Waking up in front of a sawmill may not seem problematic, but what if is a mill which you recognise from you nightmares...

Anna, the new interactive, point and click puzzle based horror PC game starts you at this point, with no knowledge you have no idea as the gamer whether you are Anna, or someone/something else.

Given the time it takes to complete the story, which all happen in a single location, it would be fair to consider the game to be more of a horror novella, rather than a full blown novel. That said quality is often more important that just quantity and Anna has quality enough to spare. It even gave an old, experienced reviewer the creeps.

There are some issues with the game and most of them revolve around the sensitivity of the mouse. When you first start the game the mouse is all over the place. I don’t know who created these setting, but they obviously a reaction speed way above the normal human. So you have to find a way of turning the mouse sensitivity way down, which has the converse problem of making the menus annoyingly slow to use. The game itself is very unforgiving when it comes to a bit of random mouse pressing - and some puzzles may be missed if you’re not clicking on precisely the right spot.

Interface problems aside Anna presents many puzzles, not least, how to get into the bloody mill, this did take me some time, but it also taught me not to ignore a single artefact in the gaming area or the contents of my easily accessible inventory.

Once in the mill, you're confronted with many, many puzzles which have to be solved to progress in the game and solve the overall puzzle of Anna. Depending on how you play the game will respond with different scary effects, Anna calculates what scares you and presents you with more of the same. Many of the puzzles have a large element of logic involved; others appear to be a case of click everything in sight, frustrating and not conducive to feelings of reward.

The whole thing leads to three possible endings, which does increase the replay value of the game and your willingness to descend into madness depends on how well you progress. This is a game which demands you dive head first into the supernatural.

Overall, the game is well worth a punt, annoyances aside it presents a solid scary experience at a very reasonable price.

7

Charles Packer