BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION

BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION

For those of you who might be considering buying this as a Fallout-like game set in a post-apoc South Africa..don’t. While it may appear otherwise at first its entirely a point and click adventure game that while fun has little in common with Fallout. Combat is limited to a handful of incidents, always involves some sort of proxy, and outside of a single instance is purely optional. Something that can be missed if your not careful along with the bits it unlocks.

Now for the unpleasant bit.

! I really wanted to like this game, I really did. I found the setting charming, its NPCs well rounded, and the story had me hooked…right up until the literal last minutes of the game. When you finally talk with Darius after realizing (something I suspected since the start) that you were playing out a pre-written prophecy jotted down by an entity who does not see time as a straight line.

Real player with 22.2 hrs in game


Read More: Best Point & Click Isometric Games.


Wakanda place is this?

Move aside Afrofuturism, District 9, Black Panther, Elysium, Chappie and all you other African takes on sci-fi, because one thing’s for sure… I can easily tell you that I’ve never seen anything quite like the world of Beautiful Desolation.

If you are South African like me, then you must already know that you’re gonna experience it in a slightly different way to the rest of the world and may get a kick out of various elements that feel familiar to home. Beautiful Desolation is without a doubt, a whole new bag of Simba chips. It launches you into a future so far ahead that the South Africa you might know (and the people who lived there) are completely unrecognisable. The more this story of crazy futures and prophecies unfolds, the more interesting it becomes.

Real player with 22.1 hrs in game

BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION on Steam

Gemini Rue

Gemini Rue

Gemini Rue is a sci-fi detective-noir style point & click adventure game. It’s retro in appearance, using pixel art graphics reminiscent of early to mid-90’s Sierra and Lucas Arts games. Its story, however, is more modern and gritty.

The game opens with a small cinematic of a character called Delta-Six, who is having his memory wiped, then switches to the first playable character, Azriel Odin, standing around waiting in the rain on an empty street. His short scene before playing informs you that you are looking for your brother, but not much else. It’s a little unclear what your role is or who you are in the greater story at this point, but that’s slowly revealed over time. Throughout the game, you’ll end up switching between playing as Delta-Six and Azriel Odin, discovering each of their narratives and how the seemingly unrelated stories intertwine. There are several elements to the overall story that seem like they’re meant to misdirect you as to your relationships with certain people and what your past actually is. This helps to keep you guessing in the game and eager to discover more about the characters. Unfortunately, this also leads to pacing issues that make parts of the game seem unnecessarily slow. The overall writing is decent and fits well for the tone of the game.

Real player with 21.1 hrs in game


Read More: Best Point & Click Noir Games.


Need a quick help deciding whether to buy this game or not? Here, it’s an old school point and click adventure game with a sci-fi/cyberpunk/noir vibe to it, think about Beneath a Steel Sky. It also seems to be emulating all the flaws that classic adventure games used to suffer from. If that alone is enough to sell you, grab it, otherwise, skip it.

The game is using the classic adventure game control scheme in which you can do several things with each object in the game world. If you ever played something like Monkey Island, you know what I’m talking about. It’s the outdated control scheme that makes you wonder if you want to open a door, look at it, smell it, lick it or write a poem about it. Some people like this detailed style of interaction but personally I think it’s gone from most modern games for a good reason. It just makes you click more until you find the right way to interact with each and every object. Thankfully Gemini Rue has only four ways to interact with everything, but apart from maybe two objects in the entire game, there’s only one interaction that gets you anywhere for each object. Looking at stuff is useful, arguably, because it gives you flavour text and sometimes hints, but do you really need the option to shoot every fire hydrant and talk to every mailbox if you never have to in order to progress? It leads to absurd situations when you get stuck and try all the options on everything to find something you think you might have missed and you suddenly find yourself trying to kick graffiti or talking to a random piece of rubbish on a sidewalk.

Real player with 12.9 hrs in game

Gemini Rue on Steam

Alien Function

Alien Function

Fun game with great story line and good puzzles ranging from easy to very challenging. Very very linear but the story line was engaging enough to want to keep on the ride. Really brought me back to the experiences i had playing Kings Quest, Police Quest, etc series way back in the day (showing my age now).

Real player with 15.4 hrs in game


Read More: Best Point & Click Space Games.


no hints, this game is bad.

i really wanted to see the end of this, but it’s just a ‘‘click everything until something works’’

also, the only alien you will see is on the title screen.

