Kept giving the game the benefit of the doubt, but it never really redeemed itself. And by no means is this a case of playing a game 15 years later - I've played and am playing many other older games, and can enjoy them now, but this one was hard to. - Slow and tedious movement: there are a lot of "empty" screens, put there as visuals but adding nothing to the puzzles or stories. But you have to walk through them - generally multiple times. Sometimes a screen will be used just to show a walking-up-the-stairs animation. Kate can either walk slowly, or if you double-click, she runs, but then wastes precious seconds doing this slowing-down-looks-like-i've-run-into-a-wall animation. Even the original Myst had the lighting-bolt method of quick travel, something this game really needed. - simplistic, linear puzzles: the puzzles were nothing to rave about. Generallly pretty linear, as there are only a few items to collect at one time. Doesn't leave you feeling immersed like many other puzzle games. - unlikable characters: everyone was one-dimensional, annoying, and pretty horrendous voice-acting. And really - you're going to include a "village idiot" kid in a 2000's era game??? - weird story: not a big fan of steampunk in general, and the rest of the story doesn't much help. The long-and-short is that this was more of an Interactive Fiction kind of piece, rather than a puzzle/adventure game, and a fiction that wasn't very engrossing.
