Developed by: Joshua Nuernberger
Published by: Wadget Eye Games
Out now
Reviewed on: 14th March, 2011.

Presentation: The graphics are deliberately retro as are the interface and music. The graphics look and feel a lot like those found in point and click adventures like Beneath a Steel Sky or The Dig, which works very nicely for the retro ethos of the game, but does mean it inherits a few of the problems with older graphics like the sometimes difficult to see objects. That may just add retro cred for some folks, though.

Atmosphere: The game absorbs the atmosphere of its inspirations very well. It could have easily been released contemporary to the games mentioned above and it also captures a lot of the cyberpunk elements prevalent in the eighties to mid-nineties. The storyline does get a little stretched in terms of plausibility at points, but not by a huge amount.

Control and Mechanics: The mechanics are unusual by point and click standards. After a certain point in the game, you can click to switch between two different characters and play out each of their parallel stories. Each character has an inventory of up to eight items and the game is largely controlled by mouse alone, except in two situations (combat and crate movement) where WASD, control and space are used. These are separated, however, and the same hand could alternate between both as needed.

Who should buy this: Those who adore modern retro games, especially when they feel convincingly like an older game. Those who enjoy games with a cyberpunk ethos, especially with the deeper existential message often found in the genre. Those who just love a good point and click adventure with good puzzles and a great plot.

Who should avoid it: Those who aren’t interested in games with deliberately older graphics or don’t have any love for retro games. Those who want games to last a little longer or have more reply value.

If I have to give a score: The problems with this game are minor, it has been well-crafted and is a must-buy for any retro and/or point and click adventure fan who wants an engaging, existentialist story and engaging puzzles. 3/4.

Review

There’s something unusual about playing cyberpunk settings now. Fans of figures like William Gibson often point to his pre-empting a lot of technological changes that occurred over the course of the past thirty years. I cannot help but wonder if they are being a bit selective, it is the case that he pre-empted some technological changes, but his real interest has always been in the way people will react to these changes and how they will be affected by them.

We haven’t burnt out from any information overload, technology has not dehumanised us, corporations aren’t openly governing our lives, we’re not addicted to highly potent drugs with crippling withdrawal effects and the most capitalist of nations still have the most equal distribution of wealth. Technology continues to improve our lives, we live longer and our quality of life improves continually. In short, Gibson was wrong and the era of cyberpunk novels and films presented us with a future that will not be.

Which makes it all the more interesting playing Gemini Rue. Right round to the idea of an extensive influence of Japanese culture and economic practice, something which is certainly long past being taken seriously, the game emulates the feel and aesthetic of the cyberpunk-inspired future. This immediately gives the game a kind of retrofuturism that can be found in the Fallout games and it’s interesting to see this game with such evident self-awareness in an age where the next Deus Ex game looks more and more like it’s taking its fear of technology all too seriously, despite the failure of cyberpunk to present a realistic vision of the future.

The game itself is set in the distant star of Gemini, on a planet named Barracus, at least at first. We are introduced, first, to the character of Azriel Odin, waiting for a contact who never arrives at a station on a planet where rainfall is constant and the streets are haunted by the presence of a nigh-omnipresent criminal syndicate known as the Boryokudan. Azriel, we learn, is seeking this contact in order to find his long-lost brother whom he has not seen since this system’s war of independence from nearby systems and its decline as the influence of the Boryokudan spread.

On the other hand, we are introduced to a prisoner known as Delta-Six to his captors and as Charlie to his fellow prisoners. Delta-Six, at the start, is undergoing a complex memory erasing procedure after a failed escape attempt. Soon after the procedure, he is reintroduced to tests designed to make him a valuable citizen again and discovers that, with his memory gone, the other prisoners have conflicting agendas and interests in him, and warnings come from all sides not to trust anyone else or even anyone at all. Above all this are the tests his captors expect him to complete and the feared final exam, something about which he was quickly warned.

After a short period walking in both character’s shoes, you get the option to switch between the characters mostly at will and play through their parallel stories. It’s an interesting way of progressing the plot given most other point and click adventure games with multiple protagonists dictated when you were controlling one or the other character.

