Dark Auction is a point-and-click adventure game. You play as Noah, a young man who, due to his father’s unusual lifestyle, is led to a mysterious castle in which a secretive organization is hosting an auction. Upon entering the castle, he finds himself trapped and sworn by document to serve the auctioneer’s orders. The game consists of memory-based puzzle games and dialogue options, as well as a lot of reading. Parts of it feel more graphic novel than point-and-click, but if you keep with it, it’s pretty good.

Dark Auction’s story is the most compelling part of the game. The playthrough is fun, but heavily controlled, as most of it involves moving around only to speak with characters or to explore/interact with objects.

The story, however, keeps things interesting. It takes place after WWII, mentioning a “Dictator X,” and placing emphasis on how it’s affecting the lives of the generations following it.

Dark Auction starts with Noah Crawford heading to the castle to search for his dad, Leonard. We find out that Leonard is known for his mysterious lifestyle and interest in auctions and history. However, when Noah arrives at the castle, he’s met with his father’s death, as well as a million questions, none of which are answered right away. Instead, Noah finds himself in conversation with “Parrot Man” (who is, of course, a man with a pigeon head). He makes it clear that he’s the Auctioneer, and that whatever happened to Leonard could just as easily happen to Noah. It’s through his threats that Noah agrees to stay for the auction, working under Parrot Man and following his orders.

While there, Noah meets a group of characters, all of whom are there for the auction for their own reasons. There’s a young girl with bright blue eyes, an older woman who’s an actress, a doctor, a librarian, a nobleman, and another man who’s more built and athletic. Noah’s first order is to get to know each of the guests.

As he does so, more issues arise, and more orders are made. As the story progresses, you’ll find yourself being quizzed on the knowledge you’ve gained. This happens first after the prologue, after your first night at the castle. Before going to bed that night, Noah wants to keep track of what he’s learned by asking himself rhetorical questions that you answer. This happens again after you’ve met all of the quests. The Parrot Man asks you if you recall their names. However, if you ever find yourself stuck, there is an option to go back to Noah’s memories (an option in the menu) to figure out the answers to some of the questions.

The game carries this energy on as you continue to unlock the castle and auction’s secrets, as well as your dad’s. You continue to explore the castle, you continue to talk to guests, and you continue to complete orders and solve puzzles. As you continue to play, you’ll also begin to notice that it’s quite hard to mess up in the game. A lot of Noah’s dialogue will lead you to the right conversation, no matter what choice is made, and a lot of hints are dropped in the game.

You also don’t have much freedom to move away from where you need to be. This doesn’t present much challenge, instead creating a relaxing environment in which you can really follow the story and appreciate its creativity and depth.

Dark Auction is also very well written and full of music and scenery that help add to its eerie and confusing atmosphere.

Playing Dark Auction feels like playing in an escape room, but with more mystery, suspense, and oddities. It does a great job at building its story, and it answers most of the questions it presents. It’s a perfect game for those who enjoy easy controls and an in-depth narrative, taking the best parts of a graphic novel and combining them with the simplicity of a point-and-click adventure.

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You spend the entirety of A Game About Digging a Hole, well, digging a hole. And though it may not sound the most exciting, it kept me entertained a couple hours. However, this game is definitely meant for those who enjoy slowly paced, repetitive simulators. If you’re looking for a challenge or adventure, you’re not going to find it here.

In this digging game, you start by buying a house for only $10,000, under the impression that there’s buried treasure in the yard, which is all yours once found. In order to obtain this buried treasure, you must tear up your new yard. The game starts you out with a little shovel that digs little holes. As you dig, you’ll find resources such as stones, coal, and iron which you can sell to upgrade your shovel to dig bigger holes. The deeper your hole gets, the more resources you’ll find. The deeper the resources, the more they sell for.

You hold resources in your inventory, which can fill up. If that happens, any resources you dig will be destroyed, rather than picked up. This starts the repetitive journey of gathering resources, running to the surface to sell them, and then heading back to your hole to gather more. As with your shovel, you can also upgrade your inventory, allowing you to carry more resources before returning.

Along with the shovel and inventory upgrade, there’s also the shovel battery that can be upgraded. Of course, A Game About Digging a Hole couldn’t allow itself to be too easy, so it includes a feature in which your shovel has a battery which, when drained, explodes. If your shovel explodes, you lose all of the resources in your inventory and start from your yard again; so, not a huge loss. However, your shovel isn’t the only thing that drains your battery. As you dig deeper, you’ll start to rely on a jetpack to get you back up to the surface. You can upgrade your jetpack as well.

While this is mostly all you’ll get in A Game About Digging a Hole, you’ll also find a few extra features, such as mines, which you detect with a device that pops up when you’re near one. You can also locate money bags with another detecting device, and even two keys which allow you to open a chest in your shed. You can buy dynamite to break bigger and stronger rocks you find down deep, as well as lights for when you start to lose sunlight.

A Game About Digging a Hole gives you a few hours of digging simulation, with fun mechanics and strategy, which, for $5, isn’t bad at all. My only two problems with the game were that I found it lagging a lot. While digging, it quite often froze for a second or two. This didn’t exactly ruin the gameplay, but was definitely an inconvenience. My other problem was that I finished upgrading all of my tools long before I reached any important distance. The fun, mechanical aspects of the game were therefore lost, and I found myself in an even more repetitive cycle of gathering resources, selling them, and having nothing to spend my money on.

Otherwise, I found the controls very simple, the graphics fun, and the overall vibe entertaining, satisfying, and rewarding.

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