Boreal Tenebrae Act I: “I Stand Before You, A Form Undone”

[h1]Ein wunderschöner und surrealer Fiebertraum[/h1] Boreal Tenebrae ist ein einzigartiges und seltsames Adventure, das sich anfühlt wie ein Fiebertraum aus weißem Rauschen, 90's Nostalgie und surrealem Horror im Stile von David Lynch. Zwar ist es recht kurz und hat ein paar technische Kanten, aber ich war nach wenigen Minuten überzeugt und wurde immer weiter in diese gespenstische und bizarre Welt gelockt. Da gänzlich auf Action verzichtet wird, entsteht die Spannung mehr durch das Mysterium rund um diese sterbende Kleinstadt und das verschwundene Mädchen, das man versucht wiederzufinden. Der Low Poly Grafikstil mit wundervoller Farbpalette und der großartige Low Fi Soundtrack erschaffen eine wunderschöne Stimmung, die stets die Waage zwischen gruselig/mysteriös und nostalgisch/friedlich hält. Ich war wirklich erstaunt für so wenig Geld so ein interessantes Spiel mit einwandfreiem Voice Acting, großartig animierten Zwischensequenzen und einer wahrlich einzigartigen Welt zu erhalten.

“Boreal Tenebrae” is a surrealist horror adventure game where you play as Bree as she tries to find her sister Sarah how has vanished under mysterious circumstances. The setting is that of a small community trapped in a Junji Ito-esqe scenario where the whole town is covered in television static. Bree gains the ability to view the past from someone else’s perspective through DVDs. From there you piece together the story through these different events collecting items and solving inventory puzzles. The story of the game is fairly strong with good characters and great plot twists, unfortunately this game is just act one of the story and so ends with a to be continued. The main appeal of this game is most likely the visuals design, a large amount of video filters over very vivid colors and appealing character design, with great prerendered cut scenes. If you’re a fan of “Jack King Spooner’s” work you might like this game in not just the use of filters but also the use of voice acting, vocal tracks and transitions. As for the gameplay it’s passable there’s not really much risk for failure some of the puzzle are pretty simple(there no real silent hill 2 hang man puzzle witch I would have appreciated), but there is a generous hint system if you get stuck. The bigger problem is that there are a lot of bugs, one where I walked behind the truck at the dark station and fell through the floor is one, but a more game breaking bug is where I saved in the Mills basement and reload the save spawning me back in the Mills main area. This one wouldn’t be so bad if it also didn’t prevent me from going to the forest area and since I didn’t get the DVD for that area I was locked out progressing and had to replay a majority of the game. I hope most these bugs get ironed out in due time. Otherwise despite its rough parts the narrative and visuals kept me engaged up until the end and for the price it is well worth it. I hope the developer can make an even better act two.

This game feels broken. Encountered a few glitches a long the way. One was with Bugslav, in which I didn't give him allergy meds before using the med kit.. then I could never get him to move away from the storage room door, thus not being able to progress to the next part. Secondly, after finishing the end of the dark mill segment, I was sent back to the main screen. After playing many times, for about 8 or so hours, I realized you could skip multiple parts of the game and get to the ending. Unfortunately the ending, after doing all the different tasks, ends with a "to be continued". No resolution. No pay off. It's very disappointing. That said, I still like this game. It's unique. The story is original. I love the characters. I love all the weird things you have to do to progress the story. It's quirky and fun. The problem however, is that it's buggy all over the place. The player needs to be forced to follow a path in a certain order, otherwise everything feels disjointed. You can easily miss parts of the story, or play them out of order so it seems weird. I think if you fix the bugs, and push the character to do things in more of a linear order.... AND finish the ending, this could be an amazing game. I hope eventually this game gets polished and reaches the full potential it has. Looking forward to it. https://youtu.be/ogZL-bGXkIM

[i]Boreal Tales[/i] is a trippy, dark and beautiful retro-adventure game aping the fixed camera visual style of PS1 classics like [i]Resident Evil[/i]. It's gorgeous and thought-provoking, definitely worth the price of admission.

There are 2 kind of reviews here pre and post June 7th. With the June Update every bug has been fixed! This game oozes visual style, very strange, baffling BUT intriguing story and characters, something not achieved very often. While still a traditional 3d-Point & Click adventure at heart, if you are into 'mystic-techno-horror', like David Lynch and a bit of Cronenberg movies or that kind of train in general, this game is for you!

this has a really fantastic hook and is exactly my kind of thing. i was drawn into the concept immediately i hope to see more of this, but hopefully future entries (and hopefully a patch to this one!) can fix a few pressing QOL issues: 1. The camera - it works, the framing is nice, but it's often not clear where you can or can't go. Invisible walls that look walkable exist right next to actual walkable spots, meaning you sometimes need to just hug walls to figure out where you can go. And when you DO find a transition to a new camera angle, well: 1a. The movement between camera shots - a lot of games with fixed cameras let you keep moving the same direction through a shot transition by holding the same movement key down, even if the camera position means you'd now need to press a different directional key. Boreal Tenebrae does seem to have that, but it's imperfect or not enough - more than a few times I got caught between two shots because the character kept flipping the opposite direction. I'd have to figure out exactly where the scene transition was and switch to the new key the instant the scene changes or else the character would flip around and walk back. I think it also has something to do with the momentum of the character as you let go of the movement key. 2. the inventory/combine screen is awkward - maybe add a second button, and a tooltip saying "E = use, C = Combine" to make it more clear, rather than having to skip past your character constantly saying "i can't use that here" 3. please add Tab as an alternate inventory button!

It is a very strange game... to be honest, I've not found it very scary. But I appreciate it because it's obvious that the creators had a very definite vision for what they wanted to achieve, and then just went out to make that happen. If you don't mind playing a game that's a little lumpy, I recommend it to anyone who's intrigued by the outlandish visuals and world.

Bought and played this game soon after release. Haven't played it since. Thought maybe it would've been fixed since then but seems the game has been abandoned. Liked the art style and the unique world, but unfortunately as other reviews have stated, it has several game breaking bugs. The one I ran into froze the game entirely, stopping all progress after about 2 hours of play-through. I tried restarting the file, same bug. Uninstalled and reinstalled and played all the way from the beginning only for it to freeze again. Couldn't refund as I'd "played" too much at that point to qualify. I saw some other people had made complaints of the same bug (and many others) but the developer never responded. This review is very late, but to see the game hasn't changed after years, I don't feel others should spend money on something unplayable.

It's a new type of horror game, on top of the gameplay, you're in constant fear of the many gamebreaking bugs you'll encounter.

Nice atmospheric adventure game with Grim Fandango style gameplay. Music and sound effects are at just the right level of unsettling.