Very enjoyable game with excellent pacing, gorgeous art and a captivating story.
There's so much to love in this gem for people who enjoy first-person puzzle games. Engaging story, logical puzzles and varied environments make this a cozy and chill experience that will stay with you for a while. The mildly Lovecraftian theme is surprisingly well developed, without leaning much at all into horror. That might be disappointing to fans of other games in the genre, but on the flip side makes it an accessible entry for younger players. The team have put a lot of heart and soul into this game and it shows in every detail. Highly recommend.
The strength of the creative vision endures to this day, and in some ways even puts modern shooters to shame. A coherent and compelling blend of story, action and light customization mean you'll be coming back to this cult classic.
I love games like this, but unfortunately Quern is unplayable for me due to the poor technical execution. I'm trying to play the game on an AMD RX 5700 under Windows, and without VSync the game wastes GPU power like crazy (99% utilization and 80°C). With VSync the frame pacing is a horrible mess and doesn't even hit 60Hz. What's worse is that the movement and orientation seem linked to the framerate, so you'll get massive stutters that induce motion sickness. Trying to force it through the driver does nothing. Trying a soft cap limits the FPS, but utilization remains unreasonably high. I made it about an hour in but decided to abandon it, it's not worth wearing out my GPU no matter how good the atmosphere and the puzzles are.
