I knew nothing about this game when I started playing, but a very
short while in the game which came to mind was The Talos Principle.
While it didn’t have that game's philosophical discourse, it involved
the same type of manipulation of objects in the environment in order to
exit through the door and move to the next part of the world. Minus the
shooting/exploding fatalities.
There is somewhat of a sameness (albeit grand) to the game world
environments, and its narrative-light, but the puzzling conundrums are
the thing. Move things, manipulate things, design a way through to the
door to move on. Quite a few areas have additional parts that are
accessible once you complete the main area, which you can choose to do
or not. Ignore them and move on if you wish, or tackle the extra bit and
be rewarded with a scroll of wisdom.
There is a lot of puzzling of that type here. I reckon I spent more
than 20 hours making my way through, and I did most but not all of the
add-ons, so more play time is on the cards.
What the game does well is introduce you gradually to the bits and
pieces you need to manipulate (or overcome) in order to progress. Very
quickly you will discover a “light” and a “dark” world, and a
pedestal of fire. Walking into the fire activates the dark world and
enables you to see and use pathways or bridges that aren't there in the
light world. It also enables you to activate the statues that are a key
part of the manipulation.
When I began, there was a statue that enabled me to swap places with
it. This was immediately useful as your capacity to move around in the
dark world is limited. You can only move a certain distance, so if you
want to cross a bridge that doesn't exist in the light world, you better
hope that is within your dark world range. If not, perhaps you can move
the statue to a location to which, if you then swap places with, means
you can make it across the bridge within the movement range available.
Assuming that the statue is activated. Which you can find out for
yourself.
A few doors later, I was introduced to a portal that opened a gate,
so long as the statue was standing on it. A few more, and a second
musical statue enabled me to repair broken bridges for a limited amount
of time in either world. About the same time, prickly growth prevented
accessing some dark places, but the light world location remained
unencumbered. Further on I could generate and then reflect tunnels of
darkness by manipulating mirrors, which I could then move through
uninhibited by the distance limitations. Arches will transport you
permanently to the dark world until you walk through another one, eyes
will help you stay there too. And so on.
The game environment is a set of hubs and spokes, which help you
manage your movement through the world. Complete the spokes and another
area will be open to you. You can go back, but not always, although
capacity exists at the end to revisit areas and collect any ignored or
unable to be reached scrolls.
I always hesitate to say that you can get stuck, generally assuming
that I haven’t found the way forward, but some googling indicates that
it is possible to do things in one area that prevent you moving on.
Which isn’t a dead-end issue, as in any area you can simply choose to
reset, which will restore you and everything else to when you first
entered the area. Which I did far more often than I actually got stuck,
in order to tidy things up and choose what to do next, unencumbered by
wherever I had moved or pushed things before.
You can’t save at will though, the game saving as you enter an
area, and so there may be times when you spent a length of time in an
area before getting stuck, meaning you can’t go back a short way to an
earlier save but have to start the area again. But it didn’t really
bother me, because I preferred the clean slate to hoping I had saved
before whatever might have been the dead-end move - assuming I could
identify it!
The game is a polygon-ish world that creates as you enter each area,
colourful and inviting at times, more forbidding at others. Many areas
are at dizzying heights, but while you can fall off things into the void
you get restored to just before the “fatal” moment, so there is no
real death. The music changes across the environments, including in the
dark world. All up, it was a very OK realm in which to spend the hours
of play time.
Jumping into water warrants a special mention.
You move with the keyboard and interact with the mouse. Follow the
orbs, don’t meet anyone, but come across a number of tableaus which
might indicate what went on here. I have a view, but to me it didn’t
really matter. As I indicated up front, the puzzling is the excellent
thing.
I played on:
OS: Windows 10, 64 Bit
Processor: Intel i7-9700k 3.7 GHz
