Belladonna

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[b]EST Completion Time (1 Playthrough):[/b] 75 minutes [b]Achievements Available:[/b] 0 (N/A) [b]Trading Cards Available:[/b] 13/set ⚠️ [b][u]TRIGGER WARNING[/u]:[/b] [i]Belladonna[/i] contains a brief scene involving [b]ANIMAL VIOLENCE[/b]. [i]Belladonna[/i] is a short, Gothic point-and-click adventure game about love, power, betrayal, and mortality. An obvious nod to Mary Shelley's [i]Frankenstein[/i], you awake as a bio-mechanical corpse in search of answers to explain your unholy existence. [i]Who are you?[/i] [i]What happened to you?[/i] As you journey through an eerie castle, the answers unfold (primarily in the form of journal entries) revealing an unexpected and enticing tale — at least until the near end. Unfortunately, the immersion that has been carefully crafted through the game's storytelling, art, and dark atmosphere is woefully interrupted by mediocre voice acting — with a protagonist who sounds childlike (and yet monotone), and [spoiler]Belladonna herself[/spoiler] who's (seemingly fake) accent is painful to endure. This latter complaint, however, may have been forgivable if the point-and-click puzzles weren't so elementary (as this clearly isn't a game intended for children) and if the ending weren't so abrupt. [i]Belladonna[/i] is afforded many opportunities in its design to have offered meaningful choices and alternate endings, but instead left us yearning for more and questioning the developer's motives. [h3][i]"It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another."[/i] — M. W. Shelley[/h3]

Belladonna is a VERY short Indie itch/io game. A nice little atmospheric attempt at a game. Mostly reading notes which turns the gameplay into somewhat of a visual novel. The "show don't tell" rule flies out the window with this one.. The point & click gameplay is baby level easy, it is downright primitive. You leave the lab, walk around a few rooms and go back to the lab. That's it, that's the whole game.. - The story is greatly inspired by Mary Shelley's famous "Frankenstein" book, it is obvious. It only inspired the monster part. The writing is weak and the plot get sloppy, characters start talking like in a play, no actual person talks this way. The motivations get way too ridiculous. Bad writing. Make an army of animated dead? Why? Lives of the dead matter? They are dead, they have no lives. WTF? Trying to paint the husband as some kind of abusive monster, yet the wife is having an affair and is thinking of unjustly committing her husband to a mental institution so she can keep cheating? Who is the villain here? I fear it has some feminist undertones. Everyone is a monster in this story. I can forgive short length of the game, even amateurish art and gameplay design, even the journal notes that serve as padding, but the weak story is just too much even for an Indie title. On sale for $1 might be worth a try if you have nothing else to do..

[h1][i]“[b]Swiss Woman Doctor[/b]: You killed him! [b]Herbert West[/b]: No, I did not. I gave him life.”[/i] ~Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator[/h1] If I had to pick one favorite genre, it would be old-school point-and-click adventures. On the other hand, reviewing them can be painfully dull. After all, what is there to say? You point, you click—that’s the whole experience. Sure, a good story can sometimes make up for weak puzzles, but since "good" is subjective, most mediocre adventures leave little worth discussing. This time, however, things are different. Belladonna stands out—just not in a good way. Let’s start with the positives. The game’s atmosphere is undeniably solid. As someone who grew up devouring the works of [b]Edgar Allan Poe[/b] and [b]H.P. Lovecraft[/b] (yes, I was [i]that[/i] kid), I appreciated all the nods. The main theme is a direct homage to Lovecraft’s [url=https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/hwr.aspx][b]Herbert West—Reanimator[/b][/url], while the setting leans more toward Poe’s [url=https://poestories.com/read/berenice][b]Berenice[/b][/url]. Even the visuals pay tribute to [b]Tim Burton[/b]’s gothic whimsy. If you’re a part of a "strange and unusual" crowd, [b]Belladonna[/b] feels like a love letter to you. Here’s the problem, though: [b]Belladonna[/b] was made by only one person—[b]Niklas Hallin[/b] (with music by [b]Michael Chait[/b] and voice acting by [b]Tess Baines[/b]). And it shows. The game is painfully basic, with only ten screens and a handful of items—most of which are just notes expanding the lore. The puzzles? Calling them "puzzles" is generous. You pick up the one obvious item and use it on the one obvious hotspot. It’s impossible to get stuck for more than a minute, and if you somehow do, there’s a "highlight interactables" button that reduces the game to a glorified clicker. [b]Belladonna[/b] is a one-hour experience at most (longer only if you read every note and don’t skip dialogues). For point-and-click fans who crave actual problem-solving, this is a dealbreaker. Worse yet, the game is buggy. Black screens, corrupted saves (yes, I had to restart near the end), and no manual saving—just an unreliable autosave. These aren’t game-breaking, but they kill the mood. [b]Belladonna[/b] is… well, what it is. If you're interested in indie projects, it might hold some charm. If you want a quick, atmospheric game before bed, it could work. But as a substantial adventure game? No. Just no. It’s impressive that only one person made this, but still,[b]Belladonna[/b] leaves me more disappointed than satisfied. The atmosphere is wonderful, but the gameplay feels like a demo—a first chapter of something far greater that never materializes. Dixi.

[h1] Point and click that is messed up. Someone was probably smoking too much during this one. [/h1]

A mysterious garden where each clue unlocks a new secret, and I keep laughing while chasing riddles, the joy never ends.

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Sapphic, gothic victorian tragedy inspired by Mary Shelley's landmark science fiction novel, turned competent, if not simplistic classic graphical adventure game. While I can appreciate the tale of revenge (though were I penning something like this, I would alter the focus on the longing of the lovers instead, and their shared tragedy), it would be far stronger were the needless voice acting nixed and writing polished to a more serious degree. Regardless, certainly worth playing if you're a fan of the genre or book that inspired it, particularly for the price.

A simple point-and-click game inspired by the Gothic, Frankenstein specifically and with a few references to the ideas of Romanticism. There is a lot of reading to do for such a short game; this doesn't bother me, but it might to someone else. So, there's a lot of story to the game but the puzzles are not very engaging. Pros: Spooky art style and lesbians are always a win for me. The soundtrack is nice and melancholic, not much variety, but I liked it. Cons: The gameplay and puzzles are simple and easy, and can get a bit stale after a little bit of time. Granted, this game does not take long to complete. Voice acting could be better. I got this game on sale, so it was cheap as chips, and I would recommend getting it only on a good sale if you really want it, but it is a game I will probably forget about and not play again.

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