The Quivering

I went into The Quivering expecting a curio, and came out genuinely torn. This is a first-person point-and-click adventure originally built for MS-DOS in the late 1990s, now sitting on Steam like a dusty VHS tape someone found behind a radiator. You play as Spud, a young bloke tasked with defeating a demon called Big D after his uncle Olivetti accidentally cracked open a portal to Dimension X during what the game cheerfully describes as recreational chemistry. The result unleashed werewolves, mummies, vampires, zombies, and assorted netherworld nastiness across the village of Warty Hollow. The premise is gloriously daft, and when the humour lands, it genuinely lands. The core loop is classic 90s point-and-click: move between pre-rendered areas in 360-degree first-person, hunt for items, combine them, and talk to characters to figure out what to do next. A device called the Ghoul Cube serves as your inventory and your save system - the latter gated behind collectible imps scattered around the world. That imp-limited save mechanic is one of the game's most divisive quirks. Run out of imps before you find more, and you are stuck. Community threads show players wrestling with this system even years after release, and it is a legitimate friction point for anyone not raised on Sierra-style design. And Sierra-style is exactly the right reference: The Quivering has instant-death moments baked in. One wrong click in certain sequences and Spud dies in a cutscene, no warning given. Players who grew up with LucasArts adventure games expecting a more forgiving structure will hit a wall fast. The puzzles themselves are mostly item-matching logic, occasionally requiring you to talk to the right character or spot an environmental detail before the solution clicks. There is a fast-travel obelisk system for the first half of the game that keeps backtracking manageable, though the second half drops it and the world starts to feel more labyrinthine. Where the game earns genuine affection is its atmosphere and comedy. The cartoony horror aesthetic has aged better than you might expect - the creature designs have personality, the voice work is campy in a deliberate way, and the writing occasionally produces a laugh that feels earned rather than accidental. It is a surprisingly substantial adventure for its era. Mixed Steam reviews mostly reflect a clash between retro-tolerant players who find charm in its roughness and modern players who bounce hard off the instant deaths and obscure puzzle logic. Both reactions are completely valid. Bring this home if you have a soft spot for late-90s British adventure game weirdness, you are comfortable with save-scumming, and you find absurdist demon-hunting plots endearing. Approach with real caution if you expect modern adventure game courtesies like unlimited saves, hint systems, or forgiving checkpoints.

Alex · Scout Team

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