This is a series about the shorter PC games I’ve completed or abandoned recently.
Phoenix Springs
Developer: Calligram Studio | Released: 2024 | Genre: Adventure, Point & Click
This neo-noir adventure game was so drenched in style and atmosphere, it was almost bleeding out of my screen and loudspeakers. Grainy effects, exaggerated blackness, strong green and yellow colors, eerie ambient sounds, and a protagonist with a strangely raspy voice. There was a lot to like here.
The point-and-click gameplay was also tweaked. There was no inventory at all. Instead, topics were added to a white box as I found leads, and these topics could then be combined with objects or as dialog options. Questions and answers when talking to people were always described by the protagonist in third person. Together with her unique voice acting, it worked quite well.
Since leads could add up in the white box, giving more options, it was easy to get into a pinch getting too busy trying everything with everything. Yes, trial-and-error. Most of the time I knew what to look for when things evolved, but there were a few times when I got into that loop. Especially in the house of her brother with the books, notes, a terminal, and a taxing door panel to a panic room.
To be fair, the game was also good at erasing leads in the white box as their purpose was used up. Also, the first locations in the game were quite small, typically less than half a dozen screens. Later, as I arrived in an oasis, this blew up with a staggering amount of screens. Lots of walking around there.
Unfortunately, most people in the game were rarely inspiring conversational partners. Too many talked utter nonsense, in riddles, some where distant, and many refused to answer further questions. Of course, many were addicts and it added to the surrealistic style of the game, but I still think it was overdone.
But thankfully the terrific style of the game, the voice acting, the topic system, and the easily accessible user interface more than made up for the deterrents. I definitely don’t regret buying this one.
Nobody Wants to Die
Developer: Critical Hit Games | Released: 2024 | Genre: Adventure, First Person
When I saw the marketing videos for this game, I imagined there would be a lot more action gameplay in it. Maybe even some shooting. But there were almost none of that.
Most of the game was crime scene investigation using science fiction devices.
It was a retrofuturistic film noir detective game taking place in 2329. Any consciousness could be stored in memory banks or transferred from one body to another, allowing for people to be hundreds of years old across multiple bodies. Lots of flying cars, holograms and talking computers, although the cars looked like they were retrofitted from the 50’s, and the environment was dirty and gritty.
I almost expected Tex Murphy to pop up sooner or later.
As the detective James Karra, I visited various crime scenes (sometimes while everything was still burning) then tried to figure out how one or more persons at the scene died. The reluctant assistant on my radio piece, Sara, sometimes just wanted me to get the hell out of there, but usually came with suggestions and comments to the things I found nearby.
I had all sorts of science fiction devices to help put the story of a crime scene together. I could reconstruct a fragment of a time span in a mini game alternating left, right or both mouse buttons. Then I could rewind or fast forward to a yellow time slot on a wrist band. The dead body got up and started moving backwards or forwards. Sometimes this spawned an energy sphere around the person when I reached the yellow slot. If I walked inside of this sphere, I could often find a clue somewhere.
I also had an X-ray magnifier, typically for following wires to devices inside walls or floors, and an UV lamp for following blood trails or footprints.
James sometimes had anxiety attacks and had to take pills. He also drank a lot. After solving most of the first crime scene, James came home to his apartment, which looked like what you would expect in a film noir setting. The carpet was swept aside and the floor used to fit the clues together in a hexagonal grid. Sara was vital here, as she was the one I had to convince about piecing the clues together.
The game was incredibly detailed and the film noir atmosphere was spot on. I was especially impressed with the abundant animations of my hands. The music, although excellent, was too loud and I had to slide it down. There were often dialog choices, sometimes with a timer, and it was not always easy to predict the outcome of choosing one. Sara or his boss easily got pissed and the voice acting was well done.
I didn’t care much for the story. It got convoluted and I lost track. Didn’t click with me. Eventually I just used trial-and-error in the hexagonal clue sections until I got it right. The murderer had an annoying voice that made me want to slap him, and the ending was excruciating. Not regarding gameplay – it was merely a few QTE, quick-clicking the left mouse button. But the pain James had to go through was hard to watch.