Real player with 9.6 hrs in game

Alien Function on Steam

Alternativa

Alternativa

You’re classic point&click adventure game with a 2.5D aspect.

As a whole, the story is good, but not great. It felt more like a prototype concept game than a complete game. Some puzzles can be a little challenging if you happen to miss something in particular.

The game and story starts out to be intriguing and feels like there is a lot of content and story to explore.

As the game gradually progress, the scripts shows signs of weakness. Even the narration goes off beat and weak like if the voice actors lost interest or didn’t care anymore. It feels like the writer was rushed or didn’t know where to go with the story.

Real player with 16.9 hrs in game

I don’t know what to rate this, honestly. The story is contrived in areas and no one really acts like a real human being but the atmosphere is interesting. They obviously push the story forward by skipping really ‘gaining’ trust to be guided by characters. Regardless, I like it for what it is so far BUT you can technically interact with items before the game deems you allowed and you will receive a false flag like there’s nothing to do there with a comment completely different than when you’ve taken the ‘right’ steps to interact finally. There’s no real way to know you’re looking at something too early, either. On top of this I experienced MULTIPLE crashes per game play. In fact, I took time out from my game crash now to write this. I have to skip the constant train ride cut scenes (that play every time you travel to a new area) just to keep it from crashing and it wouldn’t even start up the first 10 or so times I tried to run the game. It’s a frustrating experience at times and you need to be prepared to deal with that.

Real player with 11.8 hrs in game

Alternativa on Steam

Captain Disaster in: Death Has A Million Stomping Boots

Captain Disaster in: Death Has A Million Stomping Boots

I had fun playing the free prequel “Dark side of the moon”, and I thought of giving this one a try. It’s a very different game. Much more polished in many ways.

The visuals are very consistent, increasing in quality as you reach the climax, which is very rewarding. The story has a lot more work, with more developed characters and references to the prequel. The music fits perfectly and sets the mood. finally, it’s really rare to solve a puzzle by chance, or have to do pixel hunting. Almost every puzzle can be solved by applying logic. The dialogs go on the same line as the prequel, with tons of pop culture references, and a bit of breaking the third wall, plus tons of comedy everywhere, as you can probably guess from the title and the trailer. You can tell there is quite a bit of work leaving enough hints for the player to solve the puzzles when stuck.

Real player with 23.3 hrs in game

This is a delightful game that uses a traditional point and click interface. It has all the elements of a successful adventure… witty dialog, funny cut-scenes, well acted voice-overs, a silly story, quests with obscure solutions, and a hero you can’t help but like. In a word, it is just plain fun to play!

You control Captain Disaster as he navigates the cosmos, picking up and delivering a package. What should be a simple errand sets off a chain events that will keep you smiling through the entire game. Cultural references are constant and puzzles range from easy (if you are paying attention to the clues) to obtuse. In the end, I never minded ‘try this, try that’ problem solving because the accompanying narrative kept me entertained.

Real player with 10.0 hrs in game

Captain Disaster in: Death Has A Million Stomping Boots on Steam

Captain Disaster in: The Dark Side of the Moon

Captain Disaster in: The Dark Side of the Moon

I loved this little game. Graphics are a bit of an eyesore but they fit the mood well, because it’s a meta, fourth wall breaking parody type of game. It’s good fun and made me laugh. Puzzles make some sense and the dev was even kind enough to help me when I got stuck - I thought I had tried something I didn’t. This game is better enjoyed by people familiar with Sierra and Lucasarts games and that can get all the pop references. It exploits the point and click tropes and the bad habits of adventure players brilliantly.

Real player with 5.8 hrs in game

This game is a short little diversion that will be enjoyable to fans of the Point and Click genre. A fully voiced space comedy, you are trapped on a moon with the goal of getting off. In true adventure game fashion, a larger plot emerges.

The real joy of the game is the comedy writing. It is quite reference heavy, but enjoyable nonetheless. A full third of the references are to adventure games, classic adventure games, and AGS, the software used to build the game. Another full third of the references are sci-fi references. The final third of references are to Pink Floyd albums. If you don’t like these things, this game may not be for you.

Real player with 4.2 hrs in game

Captain Disaster in: The Dark Side of the Moon on Steam

Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World

Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World

Well.. A some sort good adventure.

