The Last Door

About The Last Door

The Last Door began as an episodic game by the Spanish studio The Game Kitchen, funded on Kickstarter in December 2012, with the first episode out in March 2013. In May 2014 the Collector's Edition gathered the first season's four episodes, with new scenes and puzzles, enhanced graphics, unlockable bonuses and remastered sound. Each episode takes about half an hour, and the whole season about four hours. Its makers name Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft as inspiration.

It opens with Anthony Beechworth preparing a noose. Jeremiah Devitt, his old schoolmate, receives a letter from him with a hidden, cryptic message, and crosses late 19th-century Britain to learn why he died. The abandoned manor is only the beginning. Across four episodes he travels through mansion halls, a run-down London street, graveyards and underground warrens, while repressed memories of their schooldays return.

The pictures are made of very few, very large pixels, and the game uses that to make you imagine more than you see. Sound carries much of the fear: creaking floorboards, distant murmuring, and a score of sombre violins and piano by Carlos Viola. You play by pointing and clicking. A smart cursor shows what you can look at or use, the inventory sits at the bottom of the screen, and you collect and combine items to solve each scene's puzzles. Red herrings are rare and most items have one use, so the puzzles are logical rather than hard. Some critics found key objects hard to make out in the pixels, and the season ends on a cliffhanger that leads into Season 2.

It suits players who like old-fashioned ghost stories and Lovecraft, and point-and-click adventures with atmosphere over action.

How to play The Last Door

1. Click to walk Jeremiah through each scene and examine objects and people; the cursor changes over anything you can use.
2. Double-click an exit to leave a scene at once.
3. Pick up items, combine them in the inventory at the bottom of the screen and use them to solve puzzles.
4. Use the magnifying glass in the inventory to read an item's description.
5. Play the four episodes of the first season in order.

Tips

• Play with headphones; the sound design matters as much as the pictures.
• Move the cursor over everything; key items can be only a few pixels wide.
• Most items have one use, so once an item has done its job you will rarely need it again.
• Read the letters twice; the cryptic message is a puzzle in itself.

Questions