To make a VERY long story short, this game is powered by UNITY (as you will read when it starts up), and the internet is littered with with posts about UNITY pc games somehow rejected by the Windows Defender Reputation filter (WDRF). On my desktop, the game ran fine once, I played for about on hour, then saved. After that the game would never again get past the intro screen. On my laptop, the game runs fine, even after saving and reloading. Alas, the video is too glitchy to even consider playing. The difference? Somehow, the WDRF was defaulted "Off" on my laptop during Windows installation, but defaulted "On" on my desktop. Turning it "off" did not solve the problem post rejection. Nor did countless reloads, repairs etc. I emphasize that I am not the only person who has experienced this problem with UNITY pc games, nor is the problem specific to TEOTS. As of this writing, UNITY has not provided a solution. Purchase at your own risk.
The creators of Beyond Shadowgate (BSG) have done a wonderful job re-creating the essence of the old P&C adventure games. Unfortunately, the essence wasn’t all that good. So BSG is littered with mind-numbing fetch quests and unrealistic relationships (e.g., Since when does moving a chess piece or candle holder open an option on the other side of the room? They didn’t have RF communication in days of yore.). And be sure to pay attention to every detail in every room, document and discussion. For if you miss a crucial detail, you will be walking around for a long time, re-reading every document, revisiting every conversation, and clicking on every blade of grass or drawer. That’s another common problem with old adventure game design - - pinch points. I have played PC games for nearly 40 years, and I truly enjoyed the early adventure games. But those games were all we had. Today we have a cornucopia of choices with much better music, artwork, puzzles and overall design. I have played adventure games that I didn’t want to end. But I have also played games where I grinded joylessly to “get my money’s worth”. BSG fit the latter description.
CAVEAT: Review written after playing roughly 10% of the game (see below). The game is a seemingly endless series of slider puzzles. I thought that I could grind it out by playing just a few puzzles at a sitting, but I couldn't last that long. Indeed, the artwork in Lynn is beautiful. In the typical adventure game the artwork is part of the puzzles, and you can admire the beautifully crafted artwork as you play. Unfortunately, in Lynn the artwork is just a brief interlude between the slider puzzles, where you will spend the vast majority of your time. In most adventure games you solve a puzzle and move on to a different location or to a puzzle of a different type. In Lynn, the "reward" for solving a slider puzzle is ... another slider puzzle. You might counter by suggesting that the modest price justifies the opportunity to play a large number of different slider puzzles. And in its defense, Lynn has slider puzzles of enormous complexity. IMHO, there are plenty of free spatial puzzles, including slider puzzles, if you need to scratch that itch.
If you are like me and enjoy games that provide a cognitive challenge, then this game offers great value. I have played the game twice, both times as a "scholar" with standard difficulty and a 40-day tour of duty. My first play matched the most negative reviews that I have read. My character was too poor, too tired and too hungry to do much, and too dirty and smelly to convince anyone to trust me and give me work to improve my condition. I wandered around and didn't get much done. But I stuck it out for 40 days and learned a few things. On my second play I husbanded my resources better in the early game and discovered a world (OK, a peninsula) of enormous complexity, with physically separate villages whose inhabitants differed in resources, skills, traditions and political/religious beliefs. And some of the enclaves don't get along very well with their neighbors. These villages exist adjacent to a wilderness where various beasts rule. The challenge is to connect these diverse villages, respect the right of the beasts to exist, and leave the villagers in better shape at the end of your tour. Trust me: you will be challenged. The game is not perfect. In particular, the fill-in-the-blank questions suffer from the classic adventure game problem, trying to outguess the creators of the game. And you won't. But a few strokes on the internet solves that occasional problem, and leaves you to enjoy the rest. BTW, I did NOT achieve perfection on my 2nd play. But there is significant replay value. You can replay with different skills (mage or fighter) that will force you to solve certain problems differently. And you can increase or decrease the number of days of your tour. So there is a lot left for me to discover. You may enjoy playing this game late at night in a dark room. Let the game draw you into its fantasy world.
Two stars for the good, namely: 1. A heroic effort to try something novel 2. Excellent acting and production However, the game experience is ruined by several issues: 1. The storage of video clips is controlled by several icons, the meanings of which are not intuitively obvious and not explained. A small issue, but irritating. 2. You assemble a story by identifying and clicking on important people/objects in a video clip, and this action takes you to a different clip with the same person or similar object. Alas, the relationships between the clips and objects is often not logical or helpful. By necessity, I must provide examples and thus, spoilers. ***Spoilers*** Example 1: You receive a vial of green liquid to give to a character to make them appear to die but recover in 48 hrs. You click on the green vial and go to a video totally unrelated to the vial or character. Example 2: A protagonist holds up a book and tells a character to read backwards the 4th line of the 7th page. You click on the book and it takes you to a book that is totally unrelated. Thus, often you cannot follow the clues in a logical order. 3. Crucial clues are obtained only by playing certain parts of certain clips backwards. This is not something that I would have done if not for reading reviews with this spoiler. Maybe the clip I mentioned above is the "hint" to do this. I don't know. After all, this isn't a Beatles album. So you hunt and peck and play clips backwards until you suddenly and unexpectedly come to the end, which reminded me of the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Three recent mystery games with novel approaches come to mind that provided me a far better experience: Return of the Obra Dinn, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments, and The Case of the Golden Idol.
OK, it's not Alex; it's Vincent. But if Alice in Wonderland was made into a game, this would be it. Caveats: I don't like star ratings, but I gave this a top rating to balance the person who wrote a negative review with little basis. Also, be warned that there is some saucy language which may bother some people. Not me. For fans of P-C adventure games, this is a wonderful entry, and highly recommended. The game is fun to play, and the puzzles are mostly logical and as creative as the bizarre characters. Vincent is the perfect "straight man" to balance the strange goings-on in Whateverland. As we have come to expect from Indie adventure games, this entry is not without its shortcomings. One of the puzzles (Cuckoo clock) will be nearly impossible to solve without "guidance". And the instructions for the Bell&Bones mini-game are woefully brief. But these puzzles can be bypassed because there are different routes you can take. Which brings us to the point of replay value, which is good. I can't wait to return to play the picture game in the Sisters home that is similar to Gorogoa. In short, this is a really fun game with interesting and challenging puzzles. What more can you ask?
Are endless mazes your favorite part of adventure games? Then this is surely the game for you. But not for me. My experience was endlessly repeating the following few options: walk, jump, shrink/grow, move the world. Somewhat like a very slow platformer without the platforms. And the world would make Picasso proud. So I wound up wandering in a bizarre world for reasons not made clear. The game is described as "an artist coming to terms with his grief". This review is part of my healing.
This is a quiet little game best played at night to take your mind off the events of the world and prepare you for a good night's sleep. The pace is slow and the "puzzles" (mostly finding and identifying mythical plants with mythical properties) are mundane and repetitive. The background notes (not really music) are deep and dark, like a nocturne. While there are a few human characters and a villainous monster to address, they don't create a whole lot of additional interest or excitement. On the plus side, the images of the plants are pretty.
