I don’t know whether to be horrified or appalled.
Matches the logo too.
I fully admit to not sharing this intuition.
Is not all critical judgement so? If art has obtained some non-arbitrary foundations, nobody’s told me…
Well you know what they say about putting all your eggs in one basket.
Capsule Review: Ancient Treasure, Secret Spider (Spoilers Inside)
Playtime: ~1h
Most of that playtime was the result of getting stumped by a puzzle that I missed the initial clue for. No hints used.
The way in which puzzle solutions followed merely from directing NPC attention was clever, and the way in which more heavily narrative scenes were integrated with mechanic was skilful.
The story was no mere throwaway framework for puzzles however. I found the adventurer’s search for treasure vs spider’s search for love dynamic—when it gets revealed—fascinating, and the red string pun was amusing. Also, what a way to create a hankering for a sequel with that hook at the end there—I’m anticipating future instalments of the mysterious spider extraordinaire now.
Capsule Review: Endymion (Spoilers Inside)
Playtime: 1h 30~
Unlike ATSS, I did have to resort to hints here—vocabulary puzzles don’t seem to gel with me, apparently. Or perhaps it would have worked if I’d been willing to tough it out—I’ll never know, unfortunately. I feel like a bit of an idiot for not realising the hoop would open the pouch, but otherwise didn’t feel I’d missed anything obvious.
The puzzles prior to when I resorted to hints—wandering through the six rooms wondering what my options were, wrongly expecting that the coil could be used to remove the darkness from the hold and the central area to open up the game—weren’t particularly difficult to solve but didn’t give me a particularly accurate description of the language per the hints (mine were davazo as wheel, zedre as bridge, lazha as push, al as turn…).
The story we get is thin enough, but what we do get is tantalising—the ship name Endymion is inherited, the protagonist has clearly been scrambling to make ends meet for some time—and honestly feels like quite enough for the game. I suppose some scenes of the rescue proper would be nice, but leaving it as a mystery is a valid artistic choice.