8/10Developer: Cosmonaut Studios | Released: 2022 | Genre: Adventure, First Person

In this first person adventure game, I was an observing rubber suit guy manipulating time in a house with two floors, trying to save the lives of six young adults after a fire in a fuse box.

Using a tool held in my right hand, I could start an event somewhere in the house. It typically lasted a few minutes and showed some of the young adults talking together as ghostly figures that I could walk around. A bit like in Tacoma, but with much clearer character models – and I couldn’t fast forward an event.

The events themselves had a separate overview screen that scrolled far to the right. It was overwhelming at first, with hundreds of dots available on a timeline. Some dots could be selected immediately, and after watching it was no longer a question mark. Most events were solely observing some dialog, but sometimes I was given a opportunity to alter time by making a person change their mind and react differently.

This had a butterfly effect and could change what events were available after that point.

7/10Developer: Clifftop Games | Released: 2019 | Genre: Adventure, Point & Click

A solid retro adventure game much in the same vein as Technobabylon and Primordia. I was in a control of a female cop trying to solve a few murders in a small city located on a raised disc.

The developers called it a sci-fi nordic noir.

As the blonde protagonist, Vera Englund – still moaning the loss of her boyfriend – the game immediately started with her arriving at the first murder scene. There were just two screens to navigate here until I had reached a milestone. Then most of the city was available to me.

Apart from the classic point-and-click features with an inventory that can combine objects, there was a triangle for steering towards one of three paths depending on what dialog options where chosen along the way. Since I only played the game once, it didn’t feel like this affected the gameplay all that much.

My guess is it probably did affect what augmentations I was given.

Augmentations? Sure. This was a pretty cool feature and most unexpected to find in this type of game. It felt like it was inspired by Deus Ex. I had a few to begin with, and more were added during the game.

8/10Developer: Rundisc | Released: 2023 | Genre: Adventure, Point & Click

This game received an overwhelmingly positive user rating on Steam. Although I agree it was very well done, with a amazing drawn style that reminded me of both Sable and the graphical novel art by Moebius, and an intriguing climb of the tower of babel while deciphering glyphs to understand the languages of the people living there, it did have a few things that dragged it down ever so slightly for me.

As a true point-and-click adventure with a minimal inventory, I had to walk around and collect more glyphs from people and objects. After watching some of them used in situations that could give a hint about what they mean, a notebook is opened with about 3-6 glyphs and a few drawings. Time to guess what that set means. The more glyphs guessed, the easier it is to understand what you need to do on that level.

There are about five levels to climb in the enormous tower, and each level have several interconnected locations like in oldskool adventure games. It’s not just clicking objects to pick up and use, sometimes there are genuine stealth sequences too. Typically a ghostly destination figure is shown that, when clicked, makes your characters sneak over there – hopefully without being spotted.

8/10Developer: Starward Industries | Released: 2023 | Genre: Adventure, Facile

Take the excellent Firewatch, throw it in a blender together with Lifeless Moon, maintain the first person perspective, hit the blender button – and you’ll end up with something much like The Invincible.

The game is based on a science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem.

As Yasna, a female astronaut originally party of a small team landing on a barren planet, you wake up in the sand much like Matt Damon did in The Martian – albeit with amnesia. Thankfully the amnesia part is not a significant part of the game. Soon she remembers most of what she needs to remember, except for the main purpose of the game – where to find the other astronaut team members.

It doesn’t take long until she has another person on the radio that she talks to throughout most of the game. Commander Novik is in orbit and can only hear what she is doing – she has to describe the things she finds. Often this evolves into interesting discussions, and sometimes they even get mad at each other. If you have played Firewatch, this is the part that reminded me so much of that game.