This is two hours of decently priced first person puzzling, except
there is more.
As the website says, you open your eyes in an unknown environment
while remembering nothing. As you progress through the game and check
the environments, you'll find letters of mysterious people which tell of
the past. Strange things that reveal the great secret ....
Progressing through the game involves working your way through a
dilapidated facility of some sort, finding items and solving puzzles to
unlock doors and move on. It's an unglamorous place, and the look works
well given the feel it wants to create. It can be surprisingly detailed,
and elements like dust mites and a good use of lighting, along with a
minimalist and foreboding musical score and suitable ambient sound,
combine to produce a solid gaming environment.
I didn't think it justified the maker's warning about frequent
violence or gore. There is some suggested nastiness, and ominous
occasional banging, but I didn't feel it was a violent or gory game by
any stretch. But makers probably have to be cautious and perhaps that
was just me.
It isn't an elaborate game in terms of moving through the
environment. Each screen is static, and clicking an area might cause you
to look more closely at a particular part of what is usually a room or a
corridor. You might then be able to, for instance, search a desk by
clicking what you can see, and when finished, click the back icon to
return to the previous view. When finished in the room, click the back
icon again to return to the previous screen, and either move on or move
back again, depending on what is available to you.
It's simple but works fine, and the lack of active hotspots enhances
the need to explore carefully. Most games these days tend to have a
responsive curser to indicate something of interest, but here you are on
your own. I liked the point of difference, and the reminder of how games
used to be, and the game design suited its use and meant it never felt
overwhelming.
Inventory management is a tad of a throwback as well. Click the
inventory window bottom left to open the inventory and equip an item. A
screwdriver perhaps. Its image will then appear in the window and it
becomes your active item. Click on somewhere you want to try and use it,
and if it's the right item it will be used. If not, try another item or
leave it active and try it somewhere else. Just switch items in and out
to use them in the game world.
You can also combine items within the inventory by clicking,
appropriately enough, the combine button. You can then equip that item
in the usual way.
There aren't a lot of items, and most of them are keys, but all are
necessary. They will disappear from the inventory when no longer
required.
Quite a few puzzles involve unlocking things; doors, draws,
electrical panels and boxes. Keys, a tool or two, and codes will all be
utilised. Some of the codes are (almost) in plain sight, provided you
have the necessary insight, but towards the end of the two hours the
best puzzle presents a multipart bit of code breaking that kept me at it
for quite a relative while.
There are two slider style puzzles, another that involves connecting
the conduits to restore power, and a mini-game right at the end which
was probably the low point. It seemed incongruous and unnecessary. It
isn't hard, a bit Pac-Man like, using the arrow keys to move your icon
around a small grid to collect the green balls while avoiding the red
ones. You need 30, and if "caught" it's start again.
You can fiddle with some basic settings and the game autosaves on
exit. Just choose continue to go back to where you left off.
You read books and collect letters, some of which contain clues,
others which just hint at whatever went on. Cutscenes play here and
there which make it clear that something way bigger has occurred, and
you get a personal taste just before the end. I found that aspect less
interesting than the rest, although it may become more interesting next
time.
I say that because completing the game unlocks a different end and
seemingly a more difficult playthrough. When you first play, only the
easy version is available. Once you finish, a message tells you about a
green stone that you can find which will unlock a secret end. Start
again and a normal "green stone" version is available, with a
third version still locked. The Steam achievements suggest there are
four endings, and whilst I don't know how much harder the next
playthrough is, or whether solves have changed, I do know there was a
briefcase I never opened and a tool to do so I never found.
So clearly there is more to do, and I enjoyed the first time enough
to start again. I will tell you more about it when I do.
I played on:
OS: Windows 10, 64 Bit
Processor: Intel i7-9700k 3.7 GHz
