At its best, Draugen is atmospheric and beautiful. It never feels empty and the world does feel lived in, really as if you were walking through a real town. Honestly I could spend hours just escaping to this tiny Norwegian town. The voice acting is convincing and your companion, Lisse, is particularly well played. Sometimes I would laugh out loud at her comments and increasingly it felt like interacting with a real person. Without wishing to spoil things, the main story is a bit obvious. The first major twist I saw coming within a minute of starting the game and the second I kinda guessed well before it was sprung. There is a story, and it can be quite gripping when paired with the beautiful, empty locale, but it won't stun you with twists and turns. Or take you that long, for that matter. Took me less than three hours. I'm looking forward to the sequel; I'd want some more exploration/investigation. I'd recommend this, but definitely don't expect it to take you more than an evening. Maybe I'll play it again, just to wander through an atmospheric little village.
I'd never really played a point-and-click game for a long while, possibly ever. During the GOG summer sale, I decided to take a punt. I was taken in by the charm of the game. Certainly in the early stages, I liked the premise and found the puzzles challenging and the story easy to follow. Most of the game is like this; interesting and engaging for a game that came out close to two decades ago. Certainly the earlier stages were always fun to play through and kept me guessing. Later levels, however, can be a bit obtuse and certainly the final stage I might as well have just read a walkthrough instead. Most of it was classic adventure game problems but sometimes you were left in a level with no idea what you actually had to do. I also felt the story ran out of steam later on and the entire third act went off the deep-end. There were also gaping plot holes and twists that are never explored. The romance sub-plot felt incredibly rushed and I reallllllllllllly wasn't drawn in at all by the 'meeting and fall-madly-in-love-within-30-seconds' nature of it all. As a final point, the voice acting is hilariously bad and inconsistent (even the Irish characters have American accents). Overall however, this is absolutely worth the money. It took me a few hours, was suspenseful for the most part and enjoyable in spite of its flaws.
