Came out in 2006 and was re-released as a Kosher Edition in 20131 which is when I found it after looking for “mystery games” on Steam. Been on my list since then and I finally finished it.
Haven’t played a good point-and-click adventure/mystery game in a long while and this one brought back a flood of memories of my sister and I playing the excellent Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. Made me wonder if there’s an open-source engine one could use to make games like these (e.g. the SCUMM engine used in the Monkey Island games) and found out that the creators use the free Adventure Game Studio Engine for their titles.
This is a short and clever game. You can finish it, with all its alternate endings, in about an hour. Like Gabriel Knight and Monkey Island, the emphasis is more on the storytelling than anything flashy. And this is a fantastic and short story that’s serious and funny at the same time: deep spiritual questions and conundrums, Talmudic combat, Rabbinical banter, small business struggles, life in NYC, and so on.
Here’s the plot:
A former member of his congregation has died and left the Rabbi a significant amount of money. A blessing? Or the start of something far more sinister? Can Rabbi Stone just accept the money and move on? His conscience says no. Step into his shoes as he travels all over Manhattan in his attempt to uncover the truth.
I’ll be playing a lot more games by Wadjet Eye, perhaps starting with this one. They’re a two-person studio in Brooklyn and appear to be cool people.
Screenshots
I am pretty amazed by the lighting treatment on the floors.
Some Yiddish Words from The Game
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Shivah | Period of mourning |
| Goy | Non-Jewish person (plural goyim) |
| Heflekh | Courteous |
| Kemfer | Fighter |
| Klug | Too smart by half |
| Maven | An expert, connoisseur, specialist. |
| Mensch | A helpful person |
| Meshugga | Crazy |
| Momzer | Bastard. Son of a bitch. |
| Mutshe | To harass, torment, bother, annoy, nag. |
| Nebbish | Weakling |
| Shikse | Non-Jewish woman |
| Shmulky | A sad sack |
| Shonda | Scandal, shame |
| Yenta | A busybody |
With updated graphics, music, voiceovers, and three separate endings.↩︎