<span class="bold">Candle</span>

Candle is one of the (many) reasons why Kickstarter and crowdfunding platforms are a good thing. Without them, the fine folks at the small Teku Studios would never have been able to finish their debut title, let alone get a partnership with Daedalic to release it. Many people liked their idea and trusted their money to them, and Teku delivered in spades by producing an excellent and solid game.

It's a puzzle platformer (definitely not a point'n'click as some people tag it) adventure, with its main focus set on the puzzles. Its colourful hand-drawn graphics are absolutely gorgeous - seriously, just look at any screenshot. The intro and ending sequences, as well as the cutscenes between chapters, are wonderfully done too: they're also hand-drawn, but more in a paper cut-out fashion that works very well. For some reason the framerate dropped noticeably during those sequences though, even though my PC was perfectly capable of running the rest of the game smoothly.

Both the English and the Spanish voiceovers are top-notch: the English version is narrated by Terry Wilton (of Trine fame), whereas the Spanish narrator is voiced by the guy who usually dubs Morgan Freeman in movies. The rest of the characters speak gibberish, something I'm sure helped to cut costs both in the scripting and the sound departments. But anyway there's no need to understand their exact words, as their meaning is pretty obvious from the context and the comic-like speeach balloons with images that sprout from the characters' mouths. I'd bet all of this 'dialogue' was recorded by the Spanish devs themselves, as many words sounded suspiciously like Spanish slang words (like e.g. ), or even (in)famous real people (like [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aitor_Karanka]karanka).

At first, the story seems as run-of-the-mill as you can get: peaceful village gets attacked and the shaman is kidnapped - young and unexpected hero goes after the kidnappers to try to safe him. But as the game advances, the plot develops into something a little deeper and more interesting (don't expect anything spectacular though). As I said, the meat of this game are the puzzles, which involve regular point'n'click mechanics like interacting with the environment or collecting objects and combining them, but also trying to stealth your way past some enemies, or finding clever ways to get rid of them. The main character Teku has a candle for a hand and, as you could expect from the title, it plays an important role in the game. Namely, you need to light it up in order to access dark places (otherwise Teku will refuse to go there), but sometimes you will want to put it out in order not to attract the attention of an enemy. And then there's this 'light burst' ability which is introduced during the tutorial but never really explained what it's for, so when in doubt use it everywhere! At least in a couple of occasions where I got stuck, the light burst was the key to making progress again.

This leads us to the subject of this game's difficulty. Despite its colourful and cartoony looks it is not an easy game. Many of the puzzles are tough but fair, the kind that makes you feel pretty smart when you figure them out for yourself and slap your forehead when you cannot, specially considering the environments are full of subtle hints. But then there are some instances when in order to solve a puzzle, or to find a certain object, you need to find secret locations that are in no way apparent. You know, those hidden places in which you'd expect to find extra non-essential stuff in other games. This is the only fault I've found in this game, though not a minor one. But hey, it's nothing a good walkthrough can't take care of, so don't hesitate to consult one if nothing else (not even the light burst ability) seems to work anywhere.


My list of finished games in 2017

The Curse of Monkey Island

I haven't laughed so much playing a game in ages. The 3rd game in the Monkey Island series, this one sees Guybrush accidentally turning Elaine into a gold statue with a cursed wedding ring, and now he must set out across the seas to break the curse. This game actually has a difficulty mode, the Mega Monkey mode will do all sorts of nasty things, like making you have to examine a coat then open its pocket to get an item instead of just picking it up, and many people become more aware of you trying to steal their items, so require using deception to trick them. The game plays out in a similar style to the first monkey island: a chapter on 1 island, then out at sea, then another island, then a boss battle. The sword fighting from the first monkey island is back for a brief period, it also includes ship combat. The puzzles can get difficult and I did have to consult a walkthrough on a number of occasions, usually down to not being able to find an item or not realising that children get hangovers.

