Lisssn

I'm amazed. An 80-year old with memories of Rhem, I am confused, charmed, nostalgic and wonderstruck by this game. It's way beyond my puzzle skills, yet I'm still able to stumble around and open a few doors and explore exciting places. It's an A+.

[h1]Got to a puzzle area, insisted the puzzle was impossible, put game aside, tried again a few days later, put aside, resisted temptation to look at walkthrough, tried once more, had a 'eureka' moment, solved the puzzle, repeat[/h1] This is like the classic Rhem series but music puzzles are the primary focus (not a surprise since Knut Müller is one of the devs). The musical puzzles are nice, and you might learn something about music by playing this game. No dialog and interaction (but there are areas where you need to hear spoken clues). Stereo hearing is essential -- you might need to figure out the direction a sound is coming from. And look *everywhere* for clues. There is a game map and compass (essential since the game world is huge). Some puzzles require items/hints that are all the way on the other side of the game world (so an "impossible" puzzle might just need something you'll get later in the game). Although the art is not HD and the colors are limited, this doesn't affect the game. The few spoken lines are a bit hard to hear due to the accent (the designer added subtitles in an update). $10 might be a little pricey, but if you enjoy the Rhem series you will really like this game. It took me about a month elapsed time to solve this (quite a few days of having the game aside until I got some ideas, and several rounds of trying different things for the puzzles that stumped me). So I definitely got me money's worth. EDIT: If you find yourself stuck early on, I wrote a short guide that gives the spoken text and walkthroughs of the first few puzzles

I adore the RHEM games so was excited to give this one a try while I wait for the next installment. Unfortunately, while I did complete the game and enjoyed some of the puzzles, I wouldn't recommend it for most players. [list] [*]I found the sound-based puzzles to mostly be pushovers. Maybe it's because I have some background in music, but some of them were almost jokes. High note or low note? Sound coming from left ear or right ear? Quarter note or half note? Play back the series of 3 notes!...they were more like music theory exercises in elementary school than puzzles. [*]One of my favorite things about RHEM games is that there are no instructions on how to complete puzzles. You have to figure out not only how to complete a puzzle, but what the puzzle even wants you to do. In this game, literal step-by-step diagrams are posted throughout, which is no fun. [*]The UI felt far more clunky than it does in the RHEM games. There is no "go around the corner" option, the cursor is large and distracting, the click boxes for many interactables felt off, the cursor didn't always change to indicate an interactable, and some transitions were awfully sluggish for a point-and-click game. The in-game map was a nice addition, but it seemed to randomly choose a zoomed-in level without any ability to change it, forcing you to drag it around to see a larger area. [*]For a game about sound, the sound design (outside of the puzzles themselves) was very unpolished. In the RHEM games, when you enter a new area, there's a gradual fade from one atmospheric loop to another (and the loops are usually quite good). In this game, the transitions are jarring. Also, the loop will stop and restart whenever you open your inventory. [*]Some parts of the game are just...weird. Not fun quirky weird, creepy/distracting/off-putting weird. Maybe that's just me though. [/list] Overall, the game has some solid puzzles and is far from a complete failure. I did have some fun with it. In fact, I sincerely hope Knut and the others integrate some of this game's ideas into future titles. But Lisssn, sadly, felt to me like an unpolished prototype.

Кнут Мюллер выпустил вполне достойную игру. Не понимаю, почему так мало купленных копий и почему на русском обзоров нет. Подозреваю, что отпугивает музыкальная тематика. По поводу музыки и тех, у кого нет слуха. По всей игре автор использует только три ноты, правда, в различных вариациях. Примерно треть игры посвящена восприятию ритма (это сложней, чем задачки с мелодиями, но тоже вполне проходимо). Присутствует юмор: то стучишь по миске, ведру и мусорному баку, то открываешь шлем средневекого рыцаря и видишь внутри испуганные глаза местного тролля. В отличие от серии Rhem, игра намного проще и короче. Чувствуется фирменный стиль автора. Тут тебе и мрачные подземные коридоры с заборами, и железная дорога, и плаванье по озеру в ржавом корыте. Присутствуют нарисованные на обратной стороне дверей подсказки (куда уж без них). Есть подробнейшая карта с подсказками, да и вообще подсказки висят на каждом шагу, только успевай записывать. Естественно, нужна внимательность. И небольшое знание английского или немецкого, т.к. некоторые подсказки не нарисованы, а написаны. Графика удивила. Идешь, идешь среди темноты, вдруг бац! - и какая-нибудь яркая картина. Ближе к финалу играть вообще одно удовольствие, до того всё красочное. Напоминает картинную галерею в Rhem-3. Из минусов: ну зачем одно и то же задание повторять три-четыре-пять раз? Для удлинения игры? И одного раза было бы достаточно. Меня игра затянула, чего и вам советую. Рекомендую. Ставлю 8 баллов из 10 (т.к. 10 из 10 я расцениваю Rhem-2 и Rhem-3).

