Game Notes: Five Free Games

Another one of those adventure games that starts in a sane, even slightly boring setting, then gets crazier for each transition, eventually turning everything into pure surrealism.

There was a dynamic screen noise effect on.

The first puzzle about guessing a four digit code involved reading number words in a book. I knew then that the puzzles would not be easy. I did manage to solve all puzzles for the first ending on my own, except the one about five statements. That one made no sense to me.

The first safe puzzle required me to study books and write down clues in order to figure out the correct sequence. I actually thought it was a nice puzzle, when I finally figured it out.

I also liked how the listening puzzle with the five telephones had to be pieced together.

I didn’t have a password to type in for the left door in the end, which I presume offered more puzzles and different endings. The first ending was fine with me – I had seen what the game was about.

Excellent production, with great voice acting (and a lot of it) and detailed graphics.

I guess the only reason it was free was that only took me one hour to get through it – and that even included having to figure out the five-digit code for the suitcase. I was stuck because I didn’t notice that I also had to click a button to open it. The password for the laptop was easy to find, however.

The game reminded me a lot of Gone Home.

Most of the game was about interacting with objects for a description to be spoken out aloud. All these objects added more stuff to a journal that pieced together a story. Interacting was a little weird – instead of just a mouse click, I had to hold the mouse button down for a second or two.

The story was about how Marie accidentally shot the bully Trevor in the end, after he broke into her room. This end part was shown with dotted human shapes, while the protagonist told what happened.

A very black stylish atmosphere to begin with. The center hall was a big and stuffed, yet I had to run to get around as things were still considerably spaced out. It sounds strange when I put it like that.

A lot of excellent art to be found. I often stood still and gazed at it with an approving smile.

Some NPC’s had free-floating dialog lines that could be browsed fast. Most of it wasn’t all that interesting, at least until the unexpected ending where Marcus tried to prevent me from leaving with a train.

Nice idea having to choose a molecule representing a human with a cause of death. But unexpected that the end gave me the same choice with another human, and then the game just ended. I would have liked to see more destinies – especially the woman that was going to fall to her death.

The male human was out of food in the fridge and had to eat shrimps from his aquarium.

There was a monotone humming sound, probably representing the televisions with static on them in the end of the hallway. Speaking of that location, what was the point of picking up the house keys?

Finding the prisoner in a cage was quite a surprise. I was glad I didn’t have to do nasty stuff to him. I guess the developer wisely decided not to go there.

Let’s get one thing straight, right away – I thought this game was too hard in places. Especially some of the boss fights should have been tuned down, perhaps adding some kind of help.

That being said, I still decided to give the game 9 out of 10. It looked fantastic, the music was exquisite, and the world was fascinating. Sometimes it reminded me a radically upgraded version of Fez. Especially the lighting effects were really beautiful. It was hard to believe this was actually a free game.

I played it with a gamepad.

Radios could be found and turned on for audible message. They were nice and added to the atmosphere, but somehow also felt like they belonged in an apocalyptic FPS rather than this cute platform game.

Apart from standard jumping, I got three powers at various points. The first one was double jumping, the second rolling really fast, and the third was flying for a limited distance.

The fast rolling gave way to a “runner” sequence too.

Towards the end, the flying ability put me through tough traversing with some drops to my death – but it was nothing compared to the annoying boss fights.

I had to fight Patches (a small bear) three times. Especially the second boss fight, after which I earned the ability to fly, was really difficult. I may have died almost 20 times there. Maybe more.

To make matters worse, I had to endure a cutscene before most boss fights. Sure, I could hold down a button to fast forward it, but I’d rather they just god rid of it after I died the first time.

There was a bug after gaining the limited flying ability. Instead of showing the gamepad overlay with a button indication, it showed me the keyboard overlay instead. I had to experiment with my gamepad to learn which button made me fly, and it could only be activated after jumping at least once.

I found vinyl #5 by accident. Bet a lot of the secrets are not easy to find.