The dialogue is hilarious, I think it might be funnier than the last two games, but I was laughing almost consistently when I wasn't stuck on a puzzle. The animation style is different but I liked it. Can't really think of any bad points... I didn't know what an auger was, I still don't. Oh yeah there is one bad point, this game isn't available on GOG. I had to get a hard copy and run it through Scumm VM. This game actually might be my favourite of the Monkey Island games, so I highly recommend playing it.

Gemini Rue

Good things about it:
low resolution pixel art – not the kind of 'art' I would call pretty, but that is just my opinion, it is well made I'll give it that.
The music is fairly good.
Voice acting is good.
The twist in the story is good.

Bad things about it:
Very short.
Unsatisfying puzzles both in quality and variety, the game is too easy for its own sake.
Most characters are shallow and/or unlikable.
Clunky cover based shooting in a point and click adventure? Why? I can't think of a single P&C adventure where real time combat wouldn't be the worst part of that game.
The game asks philosophical questions regarding human nature and memories, but explores those questions only perfunctory and thus gives the impression of pseudo-intellectualism.

I liked it, but can't help but think the game would have benefited from deeper exploration of its themes, better thought out puzzles, better combat system and extra length.
7/10

<span class="bold">Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons</span> (played on Wine Staging)

Got it during the recent GOG Spring Sale and suceeded in getting it to run on Linux flawlessly... except for controller support. Which is a shame, but not a game-stopper by any means. I managed to control the titular two brothers throughout the game pretty well with my keyboard.

It didn't take me much to complete it, as it's indeed a short and quite easy game, but I highly enjoyed the experience while it lasted. Yeah, the story doesn't make much sense if you analize it too closely, many sections seem completely disconnected from one another, and I agree that towards the end the plot becomes a little too manipulative (but in the end I was totally OK with it if only for the wonderful epilogue sequence it allows).

On the other hand, I don't have any complaint whatsoever about the artistic direction of this game. I loved its cartoony art style that makes possible the overall fairy tale vibe, but at the same time doesn't prevent it to create some grave and solemn scenes like the giants battle aftermath one. The soundtrack was also spot-on and I liked the characters speaking in a fake unintelligible language, like in Candle. In fact, it's even better here as there's no need for speech balloons since the characters' tone of voice and body language really say it all.

All in all, an excellent game that I'm pretty sure I'll replay someday. Though I'll probably wait for Wine getting native Xinput support. :P


My list of finished games in 2017

Is it that poor? I've been enjoying RIsen from the same people and bought the Gothic trilogy, starting the first with a graphics mod. It seemed decent after a couple of hours.

But maybe I should just play Gothic 2, which it's fans claim to be the best rpg ever, not sure.......

It probably depends what one expects...I expected Gothic to be more of an RPG than it turned out to be. I've read somewhere that its developers pretty much stated it's basically an action adventure with RPG elements...that seems about right. If one likes that type of gameplay (and can deal with the combat system), it's probably quite fun.
I'll probably try out Gothic 2 as well (despite not being that impressed with the first game), supposedly that one has more varied solutions for quests and a bit more non combat-related gameplay.

<span class="bold">Puzzle Agent</span> (played on Wine Staging)

Another item from my Spring Sale haul. As a puzzle enthusiast I always had the Puzzle Agent series of games in my radar, but the lack of Linux support had kept me from picking them up. Ultimately my curiosity got the best of me and I snatched the first episode for a little over 1€. For that price I definitely didn't feel ripped off, but I ended up with mixed feelings about this game.

On the plus side, I liked the quirky vibe this game exudes. There's a distinct Twin Peaks air about it, but I was constantly reminded of Fargo too (probably because of the earflap hat worn by the main protagonist). The story begins in a lighthearted tone but it progressively becomes darker and more interesting as the investigation goes on. The puzzles, which are of course the bread and butter of this game, are for the most part OK. If anything, perhaps a little too easy for my taste, but OK.