The central appeal of the game is the fact that is harkens back to an earlier age with its graphics. As can be seen in screenshots and the trailer, it is designed with point and click graphics from around the mid-nineties in mind. The game’s plot and challenges could have been successfully implemented with more modern graphics, but the design choice gives it the feel of an older classic from nearly twenty years ago. There are certainly modern retro games that feel like modern attempts to capture the spirit of older games, but Gemini Rue feels like it could just have easily have been pulled forward from that long ago as have been released recently.

The graphics do present a minor problem that might drive some away from the game. It’s very possible to miss an object that one needs to use midst the clutter of pixels that appear on the screen. Sometimes it’s very hard to see exactly what it is that you need on the screen and this is made more exasperating by the dirty and cluttered nature of the setting in Azriel’s story or the sterile, almost featureless, prison which houses Delta-Six.

Besides that, however, there are very few problems that get in the way of your enjoyment of the game. Sometimes the plot gets a little strange, like the idea of a system-spanning criminal syndicate (who represent the central antagonists of the game) operating essentially out of a single apartment block and the dialogue is occasionally off (like referring to star systems as “galaxies” as well as the odd misspelt word), but that does not break suspension of disbelief too much.

What can get a little annoying is some of the control mechanics. I found the game’s combat system to be a little primitive and an option to skip it entirely (some old adventure games with action-driven sequences like Heart of China had this option) would have been good. It’s really just about timing your moves and it gets quite tedious after a very short while. Further, while the inventory is never cluttered (as you can only have a maximum of eight items), you need to be able to right-click an object on the screen to access your inventory which is a minor irritation. Finally, and this really is my last gripe with the game, the save system is sometimes unusual and arbitrary where you can and can’t save. Also, dying in the game sends you to the last autosave even if your in-game save was more recent. This is something that could easily be patched out and I think it’s something the developers should do.

As I said, these are minor gripes in what is a great experience for lovers of classic point and click adventuring. The game draws you into a cyberpunk setting that looks and feels as if it could have been pulled from the era of the eighties when the great cyberpunk novels were being written. The puzzles themselves are sometimes quite hard and really make you stop and think but they are mostly accessible by logical thinking and require no head scratching trying to work out why the developer chose that solution. It’s a game that tries to get the player to ponder serious existential questions about the nature of things like personal identity and integrity while offering a wonderful and entertaining gameplay experience that you won’t forget any time soon. Another great example of what the modern indie movement is doing to keep the fires burning at the alter of one of the great genres in gaming history.

Gemini Rue is out now, available via Wadjet Eye Games’s website for £9.89.

Developed by: Cockroach Inc.
Published by: Cockroach Inc.
Chapters 1 and 2 out now, chapter 3 available sometime this month, chapter 4 in June, chapter 5 in August.
Update: There have been minor setbacks in the production that mean new release dates. Updates here when I know them.
Reviewed on: 3rd March, 2011.

Presentation: The presentation speaks for itself, this game has been lovingly crafted from a cardboard and clay set using stop motion animation. Given the amount of effort in putting together something like this, it’s really rewarding to see the effect it has on the atmosphere. The game is entirely played online through the browser, requiring only Flash 8 or above so runs on anything capable of supporting Flash 8 adequately, including Linux and MacOS.

Atmosphere: As I wrote above, the design choice for the sets and characters gives a lot of the world a very eerie, worn appearance and it suits the mystical setting very well. The apartment that the central couple move into is supposedly quite nice by the protagonist’s description, but it still seems quite oppressive. All this adds wonderfully to the overall atmosphere. The music and background sounds are also sufficiently enticing and creepy, without getting in the way. There’s no speech, which is a shame, but the character dialogue is believable and well-written given the circumstances.

Control and Mechanics: It’s a simple point and click adventure game with no real use of separate verbs as in early Monkey Island games. The character interacts with highlighted objects in a single way and knows whether to examine, use or pick up an item based on context. Using two items together is done via dragging the object from the inventory at the top to the object upon which you wish to use it. Only a mouse and a left click is required.

Who should buy this: Comparisons have already been drawn to Machinarium and anyone who loved that will find this slice of modern point and click adventuring a real treat. Fans of Grim Fandango’s innovative weirdness will also love this. Those who adore some interesting point and click puzzles that increase in difficulty after letting you settle in but never get too strange or off the wall without giving you a warning and retain casual plausibility. Those who are willing to pay not just for hours of gaming but for the care and craftsmanship. Anyone who is a true fan of point and click adventures.