Basically , the whole adventure is only 2 long and HARD riddles (50% of the game or more).

Everything else is just EASY!

I was NOT so fond of the game. But it has some fun time.

Still it misses the voices sounds. Like the VERY first adventures.

For time killing is Good. Still those 2 riddles will be very tiresome with NO reason.

The game uses the modern phylosophy of adventures in cases and confuses you.

You can grab things from the environment BUT to use them sometimes it needs

Real player with 8.8 hrs in game

Kaptain Brawe tried to boldly go where others have been before and partially succeeds. I loved the cartoonish style and the throwback to the golden era of gaming, but unfortunately that’s where it stops short. The game is not very long (about 7-8 hours), but it’s a decent experience overall. The problem is, it could have been much better if it had better story development, more fully-fleshed characters and more entertaining puzzles. I love point and click adventure games, but if I spend too much time combining things at random and when I get bored and look for the walkthrough I don’t go “Damn, I should have thought about that!”, but instead “WTF!”, well, that takes away from the gaming experience. To be fair, there are some fun puzzles, that actually add to the story, but I wish there were more of them and more story development to begin with.

Real player with 7.9 hrs in game

Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World on Steam

Morningstar: Descent to Deadrock

Morningstar: Descent to Deadrock

Short but maturely written and well executed adventure in a Sci-Fi setting (just how I like it) almost without any drawbacks.

Backgrounds are static but very well drawn images with points of interests reasonably highlighted. Game does this in a special, non-intrusive way I haven’t seen before but it works so there is not much pixel-hunting. Puzzles are all logical (some too much so and not in an easy way) but if you get stuck there is a built-in hint system in a way of radio communication with your injured side-kick. Doesn’t even feel like you are using hints and that’s a good thing.

Real player with 3.9 hrs in game

Ever thought of having a ship crash on a random isolated planet and then find a way to get out of it, preferably safe and sound? Morningstar: Descent to Deadrock (M:DtD) is your dream come true. Not only does it have some nice small puzzles, but it also offers the player an entertaining experience.

_He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

Confucius_

Without any further delay, I present to you my review of Morningstar: Descent to Deadrock.

Real player with 3.7 hrs in game

Morningstar: Descent to Deadrock on Steam

Primordia

Primordia

Watching a good Science fiction movie was always a rare experience to have, even more so an original one….

Playing a good and original Science fiction game….that’s even less probable, it feels like finding a very special treasure.

Good words have been around for Primordia since it came out in 2012 (I’m now playing it for the first time in 2017) and i can say it’s all pretty much justified.

The game has a good story, with interesting characters, both main and secondary ones. It has an interesting beginning, a well handled middle and an ending ( and a pretty good one at that, although that depends on which ending you get).

Real player with 19.3 hrs in game

Bought in a bundle without knowing much about it except it’s published by Wadjet Eye Games and another game in the bundle was Gemini Rue (which by body required at the time). I stuck gold because what we have here is a high quality four-man (+Dave as producer / voice caster) point & click adventure game with gorgeous 320x200 graphic.

Story is set in post apocalyptic, distant future cyberpunk world which is a rich environment for imaginative locations, story, characters. You name it. Overall story is pretty solid and will satisfy even the most seasoned adventure players.

Real player with 14.3 hrs in game

Primordia on Steam

Sol 705

Sol 705

Hey guys,

overall I can only recommend playing this lovely point and click adventure game. Let’s have a look on the top features and on the features with some space for improvement.

TOP:

  • graphic style of scenery

  • lot of retro feeling comes along when playing Sol 705

  • funny and somehow exaggerated chars

  • puzzles not too hard and solveable by think, not much trial & error needed

  • official hint system

  • several hints included in gameplay (very funny)

  • ingenious story

  • overall humor in the game (dialogues, story)

Real player with 14.8 hrs in game

So I got to the final… and I’d say I’m quite dissappointed.

This game claims that it could be more than it is.

Graphics are okay but I didn’t like not so smooth animation and slow lazy walking of character.

It is 2020, you know.

I like art insertions of characters. As for me, it would be more nice to see ingame graphics closer to those arts.

Or even 3d. As what we can see in community.

The puzzles are quite fun.

Dialogs are okay and fun sometimes.

(Bug report on 2020.12.29: In some moments thre looks like there are lost audio and quite long pause before dialog starts.

Real player with 7.4 hrs in game

Sol 705 on Steam