All the other reviews so far are right on: this is a moderately difficult, engaging game that can't be done in one sitting (at least for me!). If you liked the RHEM series, this is a great interim pursuit while we wait for RHEM V (Hint hint!). I am going to gift the Steam game to several of my students who need to build confidence in their problem-solving abilities. It's worked before with Rhem I and IV. I forbid their use of a walkthrough, though. It's like physics: if you look up the answer, there's no motivation to actually understand what's going on. It's definitely worth the price. Efforts like this need more support.

Lembrando os saudosos jogos de point da click dos anos 90, esse traz o gráfico e jogabilidade daquele tempo. Pessoalmente achei o jogo bastante difícil, levei quase 1h para passar o primeiro desafio. O verlay não funciona, o que desanima quem gosta de tirar screenshots (como eu). Recomendo para quem gosta de desafios.

An educational puzzle game aiming to teach the player how to listen. While having fun solving very diverse puzzles, you will be able to learn some rudiments of music theory (notes, rhythm, musical instruments, compositors from the baroque era...). The musical and rhythm puzzles integrate repetition in their resolution allowing you to train/practice your hearing and understanding of rhythm duration. But Lisssn is also a game where you need to take your time exploring. Very similar to his big brother Rhem (from the same developer), it is a huge maze of puzzles where clues and objects you would need to solve puzzles and advance in the game can be found all around. A detailed map of the maze is included in the game, helping to keep track of where you have been and could go next. In all, it is a very original work where you will be able to say that you learned something new after completing the game. I am looking forward to the sequel!

In the past, I've extolled Knut Müller's Rhem series while criticizing the sound/plot/graphics that nearly topple the games into the thumbs-down bin. Their world and puzzle designs are so strong, so inspired, that they overcome their numerous shortcomings. Unfortunately, Lisssn is not likewise redeemed. It focuses on primitive sound and music puzzles many of which are far more basic than you'd expect in a game that celebrates Classical music's masters. Nonetheless, most require multiple consecutive solves to prove that you've grokked that simplicity. So you're left with the same Knut faults, some even more explicit, without the same beauty of complicated puzzle exploration and discovery to pull the experience out of the abyss -- an abyss plagued by an unexplained race of cartoon guide aliens to truly muddle the tone. Nostalgia for Rhem and other Myst-clones prodded me reluctantly through the finish line, and there are, along the way, brief moments of fun even for those not in the target demographic: the music-unlearned and the Myst-inexperienced. The result is the worst game of Knut's I've played. At least it's short, so the Myst-obsessed with endless forgiveness for lack of modern polish (a population that includes me), still can milk those moments of fun out of an otherwise bland but mostly inoffensive experience.

Lisssn is a very mediocre point and click adventure game reminscient of MYST (in fact the developers openly admit they were trying to rip off RHEM). The first thing you'll notice about this game is that it looks like it was made in 1998, but, believe it or not, this was published in 2018. Did they start development in 1998 and it just took this long to launch? I can't think of any other reason why a game that looks and plays this bad and clunky could have been released last decade. Anyway the interface for the game is a mess, you just move between static screens by clicking with your mouse... definitely a game designed for the newfangled "Multimedia" crowd and their brand new CD-ROMs. The idea is that you solve audio related puzzles to find a magic flute or something... who knows, look, the presentation of this game is so bad by 2018 standards it's no wonder people never got into it (see the player stats below). From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. Bewilderingly, the game doesn't include proper audio controls, so you can't turn off the annoying sound/background music, you'll need to alt+tab out and stop it using the Windows sound mixer. This is obviously not okay and it's unclear why the developers chose not to include this basic feature. I know, it's a "sound" themed game, but the complete absence of any audio controls at all is unacceptable. The game features mostly static, barely animated 2D images, the kind of thing you expect to see in browser/flash games. While the artwork itself, while mediocre, might be considered passable, the visual presentation here is negligible, it might as well be a slideshow or a Youtube video. Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids had more advanced animation and visuals going on than this game does. The controls can't be customised because the game has such a dumbed down, simplified interface that it's just point and click stuff like a browser/Flash game. The fact that the interface is this dumbed down might be seen as a problem in itself, however... this is a fairly shallow experience if you're the kind of gamer that likes to play games with deep, rich control schemes and interaction. You'll get none of that here. For gameplay purposes, because the user interface for this game is mostly just 2D static images... it might as well be a browser game. And we all know, Steam isn't here to compete with Chrome and Firefox. If the game can be done in a web browser, it's just not rich or compelling enough to appeal to serious gamers on PC. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 8 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam? Lisssn has the somewhat delusional price of $10 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $10 asking price for this game could get you games like "Cities: Skylines", "Lethal Company" or "Alien: Isolation". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.

I love this game, and love RHEM series. No way to stop playing until i completed the game and solved all puzzles. I want a continuation, and also RHEM 5.