[i] My Experience [/i]
I really tried to like Exitium. I was drawn to the premise of the game, as well as its psychedelic colors. It's a puzzle-platformer that rotates between two level types for the duration of the game.
The first of these is a straightforward black-and-white horror level, in which you are trying to navigate from left to right. There are enemies in these sections, which can be pushed using a blast move (hopefully so that they will fall off of a platform and perish) or evaded using a cloak move.
The second level type is a "flashback" of sorts in which the player plays as a ghost. It seems that you can complete these levels either by finding and placing a nostalgic item in front of your ex-boyfriend so that he finds it, or by scaring him while he is out of view of other characters in the flashback. I attempted to complete all of these levels by having him find the nostalgic item. Although my character was dead, the game had given me no reason to be bitter. Although there are no "enemies" in these levels, your character will die if she is seen carrying an item, so you'll need to create distractions and use vertical platforms to stay out of sight while moving things around.
Some of these flashback levels, at least for me, were tremendously involved and required a massive amount of trial and error. During one play session, I tried the same level (the one that takes place at a paintball park) over and over again for an hour without finishing it. I WAS able to complete it during a subsequent play session, however. Even so, it was hard to imagine that I was doing what the developer intended. It felt to me that some of the gameplay aspects were poorly explained - but I did what made sense to me.
For the aforementioned level, I started by waiting on a woman to walk by so that I could pick up the keys to an ice cream truck while her back was turned. Then I jumped over the first building and rode a zip-line down to a platform. I waited until the zip-line returned to its original position and then dropped off of the left side of the platform, careful not to trigger the bridge on my right (which I knew could only be used once due to previous failures). I counted to 10 in my head, dropped the keys, and knocked all of the dishes off of the table in front of me. The woman (who would have seen me if I had just jumped originally) moved in the direction of the dishes, before picking up the keys and walking them back to their starting position. I follow her back, and then pick up the keys as soon as she leaves. The idea here is to keep her preoccupied long enough for me to grab the keys, jump over the first building, take the zipline, and then double jump at the correct time over the breaking bridge to get behind the man she is talking to (so I'm not seen with the keys). Then, I take the keys up and leave them on the platform to the left of the shirt (the nostalgic item in the paintball level). I then climb the platforms on the right side of the banner, get the shirt, and drop it in front of the man who is patrolling the area. He grabs the shirt and walks it to a different area in the level (closer to my ex-boyfriend). This has to be carefully timed, since I could not look down while I was grabbing the shirt to see where the man was on his route. If I fall directly in front of him or the woman he converses with, I die and have to start the level all over again. While he is transporting the shirt, I go back to the left and hop back up on the platform where I left the keys to the ice cream truck. I grab the keys, again having to be careful not to fall directly in front of the patrolling woman. I then follow the other woman backwards on her route and start the ice cream truck. This draws many of the characters in the level to the truck. At this point, I can go to the far right of the level and startle some birds to get a woman's attention, so she leaves the shirt unattended in its new resting place. I grab the shirt, move to the left, and put it in front of my ex-boyfriend. I actually felt that I was in sight of another character (the one he was talking to), but the game allowed me to drop the shirt here. My ex-boyfriend moved forward, grabbed the shirt, and thus completed the level. This walkthrough likely makes no sense at all if you haven't played the game, but I wanted you to appreciate how convoluted the solution was (or...a solution was) to this level.
If the story itself was incredible, perhaps these puzzles would feel worth it. But unfortunately, the player is given no background on the relationship before the game begins in earnest with you death and entrance into whatever purgatory you fall into. In addition, the spoken English dialogue is stilted and not delivered in an emotionally resonant way (at least, to my ears).
I ended up giving up on the game while trying to deliver soup to my boyfriend in one of the game's flashback levels. I just couldn't justify putting so much time and energy into these puzzles to receive so little emotional or story reward.
