I was aware of this game back in the day but of these kind of games on DOS I guess I mostly stuck to the Keen games. (Which I now find a bit curious, there were a lot of decent shareware platformers, I’d now think I would have enjoyed playing more of those games, but I guess I spent my time playing other games.. anyhow!)
I’m checking back to DOS Game Club after a break and thought Jill would be something quite low effort to get into, and that turned out to be correct. I grabbed it for free from GOG.com and just spent a breezy hour or so playing through the first episode, and a bit into the second. It’s a good feeling when a game “clicks” and you want to keep playing. My daughters enjoyed spectating as well.
The game is really choppy, as discussed here. The level design also feels a bit like it was thrown together and then seeing what would stick. On the surface at least, but actually playing through the levels, you’re actually funneled through the correct path and the levels are less random and mazey than they seem at first. It’s kind of a good balance between feeling larger than it actually is and still not losing your way, at least as far as I played.
I did get used to the choppines of the gameplay quite quickly. The boomerang dagger was quite interesting and fun to use, as is the spinning blade weapon. The transformations are cool too. The add variety.
There’s definitely a kind of random thrown-together feeling with the silly messages and sound effects and what not. I’m not really fond of the music myself, it feels a bit random as compositions, though the mood of the tracks is cool.
If I have the time I’ll try this on the 486, maybe that will evoke even more of the nineties feeling.
