I am an hour in and am enjoying this 'classic' point and click adventure.

Despite having boxed copies in my collection, I never played the earlier games, so can't tell you how this compares. It does though feel and look like a game from that era (the first game game out in 1993), albeit spruced up to today's standards, so well done on that count.

This game is set up as a prequel, which the game tells you itself about 30 minutes in. It begins as Simon is moving house in a current world environment, although he quickly finds himself in a whole other place, be-decked in wizards robes and trying to enter the Magic Academy. Things are needed, one of which I have and one of which I have sourced but not yet acquired. Pig knuckles beckon.

The whole thing is point and click and you can save at will. It's all voiced (including apparently by the original Simon), looks bright and breezy (a little muted in the colour pallet) and is accompanied by a musical score. TAB highlights hotspots, and the icon generated by the mouse will indicate what you can do at each one (look, talk, take, exit etc.).

The wizard's hat bottom left is the route to your inventory. It also contains your diary, which keeps track of your objectives, and your map which will enable you to fast travel (although I only have one location marked at this stage).

It's a sassy bit of adventuring to date.

This is definitely a game where you should pay attention to the message at the start telling you that a controller is preferred.

It's a side-scrolling third person platformer, and not much more than 30 minutes in I have climbed, run, jumped and balanced, and mashed keys to avoid failing. Which just lets you try again. Which is a good thing, but you may well fail more than once.

It looks and sounds a treat, a very Disney princess cartoon aesthetic. Puzzling so far has been scrolling and managing my way through the environment.

It's early days, but there seems to be a lot like, especially if platformers are your thing.

I came across this as part of a recent bundle and was rather intrigued by the premise. As the Steam page says "You’re Sophie, a young blind girl who sees through her teddy bear’s eyes. Escape your captors and uncover the evil history of the dark mansion you desperately seek to escape ... "

Sophie seemed surprised to realise she could see with Teddy, but was quick to scoop 'him' up and be on her way. Clutching Teddy to her stomach, its a first person perspective as she navigates the mansion.

Until she needs her hands to do something, at which point she can set Teddy down on a special spot and he/you will watch as Sophie goes about things in a third person perspective.

It's a rather nifty dynamic.

When Teddy is sitting watching Sophie you have limited capacity to turn his head to change what he can see, but so far I have found that where he sits is sufficient to be able to see what Sophie needs to do, even if she occasionally ends up out of Teddy's line of sight. Which is different to if he can't see her because something is in the way (e.g., she might be hiding). Sophie then shows up as a silhouette, which helps with knowing she is completely hidden but can also be an element I just discovered in puzzle solves.

The mansion is like a series of escape rooms - arrive in one, work out what to do to leave, and then access another. Hallways and other elements (e.g., crawl spaces within the walls) add a little exploratory something in between.

To date Sophie has pushed and pulled chairs and boxes in order to climb up and reach other objects (levers, keys etc.,) or to access the way forward, stood on pressure plates to activate various devices, and hidden. Only once has she had to hide so far, but it's clear that several grown-ups are looking for her. I got caught once and it was off to 'the ritual,' whatever that is (I doubt its good). Having been caught I got to try again and made a better fist of hiding next time around. Like a number of aspects, I imagine this one will also ramp up as we progress.

The game will benefit from using a game controller rather than the mouse and keyboard (indeed I seem to recall the game telling me that at the start!). Moving Sophie about with the WASD keys as she pushes and pulls and climbs is a bit tricky, even moreso when she is trying to do something in the limited time available to do it. There has only been one such sequence thus far, but I am only about an hour in and I expect there will be more. I will certainly try the controller the next time I play.

The game looks and sounds good, and in the first person you have a suitably low line of sight given you are a small child. Sophie muses to herself, or perhaps to Teddy. It exclusively saves automatically as you progress.