is not a trend that will continue...

This is a cute little game that intertwines match 3 puzzles, hidden object scenes and tasks all wrapped up in a story about Grandpa Joe's farm. You also get to earn money to renovate and decorate the farm so there's a bit of a sim feel to it too. I enjoyed all of the different types of puzzles in this game, especially the tasks. The story scenes in between drag a bit, but there is an option to skip them. If you finish the game and decide to start on a second or third farm, you'll bypass the story altogether and just get the puzzles. An added benefit to continuing on, you'll also encounter some of the more interesting and difficult match 3 puzzles. Great value for the price.

Just finished the game.

I usualy don't play match3 but this is game is my choice for today.
Plus for me was:

- There's NO bloody scenes and violence.
- Cute colorful grafics.
- Easy puzzles which can be skipped.
- There are some hidden object scenes so gameplay is not so boring as in the other match3 games.

Minuses are:

- A bit annoying music
- Some puzlzes were very easy for me

I love all the Avernum games, except this one. The great thing about the series is the games are consistent in the way the games are played, with just a few deviations, most of which are either cosmetic or small improvements on minor things. However, Escape from the Pit deviates from the tried and true leveling system of past games which allow a ton of unique character builds and implemented a stupid skill tree, which pigeon holes and restricts character in a game destroying way. For example, if you build a mage and need that mage to have Hardiness, you have to invest points into the skill below it, which either swords or spears. Don't want those? Tough, you either take the skills so you can unlock Hardiness or you can watch your mages die with one stray arrow or melee attack. If you do take the weapon skills, you waste precious skill points that ultimately go to waste, or you end up with a hybrid character that isn't good at melee or magic. And that's not the only problem. Quickness is buried in the melee tree as well, so ranged fighters have to waste skills in the melee tree if they want to unlock it. If you want to build a melee character with high evasion, you have to unlock a bunch of ranged skills to get to the ability that allows for dodging melee attacks. In short, you end up being forced to build boring hybrid characters and watching your little heroes die over and over, and that isn't what this series is about. Even if you don't compare Escape from the Pit to past Avernum titles, it still just isn't very good. It is just a bad rpg with better graphics. Skip the Pitt....your money is better spent download and playing Avernum 5 or 6.

Lovely game, no trouble with the gameplay whatsoever and I can attack things just fine so not sure what game the negative reviewer was playing. Sometimes party members decide to wander off, but that can be sorted by just shouting 'Follow me!'. Loads of options from character creation onwards.