Some puzzles, though, are made unnecessarily more difficult by the lack of clarity in their instructions. My OCD-completionist side irked a little when I failed to obtain full marks for a puzzle because its description was deficient at best. But I quickly forgot about it when, to my horror and surprise, I found out the game ends on a huge cliffhanger. What the actual fuck!? In retrospect, I guess I should've seen it coming: after all, it's a Telltale game.

So yeah, after that disappointing ending, and seeing that the sequel doesn't seem to be up to par, I think I'm done with Nelson Tethers and his puzzle adventures.


My list of finished games in 2017

<span class="bold">Icomania</span> (Android)

Another one of those "commute fodder" apps. You are shown a simplified or partially obscured brand logo, celebrity likeness, movie poster, whatever, and you have to guess it by using (some of) the letters at the bottom of the screen. And that's it, as simple as that. Of course there's a built-in help system with a certain amount of available hints, that you can increase by coughing up some money, but for the most part there's not much need for it. I only had a hard time with some German-specific brands I had never heard of before. Yep, the devs are from Germany and they're probably in their late thirties or early forties too, judging by the amount of 80s and early 90s references in this game (I guess younger millennials are gonna find it more difficult than I did).

Recommended if you've run out of time wasters for your mobile device and are looking for some mildly challenging entertainment.


My list of finished games in 2017

Just the usual notice here: Gothic 2 with NotR installed is hard! And you really need to plan your character ahead, considering the boosts you can obtain without spending learning points.
Originally started (without NotR) in 2005, if not even 2004, computer issues made me give up in 2006 for a while, then when I got back to it it was with NotR and... didn't get far. Eventually picked back up in 2010, advanced somewhat, gave up again, then see last saves from 2012 but may have just been a case of wandering around for a while, not sure (not installed again on this computer to actually compare).
Really liked the atmosphere (for the first one too to a fair extent), but... yeah.
And they did fix a fair amount of things in Risen. Rather lost their way halfway through though.

Yes, I've heard NotR makes Gothic 2 very hard...too bad Gog doesn't offer the option anymore to just install vanilla Gothic 2. I'll have to see if I can deal with that or if I'll have to use some mod...pretty annoying, wish Gog would deal with this.

Both PA and Fargo are set in MN, so the snow/exaggerated accents/setting and a few locale-specific jokes (jokes about hot dish in PA, picking on Brainerd in Fargo) create some parallels.

I'm not very experienced RPG player, before Risen my experience was only Oblivion and Skyrim on the PS3. And I think Risen (which is the successor of the Gothic series) to be very similar imo. I found the interraction with the NPC and exploring the world enjoyable. It is fights are very hard until you level up though. After a long time leveling up my skills I ran out of EXP and ended up resorting to using cheat codes to level up, which can be easily found. I actually think some RPGs which you might give up can be made more tollerable by cheating a bit. Does that sound bad?

Gothic 2 is supposed to be the biggest of Piranha Bites games but I do recomend Risen. Anyway I've found Risen to be very combat orientated but I didn't go the mage root. On that basis I'm guessing the other Gothic games are going to have loads of combat so something to consider if that isn't your thing

Fans are not a very reliable source for determining "the best ... ever". ;)


Risen felt pretty much like a remake of Gothic to me, so if you enjoyed Risen and you can put up with the clunky controls and lower graphics, chances are you will like Gothic, too.* Unless you're looking for something different instead of more of the same. ;)

(* And morolf would probably not like Risen either.)

guys idk what you found so bad about gothic and risen. me ok, i finish gothic 1 and 2 countless times with and without night of the raven for 2. i also finish risen 1 as a bandit working for the don, and i want to replay it as a warrior of the order and try fighting with a staff which i think is more difficulty. also in my first play of r1 i never paid prostitutes for sex - i think i want to change that if i play it agen! (^_^)