JAAHG: The Crows Cry
I figured I would check this out and give it the benefit of the doubt since it only had one review and it was negative. I played about 25 minutes and it just wasn’t that great. Sure if it was a free game I would sure check it out it can’t hurt to try it out but for $5 I would say save your money. The premise is standard so you have to find 5 boxes of evidence to see if you are in the location of the missing children. Great, but there isn’t any dialog or papers or anything that explains and expands on a story. It’s just 5 brown boxes that say ‘CLUE?’. Sure that’s fine but is the monster scary? Nope. It’s a scarecrow that will randomly appear and you have to just walk around it.
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mystery Indie Games.
The Gardens Between
Imagine playing with a very beautifully illustrated and intricate pop-up book. That is about as good a description I can give you for what The Gardens Between is. You can close and open the page to make things move backwards and forwards. But seeing as this is a digital pop-up book we can add some other mechanics too such as using lanterns to clear fog which would have otherwise been blocking your way. We can spin a dial to mess with the chronological order of other things independent of us….and just in general we can manipulate time to solve puzzles and uncover a fully relaxing and heartwarming story of two friends who love each other.
– Real player with 7.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mystery Time Manipulation Games.
The first time I loaded The Gardens Between and saw the title screen, I knew I was in for something special. I was reminded immediately of the initial screen for “Braid” a game that I constantly referred back to for The Gardens Between. And like “Braid”, The Gardens Between is a beautiful puzzle game that often uses time as a mechanic and rewards patience, interest and pondering of the tales we tell ourselves of our rose-tinted youth.
The Gardens Between is a universal story then, all told without a script, dialogue or any written words whatsoever. As you journey with our young friends, Arina and Frendt, you get a sense of their personality and their enduring friendship and moments together, through objects that make up the levels and the snippets of moments they share when each is completed.
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
Fey: Distant Daydream
“Please, come and tell me it’s good enough!"
These are the words written in the peculiar letter calling you, a solitary appraiser, to an abandoned estate far outside the nearest town.
When you make your way there, you suddenly awaken within the mansion, locked in a dusty bedroom. In some ways the place seems ordinary and yet you sense a distinct fragrance of something magical all around you.
Exploring the house, reading its books and appraising knickknacks will let you grow closer with the characters you will meet or hear of. Then, as you take a trip down memory lane and unbox stowed-away memories, you’ll slowly encroach on the answer to the original question.
Just what are you really supposed to be appraising here?
Fey: Distant Daydream is a mystery game centred around exploring a hand-crafted retro 3D environment. Solve puzzles through careful observation and use of objects in the environment as well as Effects, magical items that you carry throughout the game with a plethora of different effects.
Some puzzles will require you to combine information from the environment in escape-room inspired sequences. Others will have you read cookbooks to bring back a taste only faintly remembered, some will have you search through books for clues and yet others will require you to carefully consider the objects at your disposal.
Progress through the mansion and find out the truth of why you were asked to come to this place. Find and use unique effects such as a pocket watch that will let you glimpse into the past of a location. If you want to take it slowly, feel free to read one of the books or snap a photo with your eternal companion - an old camera.
Will you find what was lost within the depths of time and recover it? Or will you perhaps find true meaning in what is here?
Features
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3-5 hours of gameplay made with pure love
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Hand-crafted late 90s style retro 3D graphics
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A slowly unfolding tale of the past and a world wherein memories can be more than mere remembrances
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Around 10 different Effects to use across the game
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Elaborate puzzles to solve over the course of the game, all unique from another
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A sense of humor
Read More: Best Mystery Singleplayer Games.
realMyst: Masterpiece Edition
realMyst is a very simple yet sometimes complex puzzle game that was made back when home computers were just starting to find their way into households. In other words, don’t expect there to be a huge amount amount of gameplay here. If you buckle down, you can beat this game in one sitting. That’s not to say that there’s no challenge to it as there certainly can be at times.