Who should avoid it: Those who want a plot that’s more down to earth and doesn’t explore abstract concepts like dreaming. Those who have no patience for episodic games and want to wait until it’s out. Those who think in terms of hours per monetary unit invested and won’t replay through an adventure game.

If I have to give a score: An interesting first two chapters which promises so much more and delivers a lot of heart and charm in a wonderful, if somewhat short, point and click adventure. 3.5/4

Review

While indie games can be less polished and, sometimes, as awful as anything the mainstream of gaming produces, it goes to places and tries ideas and experiments that you’ll rarely see in an EA or Atari release. Sometimes, I am left utterly speechless that the end result was allowed out into the world (see anything by Tale of Tales for my favourite examples of the “games are art” movement gone wrong) and sometimes the end result makes me thankful that the indie movement is there to offer us the games and experiences that the mainstream of gaming rarely produces.

It’s hard to say what this game will turn out to be exactly when the final episode is offered up to the gaming public, but from what can be seen so far, it’s definitely well on course for belonging to the later. In this review, I want to cover the plot premise for chapter 1 and then talk about the gameplay and atmosphere of the game.

The game starts out within a dream, you find yourself on a desert island with a few provisions. Woken at the end by the alarm going off, you find yourself lying in a bed of a new flat, items boxed up ready to be unpacked. You are Victor Neff and you have recently moved in to the new place with your pregnant girlfriend, Alicia, in order to get away from the slacker lifestyle and friends you had before and raise your child. Very quickly it becomes apparent that Victor has had to let slip a lot of his dreams in order to make this happen and we’re not left knowing exactly how he feels about this change yet. Over breakfast, a conversation about dreams leads to Alicia confessing her reasons for feeling off about the new landlord, Felix Morton and a mysterious burnt note left by the previous tenant leaves you following a dark trail that will explore the essence of dreams and what they signify about the people who dream them.

The puzzles the game offers you themselves are straight-forward. There is sometimes a very odd logic at work within dreams (like a map being produced from eating a fish), but this is something essential to the dream world and not so alien to an analytical approach that most players won’t be able to piece together the solution to the puzzles. It does seem a lot easier if you just play the first chapter (which is offered for free), but does get satisfyingly more complex when you enter the second. You won’t end up trying every item in your inventory with every object you can find at any point, despite the increased difficulty.

The best part about the game is the appearance and feel of the game. Despite the painstaking process used to create each set and all the characters, the rooms are rich and detailed; the rooms that are sparse are supposed to be and those that are meant to be cluttered feel so, the bright colours used in the materials for the dreams contrast so amazingly with the almost coffee-stained aesthetic of real life’s humdrum. Just looking at the scenes reveal the attention to detail and the interesting use of materials such as cotton or cardboard to create the world Victor explores. The use of materials here isn’t just a gimmick to stand out, it helps express the wonder and mystery of the game world.

Adding to that, but no less worthy of mention, are the beautiful and elegant sound effects that help sets the mood as sombre and gives a sense of foreboding from the very start and includes such seamless elements as the sound of experimental jazz being played on an old gramophone or life bustling outside the window. No less than this, the game sports a cerebral dialogue that includes references to philosophy, literature and science from the central, more well-read characters thrown in midst their normal daily banter.

Finally, and an interesting feature, is that the game is played entirely online and certain bits of statistical data is sent back to the developers so that they may refine the playing experience. While this may strike some as too close to the DRM of games like Assassin’s Creed II, they address this in their FAQ, as it allows them to patch the game, tweak puzzles and add extra dialogue when needed. The designers have given assurance that the game will be offered offline (or via some other method) if something goes wrong and will be available on Steam later in the Summer.

My final word on this is that if you like point and click adventures, buy this wonderful series of episodic games, you can buy each episode for a mere €4.69 or get it for €17.25 for the entire series of 5 chapters (with an early bird price of €13.75). For the amount of love and attention that has gone into this game and the depth it offers, that’s a real bargain.

Chapters 1 and 2 are out now, with the remaining chapter coming at time to be announced (due to minor setbacks). Chapter 1 is free, all others are €4.69 or get them all for €17.25 (€13.75 at the moment). See their website for details.