the idea is so good and im sure the story is great if you can get through it but the actual act of navigating through the game's world feels awful. constantly missing out or getting abruptly cut out of conversations or investigating the map because i moved to the spot arbitrarily designated the 'move on forever' zone
Deciphering a dead language in Heaven's Vault serves both as unique gameplay and as environmental storytelling, with a great plot and dialogue to boot. It has many clunky design choices that frequently interrupt game flow.
80 Days was a very quick all-time favourite for me, so I was incredibly eager to check out the next original Inkle game.
Sadly while the core concept and language deciphering mechanics are fun the simple moment-to-moment experience of getting anywhere completely sucked the joy out of it for me. Getting around in the point and click bits is slow but fine, it's getting between areas that's harrowing. Not requiring enough involvement to be engaging, but requiring just enough to make it tedious. When I realised I'd hit a dead end and would probably need to check out a couple different locations to progress the sense of dread I felt at the prospect made me put this down and never want to pick it up again.
Sadly while the core concept and language deciphering mechanics are fun the simple moment-to-moment experience of getting anywhere completely sucked the joy out of it for me. Getting around in the point and click bits is slow but fine, it's getting between areas that's harrowing. Not requiring enough involvement to be engaging, but requiring just enough to make it tedious. When I realised I'd hit a dead end and would probably need to check out a couple different locations to progress the sense of dread I felt at the prospect made me put this down and never want to pick it up again.