To Kindle a Light

The Good
This is a standard text adventure developed using the Quest system. As a result it plays on-line and in downloaded form on the p.c. using a clear font that is easy to read. For a text adventure that is very important. Additionally the player can alter the text colour, its size and the font to suit their tastes. These are features of Quest rather than the game but they do make playing/reading so much easier than the blocky DOS text of days gone by. Looks like it's been spellchecked too as I do not recall a single mistake.

I've not played many text games as I'm new to the genre and I thought this was well written. There was plenty to read but, in my opinion, it was relevant to set the atmosphere and progress the game. In other words I felt it served a purpose within the game and was not there as padding or just so the author could show off their creative talent.
There are some horror moments and some moments of humour, all in all the main character comes across as a very normal person rather than a gung-ho adventurer.

The Bad
The reviews say that this is a relatively easy and short game. Well, I spent a good eight hours on it and have not finished it yet. It's the old story, I got stuck and could not finish the game. By reading the reviews I know there is one room I have yet to enter and perhaps two more after that but I cannot get there.
Now getting stuck is not a problem, I'm new to the genre and there's probably something I missed that would be obvious to an experienced player. What I dislike is that the Quest system appears to have an option for the developer to supply hints and/or a walkthrough with the game and they are not present here.

There were also a few problems with the parser, nothing major just that it got confused a few times. For example I wanted to examine the walls so I typed X WALL and got a response something like 'I have two hundred dollars and some cards' - clearly Wall had been mistaken for Wallet.

The Bottom Line
Short game with traditional controls that is well presented. There does not seem to be a published solution anywhere so if, like me, you get stuck then you're really stuck.

Oh, if anyone knows where the dining room key is please get in touch.