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My only intent was to share my opinion.
 
 I'probably enjoy a conversation about the good / bad points of the game; but it was not my intent to start that conversation with my review.

We actually did read it, but I wasn't so sure whether you just wanted to share your opinion or get some sort of discussion going. All I'll say is thanks for buying the game and taking the time to play through it and reviewing it and I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy it as much as we were hoping you would.

[extremely busy]

I wasn't trying to request comments; I was merely sharing my thoughts.  I thought someone might care here.  
 
 Beyond that, I'm not quite sure what your point is.  If it is that you don't want to spend time reading my Blog (or Blogs in general) then don't.  

 If you're only interested in adventure-game-related-info then there are plenty of sources better than my Blog.

 I'm sorry if I offended you in some manner.

Seems that you request comments but haven't had any as yet.
So I'll fill the gap (and apologies in advance for being 'to the point' and quite blunt)!

I am pretty well known in the Quest/Adventure community (you can look me up on Google).

I am extremely busy on Quest/Adventure Forums (including reviews), many beta-testings, and very many walkthroughs.
Hence I have never ever had the time (or interest) in previously accessing even a single BLOG.

Your above blog justifies my aforementioned omission, and ensures that I won't waste my extremely limited and hence valuable time in the future.
     

I posted my review of Al Emmo on my Blog

http://www.jeffryhouser.com/index.cfm/2 ... ine-Review

 In short:

 I enjoyed it, but it was rough around the edges.  I'll buy a sequel.

I went through it in ~10 hours from start to finish.  One hour of that was trying to reproduce the a bug (which turned out not to be a bug at all).

Yep, and it is very interesting for me how many hours did it take to finish the game.

I finished the game.

 At the point I wrote the note, I was trying to figure out how to flick the train track switch.  I figured a shovel handle would do the job (but couldn't find it in my inventory).  Conceptually I was pretty close, but had missed the screen that had the item I needed to solve the puzzle.

 The solution to the 'digging' puzzle was so obvious, I never even thought of using it.

As far as the monitor is concerned, if you have any controls on the monitor to alter how the sceren displays things, you might need to move the image using those controls. It's a common sight when a monitor has not used a particular video mode before.

An alternative is to play in windowed mode, of course.

 Such controls had no affect, I spent an hour fiddling w/ them last night.  Selecting the 2x nearest-neighbour option addressed the issue.  The game runs a little slower but not by much.

 As far as the missing shovel. there was a spot where I could have used the shovel (thus rendering it useless and removing it from inventory), but didn't.  It was confusing to have it vanish, but I suppose that was the 'alternate' option in case people didn't try to use it.

 My problem in chapter 9 had nothing to do with the shovel.

I had the same problem.  I waited it out.  It eventually jumped from 7% to "really high" and finished quickly.  most of the install time was spent waiting for that 7% marker to pass.

 It took so long, I also thought it was crashed.

I just got the game today and when I tried to install it it froze at 7%... (Al Emmo Website.htm).... I tried everything and the same thing happens. Any ideas?

The shovel dissapeared from my inventory in Chapter 8.  I walk out of the cabin while night is falling and have it.  Then Al goes to the X spot.  All is good, I still have the shovel.

 Then I leave the 'X' spot to go to town.  When I reach the town screen, the shovel has vanished from inventory.

 Do I need the shovel later in the game?  

 Perhaps at the place I'm stuck in Chapter 9?

 This appears to the be the show stopper for me.

----

 And while I'm talking about bugs, there is an odd thing.  I have a Dell 20 inch flat screen monitor hooked up to the VGA out of a laptop.  I usually have this set up so that the laptop screen is off, and the secondary screen is primary.

 When I play the game in this setting, the right corner of the screen is cut off.  As an example, the bartender never shows up on the screen.  The pop in the top right corner will never show up.  ( etc.. etc.. )

 ( My solution was to mirror the monitors, since the laptop screen will correctly display the game without cutting off)

I got my copy in the mail today.

 Looks like I wasn't in the first 100 and didn't qualify for the extra goodies.  My invoice was 1145 so I kind of expected that.  I assume I was 45 orders late from being in the first 100.  The first 100 must have went fast, cause I ordered immediately upon receipt (but was sleeping when the e-mail was actually sent).  

 Based on what I'd heard [somewhere] I was expecting it in a box box akin to what the old Sierra games came in.  Instead it was just a DVD jewel case.  But the packaging was professionally done.  

 I probably won't get to install the game until the weekend (damm clients).