For the most part, you’re playing to find out about the unfolding story. This game used to be a point and click adventure. It seems to have upgraded to being a free roam First-Person which can ultimately betray any new comers to the game leading you to believe there’s more to the puzzle than what there really is. You can now roam in unchecked corners and behind bookshelves which you could never do in the first place so if you’re stumped on a puzzle, it’s best not to start checking every nook and cranny. To be safe, they’ve added a feature so that you can use the point and click system which at times can be pretty difficult to use since there’s multiple things to click on so you have to be pretty precise about what you want to inspect.
– Real player with 17.4 hrs in game
“I know my apprehensions might never be allayed, and so I close, realizing that perhaps the ending has not yet been written.” - Atrus
And thank the great Guildmasters of The Art because this series went on to produce many other excellent games, Riven being the height of exceptionalism.
In a time before the internet I played this game and I remember being so frustrated at points. Rather than Google, we had friends who would hang out together and connect their brain processing power to try and find solutions to the puzzles. There really was nothing like this in the history of computers. This hypercard, photoreal, puzzle game with live action cutscenes and fully immersive worlds. It was jawdropping back then. If you are new to the game it may lack the punch it had from 30 years ago but it is still an incredible game today and while I understand the graphics weren’t up to a lot of people’s expectations in this remastered edition, I found the game to be very much at home as a first person free roamer on the Unity Engine. If you are a puzzle lover you will soon understand why the game is referenced so much and you will see how modern puzzle games have adapted the levels, environments, puzzles etc for use today in games like The Witness, Quern, The Room and ASA.
– Real player with 14.7 hrs in game
![[Neolithic]To the End](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1519140/header.jpg)
[Neolithic]To the End
TL:DR
This may be the weirdest fever dream you’ve ever had.
Life is full of absurdity
Some Features:
Everything in a classical RPG plus…
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Bizarre adventures.
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First-person gunfight during battle.
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Convert supernatural (or not so supernatural) enemies to be your pets.
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Deployable traps, barricades, and furniture to decorate your home.
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Your very own home with a map editor. ALL MAPS in the game can be edited during the gameplay. Support import/export map to RMXP.
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Magical items and anomalies with their own mechanisms.
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Crafting items from 3D printers.
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Plant and harvest food and…something else.
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Endless procedurally generated quests from mission boards.
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A powerful cheat console that can run Ruby script.
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Minigames! The awesome part of an open-world RPG is, you can get all those minigames for free!
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Frequent updates. Who knows what you can find in the future.
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DRM-Free!
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Highly customizable playing experience.
Risks: (I will be totally honest with you. Thus, I put it here)
1, The game is made with a very old game engine. (For memories' sake)
2, There is only one developer.
3, I am terrible at 2D art.
4, I am not a native speaker of English.
Thus, I provide an honest demo for you. The demo version will update all the way till the game release.
It reflects the current stage of game development in almost real-time.
As the game is one of the first and last RMXP games that’s ever being developed, I’m not exactly aiming to make it something great. (or even sane.)
Instead, it needs to be unique and fun in a way that people can rarely see nowadays, to make people laugh maniacally even in a grimdark world where both the in-game world and the life circle of RMXP are coming to an end.
Story
Welcome to our secret society of [redacted]. We are among the most ancient ones in our line of work.
For a long time, we have witnessed the rise and fall of many others.
The situation is grim, the world almost ended in 2008, 2012, 2015, and 2020.
Some people predict it will keep ending this year, next year, and the year after.
But, well, even if that’s true, even if the ending is inevitable, it is tragic, we are still alive.
So, cheer up! We shall carry on.
As long as we stand, the world shall never fall!
To the end…
Features:
Unbalanced and Unfair
Beneath the facet of the beautiful life people called “normal”, lurks the truth that this secret struggle is never fair.
There are things that can hardly be killed. They may come in great numbers to overwhelm us.
Even when not facing such a supernatural entity, a well-trained Kung-Fu master can still be killed by just a bullet.
