Dr Livingstone, I Presume? Reversed Escape Room

Poor controls, bad audio and visuals. It just isn't an enjoyable puzzle game. Controls are just a pain to deal with and involve the same mundane exaggerated mouse movements over and over again like cranking a wheel by moving your mouse from one side of your screen to the other a few dozen times because looks like it should work on screen doesn't, or you'll be sliding your mouse pointlessly in one direction several times to undo one of multiple screws. Really could have used some better control mechanics. The visual design isn't great with dust needlessly in your face constantly during the game and everything blending in with no good indicator that something can be picked up. There's puzzles like book shelfs with numbered books to pull in a specific order...but also more than a dozen books also numbered that are just there for decoration and just happen to also be numbered the same way, poor visual design choices like that hinder the game. Lastly the audio design isn't great, but you'll be forced to stick with it anyways, there's tone based puzzles on a non-linear scale with the bird chirping and having to pluck an instrument to it. They sound nothing alike and there's just no feedback or anything to work off of which really put this game in the do not finish list.

The music & environment in this game are good and makes it very immersive. Unfortunately, that's about it for the good points. The game takes it a bit too far when 99% of the shelves and drawers you can open are filled with things that look like you could interact with, but can't. However, you do have to scan like crazy in the 1% of times to find a missing object, which makes the overall experience extremely frustrating. The story is also very boring and I could not care for either character, especially when I had to complete the game twice when I missed examining a single item on my first playthrough.

There are some fun puzzles here and there, but generally I found myself underwhelmed and annoyed. I especially found the controls to be frustrating--I've played plenty of escape room type games using a trackpad just fine, but it felt very tedious here. Performance is not great for how the game looks, and there were persistent issues with texture filtering that made things quite ugly at random (perhaps related to alt-tabbing in and out of the game?) unless I went and switched texture quality in the settings. Honestly don't think I can recommend even at the $1 price point I got it at. Just go replay The Room or something.

i want to like this game more than i do. the writing is good. the visuals are gorgeous. the music is amazing. there's passion poured into every nook and cranny, and it shows. which is why it's such a shame that the gameplay features some of the most frustratingly obtuse puzzles i've ever seen in an escape room game. it's not that they're difficult-- most of them aren't. it's just that finding the items you need to complete them is nearly impossible, because there is little to no distinguishing between an object you can add to your inventory and a background prop. some things are placed so that they clearly contrast with the environment, but most are obscured by either their lighting or their similarity to surrounding props. on a few occasions, a few key objects don't even spawn until you complete an entirely unrelated task, which i found out the hard way in an early area that had me convinced i was losing my mind for twenty minutes. this doesn't just apply to items, though. there's a particular puzzle towards the middle of the game that involves you [spoiler]activating a sequence of books on a bookshelf[/spoiler] to access something you need to progress. [b]there is no way of knowing this puzzle exists[/b] unless you have the eyesight of a hawk and notice by chance that [spoiler]five specific books among the hundreds have tiny roman numerals on their spines[/spoiler]. the game gives you hints after each puzzle, but they're either incredibly vague or just telling you what you already know. i get the appeal to player immersion, but if you want your puzzle game to be engaging, you need your players to know where the puzzles are in the first place. and even when you find the item you need and the puzzle it goes to, the game gives you no indication of which parts you actually need to interact with. you'll find yourself running the mouse across the entire screen just to find where to place an item, and then rearranging things endlessly-- not realizing you already had the solution the first time, and just needed to confirm it by clicking the tiny button you mistook for a dead pixel. if they just did a patch that added highlights to items and objectives, i would vouch for this game in a heartbeat. but as it stands, it's an experience that's pretty tedious at best and completely sanity-draining at worst. with that said, i'm still giving it a thumbs up because of how close it is to being genuinely good. hopefully, those who read this can go into it with these things in mind, and maybe enjoy their time with it more than i did.

There's a bunch of good in [b][i]Dr Livingstone, I Presume?[/i][/b], but is ultimately hampered by some issues. + Fully voiced + Discover the story through scattered letters and audio comments, or keep it minimal and only listen to the audio comments when entering new areas + Story depth; although fantastical, makes the premise believable and care-able + Varied puzzles + Multiple differently themed rooms with a connecting relation/story * Main story progression upon entering a room completely locks interactability; you basically have to wait until the solo dialogue completes * ~3h playthrough - Some puzzles need a hint system or an option to skip; I got stuck multiple times; there is no direct, explicit, or repeated guidance on what to do next - Washy visual bloom, especially when turning the view, plus stuttery at times; felt nauseating at times - Some audio comments cut off when you move into the next audio comment area or interact with the next element with audio comments - Audio from way earlier sections plays at random, unrelated to any interaction - Some of the interactions are non-obvious and clunky; be it not being visually obvious or mouse movement to game element movement translation I'm on the fence about giving it a thumbs up or down. I was about to go with a thumbs down because of the technical issues and getting stuck multiple times. But there's a lot of good and a decent effort. If it's your kind of game, then there are good things to take away from it. If you're fine with the issues, even more so. It has a very good atmosphere, varied elements and puzzles, and decent depth.

I stand behind all the reviews saying the controls are awful. This game was downright painful to play. Some of the puzzles were so hard to navigate, which is a shame because otherwise it was a pretty decent puzzle game

[i]The controls made me sick. The mouse feels hard to handle. And I don't understand which part is defined the Reversed Escape Room?[/i] As for the puzzles, some are pretty straightforward and easy, but others feel clunky or overly complicated. You might even need to take screenshots just to remember patterns or figure out how to assemble puzzles. Again, solving them feels more annoying because of the control issues. That said, the story does have a nice emotional touch at the end. It tells a heartfelt tale about the friendship between two men. [i]I wouldn’t pay full price for this one, but if it’s on sale and you enjoy narrative puzzle games, perhaps you want to give it a try.[/i]

It's a polished puzzle game in terms of voice acting and visuals, but the execution of the puzzles are poorly done and therefore not satisfying, the main puzzle logic is way too simple and the hardest part it finding the pieces or understand a very minuscule logic behind it and do it in a very certain way. 3.5 / 10 (Bad)