The Colonel’s Bequest
| Developer: Sierra | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Sierra | Sound: |
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| Year: 1990 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Adventure | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
7/10 | |
It’s 1925, in Louisiana. The titular colonel is an old misanthrope, supposedly wealthy, living in seclusion on his estate—a property bordering an old sugar plantation, surrounded by alligator-infested swamps.
Sensing his end is near (or more likely bored out of his wits), the patriarch (decrepit and without an heir, you know the refrain) invited his “loved ones” to dinner, promising each an equal share in his will. Mischievously, he took care to specify that if misfortune were to befall any of the guests, the shares of the others would be increased!
Surprise, surprise: the bodies start piling up within minutes.
As they say, a dinner party is better with fewer mouths to feed…
[Here lies a saucy spoonerism, lost to translation. – Ed.]
You play as Laura Bow, a journalism student, detective’s daughter, and certified ingénue. Invited by the colonel’s niece to spend some time in a dusty old mansion filled with sociopaths who, unsurprisingly, start getting picked off one by one.
Having no real connection to the whole affair, you take it upon yourself to snoop around, eavesdrop, and touch absolutely everything. Will you unmask the killer? Find something else worth recounting to your friends after the weekend? Or will no one ever see you again?
It’s a graphical adventure game in the vein of King’s Quest. While the mouse can move you around or provide brief descriptions by clicking on objects, you won’t get far without using the keyboard (and simple English commands like “ask grandmother about the corpse in her bedroom”). The outdated interface is finicky—or rather, it demands precision from you, especially for something as basic as walking through a door (miss the frame by a pixel, and our hapless heroine will flat-out refuse to move).
Sadly, the Amiga version didn’t get any upgrades during its conversion from PC: low resolution, limited colours, grating sound effects. Throw in the constant disk-swapping and long load times, and there’s little reason to play the Amiga version—especially when the game is easily installable on modern Windows systems via GOG.
Highlights? The polished presentation and a colourful cast of vaudevillian characters create the feel of a classic whodunit. A touch of dark humour also offsets the eerie atmosphere—try stepping into the elevator shaft when the lift isn’t there and see what happens!
On the downside, the sluggish pacing and dialogue-heavy nature require patience, note-taking (start with the characters’ names), and, as always, keen observation. You’re guaranteed to miss details on your first run. And in typical Sierra fashion, anything can kill you—suddenly and often brutally.
Another gripe is the real time progression, akin to Mortville Manor or Dark Seed. The story unfolds with or without you, making it easy to miss key conversations or clues simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. While it’s refreshing for a game not to hold your hand and let you fend for yourself, this design choice enhances the atmosphere but can lead to frustration—especially when constant disk-swapping is involved every time you leave a room!
A sequel, Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra, came out in 1992 for PC-DOS.
For something similar, check out The Sexy Brutale (2017), If On A Winter’s Night, Four Travelers (2021), or The Crimson Diamond (2024).
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