Ben Jordan Paranormal Investigator

The folks at Grundislav Games have developed a series of games centered around paranormal investigation work. The games revolve around its central character, Ben Jordan, a college grad who decides to become a P.I. - that's Paranormal Investigator - apparently influenced by episodes of the X-Files, and his adventures.

There are seven in the series, with an eighth in development. The first, Case 1: The Case of the Florida Skunk-Ape, was created in 2004 using Adventure Game Studio (AGS). The game's popularity within the AGS community was such that more Ben Jordan games were created.

For Ben's first case, he visits the Florida Everglades, in search of something known as "The Skunk-Ape", a local variation of Bigfoot, so named because of its horrible smell. Furthermore, several park rangers have been murdered, so Ben is called in to investigate the possibility that the Skunk-Ape is responsible. To compound the theory, all of the victims' livers are missing.

The gameplay is reminiscent of those old Sierra classics from the 90's - Space Quest and King's Quest. In fact, AGS uses the same engine that Sierra did all those years ago, but it was designed specifically for recreating the same kinds of adventure games. Retro-gamers familiar with the Sierra classics will definitely feel the familiarity here, as the GUI is the same and with its built-in points system whenever you receive points (for successful actions), you'll hear a distant Bigfoot growling sound.

Characters are unique, each with specific (and sometimes humorous) traits, like Ranger Rick, who is very superstitious, or an angry hippy, who certainly is funny. The author has spent some time developing the characters appropriately for the game, although in later games this is much more in-depth.

There are a number of puzzles in the game. I'm usually hopeless at logical thinking, but for the most part found them fairly easy, so probably won't pose too many problems.

Overall, the game is entertaining and anyone who likes adventure games (especially those with the Sierra-style GUI) will definitely like this one. Although it's a little too short for my liking, it does have a high replayability if not for some of the funnier lines than anything else. I would definitely recommend this game to adventure game enthusiasts and those into the paranormal alike.

The game itself can be downloaded here, where there are two versions to download. The simple download (6.4 Mb) and the deluxe version (36.3 Mb) which has improved graphics and full speech.

For a comprehensive list of all the Ben Jordan games available, here is the website. Enjoy them as much as I am (currently playing Case 3).