It is almost becoming a cliché with reviewers to say that William Mayne's latest book is 'his most powerful to date,' but really one cannot avoid saying it of [A Game of Dark]. How he is able to go on giving us books which evoke ever higher and higher praise is nothing short of astounding…. The way the action slips from one world to the other and back again, and the subtle interaction between fantasy and reality, make the story totally absorbing. The dream world, although an escape, is no cosy, fairy-tale place, where everything comes right, but from the grimness and horror, and even his own 'honour rooted in dishonour', Donald derives a strange strength and consolation when his father dies. This is a most profound and moving book which stays long in the mind. (pp. 63-4)

Robert Bell, in The School Librarian, March, 1972.