Creaks is a... spins wheel [puzzle-platformer] with... spins wheel [stealth] elements where you play as a... [forced choice: normal white guy] that... spins wheel [falls into a cave] and meets... spins wheel [bird people] under threat of a... spins wheel [cat golem].
For a lack of a more descriptive term, the game lacks oomph. The puzzles are composed of simple mechanics in obsessively compact areas that practically force the solution to occur through mere tinkering. The tween-novel cover look is quite ugly and entirely lacks visual diversity or an identity outside of the striking furniture monsters. Our impossibly meek white guy protagonist is always in the right place at the right time, destroying any sense of narrative tension with the crumbling tower and the uninteresting bird folks. And, of course, he saves everyone and goes back to his normal life. Above all, though, the game glides past the player, with almost no sense of progression until you suddenly reach the finale.
I get why it exists, though. Creaks is an admirable attempt by Amanita Design to diversify their output by incorporating a third director, the debuting Radim Jurda, alongside the usual rotating leadership of Dvorsky and Plachy. Perhaps they realized that adventure games are even deader now than they were in 2010, perhaps they are trying to extend opportunity to a designer they see potential in, but the fact remains that Creaks' conventionality is, ironically, the black sheep of a norm-breaking studio.
For a lack of a more descriptive term, the game lacks oomph. The puzzles are composed of simple mechanics in obsessively compact areas that practically force the solution to occur through mere tinkering. The tween-novel cover look is quite ugly and entirely lacks visual diversity or an identity outside of the striking furniture monsters. Our impossibly meek white guy protagonist is always in the right place at the right time, destroying any sense of narrative tension with the crumbling tower and the uninteresting bird folks. And, of course, he saves everyone and goes back to his normal life. Above all, though, the game glides past the player, with almost no sense of progression until you suddenly reach the finale.
I get why it exists, though. Creaks is an admirable attempt by Amanita Design to diversify their output by incorporating a third director, the debuting Radim Jurda, alongside the usual rotating leadership of Dvorsky and Plachy. Perhaps they realized that adventure games are even deader now than they were in 2010, perhaps they are trying to extend opportunity to a designer they see potential in, but the fact remains that Creaks' conventionality is, ironically, the black sheep of a norm-breaking studio.