Game Name: BOH
Developer: Simone Bevilacqua
Cost: (Euros) 12.5
Release Date: Out Now!
BOH is an old-school adventure puzzler game where you must overcome a series of mazes in order to find and stop the Evil Masters!
Well, yes that's all well and good but the fact is that it is not different because of it's story. Nor is it because it's a top-down corridor shooter game where you must find keys and travel the correct route of each level while protecting yourself from nasty enemy things.
No this is different for other distinct reasons. Firstly lets talk about the distribution methodology. It's boxed version only, which is an interesting move from the developer. It's unusual for an independent developer to offer a boxed version at all let alone making it the sole distribution method. It's a pretty smart looking box / manual / disc too, and at least you'll never need to worry about removing the files off your machine accidentally. Just, um, losing the CD? Anyway, this in itself makes BOH interesting but the one thing that made it stand out for me was the visuals.
It's the first thing you'll notice too when you try the demo. The lighting of the game leads to something quite claustrophobic at times, but generally unique to a lot of other games. The light from your virtual torch reveals only a small part of the unfolding level. In some cases can really increase the difficulty level of what might have previously been a breeze, but it adds a level of atmosphere that would also have been missing before.
It's not all good-news though. I'm not much of a fan of the default music. It's quite limited anyway but does not really lend itself to the style of the game. Luckily you can change the "theme" of the game to one of 4 styles – I would recommend the C64 style! This music was far more up my street and matched the game perfectly.
The 360-degree movement rotates the whole level around you. This is both good and bad, it's quite logical in one sense, but it actually made it hard for me to remember where I'd been! Although you can pick up a map that helps here.
My biggest gripe though is that some levels require you to go through them in an exact way, and it's quite unforgiving. There are places where you can accidently go through a one-way door and end up having to restart the level.
But even with that, BOH has quite a lot of charm to it. Once you've got the hang of the level elements and are a little more cautious about running through every door you pass, it becomes far more fun.
Review by Andy Yates
Score: 68 out of 100
Final Words: Rather fine old-school fun!