Rather disappointed in this title.

Now, to be fair, the art is crisp, the voice acting is very appropriate, and it's a novel premise.

That said, for an adventure game, there's remarkably little adventure, and there's very little game. From start to finish, there's basically only one or two options the game permits at any given time (A few at the start, with far less as the game progresses), and there's minimal interaction with the environment if you're not making those particular choices.

I got into it as the game began, taking notes & trying to figure out the timeline & the small details that might be pertinent... but as the game wound on, I found there was zero need for my involvement, aside from doing the specific actions expected of the game.

Getting the key from Chee Chee was among the more frustrating aspects of the game, as it required a series of specific actions that I must've bungled three times over ten minutes.

Terribly sad, as it really does have polish with a number of cute homages to the adventure games of yesteryear... just very little in the way of fun, game or interaction.

I am pretty surprised there is no mention of Shag in the post. This game is more reminiscent of his art than anything else.

I really liked how professional this game felt overall. Most freeware adventure games have somewhat dull graphics and often bungled grammar. I didn't notice either problem here, which was great.

That said, the story, while somewhat interesting, didn't really feel as original as any of the games it was trying to pay homage to, and the puzzles definitely needed some work. Still, it's great to finally play a free adventure that was well-made.

For a free game - this is not bad, but unfortunately nothing more. I would not play a second time

Ditto. Some great art and some great voice acting - overall, great presentation! - unfortunately marred by some less-than-good puzzle design.

Thank you for your feedback.

You're perfectly right about the game's shortcomings in length and difficulty. Dirty Split is kind of a test balloon for me, a debut project to see what could be done. And in order to not lose myself in perfectionism, I tried to follow a rapid development paradigm: Come up with a story, puzzles, characters and locations in under a week and then start working until it's finished, which (including voice acting) took about 7 months.

Anyway, the positive side effect is that so many people really enjoy it who usually don't touch adventure games, or even games in general. And I can say that I achieved my personal goals: To learn something from the development, to have fun along the way, to let others have fun, and to be better equipped for more ambitious projects. :o)

I'm not dissapointed by the poor puzzle design since any puzzle in an AG that did at some point make me feel smart was really just making me feel smart because I tried every object on everything until something worked out. That being said, I'm actually stuck fairly early on in the game (right after I get the papers signed to get into the jail cells).

Puzzles aside, I feel this game does an amazing job as far as story telling and characterization goes. It's the most convincing AG I've ever played.

I got stuck at the same place, CMspice.

The game requires you to find all of the essential clues before you can go to the next city. My issue was that I hadn't found all of the items at the crime scene.

Basically put, once you've talked to everyone (including the accused), it's just an item hunt, since they don't, I believe, say anything new after that.

well I finished it. Considering it more so as a piece of interactive fiction, a thought it was excellent and very well polished. The dialog trumps pretty much most commercial game voice acting (certainly the localised ones :D) and I often found myself actually listening to it.

the only question i have is how to i ring the door bell