Now this was a nice surprise. Why is no one talking about this game? Or if they are, why haven’t I heard about it? “Quiet, Please!” harkens back to the classic era of PC point and click adventures (“Day of the Tentacle”, “Maniac Mansion”, the “Monkey Island” games, almost everything Sierra made in the ’80s, and so much more), but it does so in a unique way. The presentation, which at first looks like it offers “retro” visuals, in fact takes a page out of the recent trend of “de-making” popular games (Halo, Grand Theft Auto, etc.) and offers a little more. There’s shadowing and other features that no one would have wasted the sprites on back in the day, so what you get is pixelised 8-bit visuals that are attempting to do more than you’d expect, and that’s refreshing.
Gameplay is refreshingly non-linear. Like any point-and-click adventure you’re solving puzzles, collecting objects, and generally working towards a specific goal, but lots of things that you need to do to complete the game can be done in almost any order. This adds at least a shred of replay, as there is the option of going back to the game to find more efficient order to do everything in.
As befitting a game called “Quiet, Please!”, the audio design is great, with sound effects that do more than just get the job done. Your overarching goal is to make the house quiet enough that you can get to sleep, and everything from grandfather clocks to kittens are in your way.
It’s hard to say how long a point-and-click adventure, especially one that’s somewhat non-linear, is to complete, but from what I’ve seen thus far it’s going to take me at least a few hours to complete. For a game as fun as this, that’s enough to justify a mere 80 Microsoft Points.
Here’s what the developer (Nostatic Software) has to say about the game:
“Everything in the house is so noisy! You just want to be alone and go to bed. Explore, interact with your environment and solve puzzles. 3 kittens included with every purchase!”
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