I first found out about this game through the discussion forum here. It is by an independent developer named Knut Muller. The game was easy to order and arrived quickly. His customer service is excellent.
You arrive in Rhem and receive instructions to search for 4 pieces of a letter. And so it starts.
This world is not pretty, it has a feeling of an abandoned outpost. There is no greenery or wildlife, just rocks and water. There are many buildings and towers, bridges and catwalks, ladders and stairs. Much of the fun of this game was the wandering about, mapping and drawing locations. There is not much inventory to speak of, most of puzzles are mechanical and spacial to a degree. There are clues to be found that facilitate your navigation, but much of the information comes from pushing buttons and pulling levers and seeing what happens. There is so much to do and see, I rarely got that sense of frustration that comes at dead end. Just as I thought I was stuck, a door would open and a whole other area was available for exploration.
The puzzles were reasonable, and I was able to do enough of them on my own to achieve a gratifying feeling of accomplishment. This was a game I would have liked to have hints for, rather than a walkthrough. Much of the game is spent going back and forth through the different areas, but I found they rapidly became as familiar as old neighborhoods and finding my way wasn't difficult.
Herein lies my only complaint. As the game is waning, you need to go back and forth more often
necessitating disk changes at each boundary. This really interrupted the flow of the game.
You might say that this is a Riven clone, without the beauty. The stark environment was still intriguing enough for me, and I got alot of satisfaction from exploration and discovery.
Hopefully there will be more to come from
Mr. Muller.
acebook
witter