But, We Fight on With All We Have!
We have guns and our own magics. We even learned to bind supernatural entities to our wills.
We have tools and artifacts, we have skills ranging from combat to conversation.
If there is a lock that can hardly be picked, try blowing it.
There are always solutions.
You Are Different.
Your arrival was not expected. You were not on any lists. We know little about you.
Show us, who you are and who you will become with all the perks/skills/proficiency you may develop.
We may still stand a chance against all odds with your help.
Lead us…
In This Vast World
Your loyal companions will follow you from ancient ruins to modern metropolis, from east to west.
You will meet common folks we swear to protect, watching them live their “normal” life.
You will discover mysteries, solve them when combat evil forces lurking in the dark.
The Secret History
The story behind this game:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1519140/view/2986431641632413538
It’s the first Neolithic game with English localization that comes to Steam since 2004 when the first game of Neolithic was published in a dark corner of China.
_Comparing to a commercial game, this is more like a memento to the old golden age of RPG Maker XP (when indie games are really indie; when updates are free instead of being paid DLCs; when developers update games for years, even decades instead of abandon projects as soon as it’s no longer profitable; when games are made with passion instead of money-hunger; And, when RPG Maker was not used to just make those cheap adult-only games.)
This is NEOLITHIC!
There are many games out there, made with modern tools and more than 1 developer. They are supposed to be better than mine.
But, they are not. Why?_
Unauthorized Edit Detected!
We also have cats! They are cute. :3
Paranormal Detective: Escape from the 80’s
Nice puzzle game. If you’ve played other escape room type games, you’ll like this. Lots of 80’s references and humor throughout. I had to refer to a walk through twice: once for something I should have picked up on but the other was something I may have eventually stumbled upon what they were expecting you to do (tip: just play with everything extensively!)
Looking forward to the 90’s sequel, which is already waiting in my wish list.
– Real player with 4.9 hrs in game
This game is totally RADICAL DUDE! Just played through and I loved it. Great escape room elements with so much 80s. Such cheesy acting and there is even a rap to dance to. Don’t want to give away too much. Took me about 2 hours to complete. I did search pretty thoroughly for Easter eggs and such.
The game nailed what is wrong with so many escape games.
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It has a great, fun story! This is lacking in so many.
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Everything is polished and works well! (surprisingly hard to find)
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A great length! I have played waaaay too many 15 to 20 minute experiences. This took me well over an hour to explore, complete the puzzles, and complete the end.
– Real player with 3.7 hrs in game
Riven: The Sequel to MYST
Riven is a sequel to Myst, an old school click adventure game that revolves solving intricate puzzles and exploring surreal worlds created from linking books.
First off let me tell you that Riven is not revised for modern hardware, as such, some feature set is very archaic. The save menu operates like a word document save menu. The resolution is stuck at a piddly 640x480 resolution, this makes playing the game on modern monitors an absolutely awful visual experience. To makes matter worst, the game cannot be set to windowed mode without some major .exe hex coding voodoo. That set aside, the game is still worth playing. After all with the limitation of Riven’s game engine, which is essentially one huge powerpoint slide, it’s not too strange that the game is limited in resolution. The game is a little over 3 gigabytes and it’s 33% of 1080p. Keep in mind that this game was created in 1997, which equates to a 5 CD game. Had this game release at 1080p, it would’ve been around 15 CD’s. Have fun switching and keeping track of that many disk while playing!
– Real player with 105.9 hrs in game
First of all, I recommend you beat this game WITHOUT looking up a walkthough, I will explain later in the review.
This is one of my favorite games of all time. This is one of the best (and one of the only) examples of a puzzle game done right. sure there are other puzzle games out there that are great like The Witness and… uh… well The Witness doesn’t even count because that is a more logic puzzle game and I consider that a different sub-genre. I honestly can’t find a good comparison to this game other than Myst 1 (and even that has major differences).
– Real player with 32.5 hrs in game