Shiver: Moonlit Grove

Moonlit Grove suffers from a number of problems. The cursor does not change from the standard pointing arrow, even though the game is designed to do so. This created a large problem with the hidden object screens. These mini games always had an object or two that needed to be created or found. Some of these objects however were buried several layers deep. For example, in order to grab a ring, a snake needed to be lured away, which meant opening a locked cage, which meant finding a key that was hidden in a jar, which meant finding a hammer to break the jar, which meant...add this Rube Goldberg-esque scenario to a game where the cursor doesn't change and one is clicking on everything and anything that looks like it might be useful. During gameplay it meant consulting with the Hint function often to show areas of the screen one needed to click on. The game also suffers from what I call nonsensical logic. Given the objects in one's inventory, there are numerous ways to accomplish the same task in the game. However, the game wants a specific object to perform a specific task. Anything else will not do. It makes no sense. In addition, the same generic response is given whether one is trying to hammer a nail with a doughnut or break a chain with a sledgehammer. Shouldn't the latter example be given a slightly different response? Most of these games are designed to be fairly linear, which is fine. Unfortunately, this game responded with a statement regarding something the player character hadn't been told about yet. Oops. More play testing and a better design would have helped this title tremendously.