Aporia: Beyond The Valley
Developer: Invisible Walls | Released: 2017 | Genre: Adventure, First Person
Although a modern first person adventure made in CryEngine, it reminded me so much of old Myst-style adventure games. You know, back when you went from node to node, then looking around like in a sphere. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Danish developers drew some of their inspiration from those games.
I had a universal light rod that could be used to put into sockets for activating a power line. It could also grow healing plants, or vines for climbing up. And it could be used as a lamp. It could also be used up and then had to be replenished – mostly by finding golden potions.
The world was soon quite big and I could go everywhere I wanted, except for opening a few area doors by matching a symbol. There were a lot of optional puzzles for collecting glass shards. I solved most of them and many were indeed quite nice without being too challenging, but also not a walk in the park. I didn’t get all the glass shards before I decided to move on.
I stopped being adamant about collection quests years ago.
There was a map (assembled in two parts) to help find the areas, but it was almost useless because of not indicating where I was at any time. This was another game that was begging for that extra feature. I soon forgot about the map and just found my own way around.
Sometimes there was a rod socket on a pedestal that activated a short “movie” on a few hanging tapestries, telling a story with moving cardboard figures. I also sailed in a boat a couple of times and even had to lower my head to not be bumped into the water. Taking a note from the Amnesia games, a few rare areas also had a black ghost wandering around that I had to avoid, but it was quite slow.
Return to Grace
Developer: Creative Bytes Studios | Released: 2023 | Genre: Adventure, First Person
A relaxing first person adventure game traversing a colorful and retrofuturistic space station on the moon Ganymede. It didn’t even last 3 hours but was enjoyable all the way through. Puzzles, like tapping pattern buttons for door locks or walking across beams, were quite easy. It was almost a walking simulator.
The party trick of this game was the myriad of AI voices that popped up in my wrist screen device as I was exploring. These were leftover AI from the once executive AI, Grace. Some of the AI were born during the game by combining, after which the new AI got a name. Mom, Jack, etc. Almost all were female, benign and charming, except the one called Control, a deep voice male AI with a specific goal in mind. It was all very entertaining, even if the interchanging AI voices did babble a little bit too much throughout the game.
But actually, it was so nice with mostly benign AI for once. They were really helpful and cute.
Traversing the space station, riding elevators, using a welder to melt ice, typing door codes and exploring habitat apartments, was mostly linear, but there were a few exceptions where I could go about a task in an easy or a hard way. Also, voice canisters had to be hacked into for listening to them, and this was done by moving a dot on the oval wrist screen until the beeping was right.
Somehow, they rounded retrofuturistic design and the choice of colors reminded me of The Journeyman Project series, three memorable adventure games from 1994-98 that I completed in 2002.
The Station
Developer: The Station Game | Released: 2018 | Genre: Adventure, First Person
This game was much better than I had anticipated.
I underestimated it when judging the Steam screenshots and expected it to be a simple walking simulator, something like perhaps Verde Station. But it actually had a good story with voice acted recordings, a mix of easy and challenging puzzles, and as a final touch the style of the level design was exemplary.
An alien civilization on another planet had been detected, and apparently they were in a war with each other. A sizable space station was created around it for spying by the three astronauts on board. Soon after contact was lost and I was sent there to investigate. So yes, this was indeed another one of those alone-on-a-space-station-what-happened-to-everyone, but this one was really well put together.
I had to find ID bracelets for getting access to new sections or floors, or solve puzzles for fixing things like a maintenance robot or the space engine. Some of these involved finding the right symbols nearby. Lockers could also be opened by figuring out how to draw nine dots in a specific pattern. However, these were optional and for that reason figuring them out was also a bit harder.
Opening the personal apartments of the three missing astronauts was a major part of the game, and they all had a great design, told a story about each astronaut, and had an messaging computer for checking out e.g. e-mails. Sometimes a floating orb could be clicked for a short audio message by one or more of the astronauts, or letters could be found with a personal note on it. All the usual stuff.
But as mentioned before, it was really well put together – and the end was a nice twist too.
See also: Short Sessions, Part 19