A First Look at Creaks by flotsam

I am about 90 minutes of playing time in and am liking this a lot.

A hand-painted castle full of rooms and ladders and all sorts of other things is brought to life by a rumbling and a shaking and then your own exploration.

To date, it is an exercise in exploring the castle, although the avian creatures observed in rooms and spaces and through cracks in the floor suggest a bigger issue. As does the large creature seemingly climbing around outside.

Neither of those things have as yet provided an obstacle. The metal dogs however and the floating tentacled blobs are a different thing.

Both of those things will kill you, and moving through the castle involves working out how to avoid them, use them, manipulate them and rely upon them. While that might sound a little bit actiony for adventure players, it really isn't.

In every location, you can ponder what to do and how to do it. There are things in the environment to manipulate, lights and gates among them, and things to utilise in your favour, including pressure plates and the blobs and dogs themselves. So far, wherever I enter the scene I can spend as much time as I like pondering the bits and pieces in front of me, without danger. Once you work out the way the environment works, you can do lots of fiddling to see what might or might not work without fearing for your life.

Eventually you will have to put a plan into action, and there is a bit of timing involved (e.g. climb that ladder and get to the pressure plate before the blob arrives). But it is reasonably gentle so far, with a decent margin for error, and you are far more likely to fail because of the wrong approach than a timing deficiency.

How the environment works is part of the puzzling so I will say no more.

It looks amazing, sounds good, and there is no dialogue, spoken or read. Like other products from this company, words are the least of the endeavour.

It plays exclusively with the keyboard, moving up down left and right, and interacting with the space key. It saves generously as you go, and if you die it returns you prior to the fatal encounter.

I appreciate a number of those things wont be for many adventure players, but the environmental puzzling warrants your consideration. And if you like these sorts of games, there is a heap to like here.

Thanks flotsam and Jenny!

Thanks so much, flotsam! I've been on the fence but you convinced me to give it a go!

Thanks, Jenny!

Ana

Hopefully you will enjoy Ana

Thank you for the review.

Thanks you mucho, flotsam (and Jenny100)

Thanks flotsam and Jenny.

This statement from flotsam above puts the puzzling into a nutshell! I am about 3/4 of the way through the game and it gets more difficult as it goes. The trickiest are these creatures with pointy hair that can kill you if you get too close! They move exactly as you do. If you move two spaces to the right, so do they. You need to use the light beams to control where you are in relation to the creature to get them to step on a pressure plate you need to exit the scene! Then add to it one of the mechanical dogs and you need to figure out how to place both of them and sometimes my brain hurts! I will admit to looking at a video walkthrough several times!

Just absolutely loving it and I want to see the end of the story too!

When you get killed do you star over from that action or your last save?

You start over from exactly where you died. The scenes are short, so if you go back to the beginning of the scene it's only a few seconds to walk to the place you were. Saving is quite generous.

It's on my wishlist but I'm not sure I like the sound of the gameplay. Thanks for further info Draclvr.

Thanks to you too, Drac for your views! I'm going to give it a go when it goes on sale. I have such little game time that I can wait patiently.

Ana

Goats! I have goats to defeat towards the end! I love this game... it's so quirky and fun and makes my brain hurt.

Just finished Creaks. Just in time as I have another rush of tomatoes to make something out of - chili sauce this time. Creaks is going to be an immediate replay when I have time as I'll never figure out those puzzles by myself the second time either! I'm just not ready to leave that little world yet.

So, I guess you liked the game huh?

I did indeed, huh! Although the puzzles did make my brain hurt sometimes!

Mine is hurting and I haven't even got to the goats!!

Well if it hurts your brain, I'm sure it'll hurt mine, but I'm intrigued!

The pointy haired ones were bad enough when they follow you step for step. They they added pointy haired ones that move OPPOSITE from you step for step! And then there were more than one! Gaaaaa.....!!!

Goats are infamous. I wonder whether their use was a nod to THAT puzzle

Ummm... which puzzle was that?

I believe it is a reference to the first Broken Sword game. GOG sells it here. A terrific game but I think pretty much everyone who played it would not have minded skipping the goat part.

Ahhh... never played that game!

Definitely a terrific game and well worth dealing with the goat !!

It is indeed Mad, regardless of the goat

I just finished (Creaks not BS) and will write my review shortly.
In a word, its wonderful.

That is so great to hear! I will have to give it a go when I can find some time!

My opinion excatly! I immediately played it again and some of the puzzles STILL made my brain hurt!

Thank you, flotsam !!

Thanks flotsam.

You are so right about the hurty brain draclvr