MIAZMA or the Devil's Stone

This is a fascinating game and is located not just in Hungary but at Atomki which is a real place... Institute for Nuclear Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences I enjoyed the story, and the FMV was great. I recommend to use the notebook that is with ones inventory ; it is very helpful. It documents all dialogues and one can review important information that was imparted or even more , where to head next. I enjoyed the history and learning about the discovery of the the meteorites.. The earlier puzzles and the investigative aspects were my favourites. I am sure that there will be people that ADORE the 6 physics puzzles that occur later in this game, but quite frankly, I skipped some of those. (Luckily there is this option ) (I was fascinated to learn the connection with this game and AGON (a very tricky adventure game, perhaps remembered by some) I do recommend this game....

I really love FMV games and generally have a high tolerance (and appreciation) for the campiness that tends to come along with them. This game is really, really bad. Through the first two hours of play I did nothing but listen to boring voices narrate clumsy dialogue. There were no puzzles or other elements of challenge. The acting is also really difficult to watch; way past being enjoyably campy. Despite being an FMV game most of the dialogue is delivered over top of a slideshow of the character's face so you aren't even benefitting from having an actor in that role. The voice dubbing is brutal; I encountered only one character in the first two hours that sounded even remotely animated. Expect to be inundated with really boring and poorly worded explanations of scientific concepts to the point where you dread clicking the next dialogue option. As if that weren't enough, the attempts to establish the main character as some sort of womanizer come across as both demeaning and deeply embarassing. I would really hate for this to be someone's first experience with the genre. Please avoid.

I can’t recommend this game for everyone by a long shot. If after I’m done with this review, you’re interested, then you’ll probably like it. I did. First, you should know I’m a sucker for FMV games. With a few exceptions, they’re usually campy, look homemade, and don’t exactly have the best acting talent in the world. But sometimes, it’s those very things that make them entertaining and funny to me. This is not really a complete FMV game. They filmed the main character walking around a lovely city in Hungary and a scientific research campus. When he enters a room, he stops and when it comes time for dialogues, you will see the answering character’s face in a sequence of still shots of expressions fitting their character answering the question, but this technique leaves the faces out of sync with the voices. At first it was awful to me, but I got used to the style and it just wasn’t a thing that bothered me anymore. The dialogue mechanics is somewhat annoying. Say you have 3 questions to ask. The question bubble shows up on the character. Click on it and pick one of the 3. The character answers and the dialogue close-up window closes. Then click on the bubble again and pick from the remaining choices, etc. The developers spent a lot of time on the scenes. We get a historical tour, with a trip to the botanical gardens, very old buildings with the works of Hungarian artists, etc. Each scientist you visit has decorated their offices to suit their personalities and the care with the decorations, as well as the variety of complex scientific equipment in so many scenes (about 10 on the campus alone) was impressive to me. But how was the story? There is a mystery afoot. A young man disappears leaving an enigmatic note. The story switches between the investigator on the case and the missing man and his experiences. Easily the first hour or probably two of the game is spent moving from quirky character to quirky character asking questions and figuring out what’s going on. Without giving too much away, the Devil’s Stone is a meteorite and most of the story and puzzles concern physics and then general science in a variety of specialties. A bit of geology here. A bit of chemistry there, etc. There is a mystery, but this is not a whodunnit. It’s more of an unraveling of secrets and escaping danger mystery. Puzzles? Oh boy, there are puzzles! Like I said though, the game starts dialogue heavy. You are running from place to place, talking and talking and talking some more. I thought, is there any gameplay?? Then it begins. There are three main sets of multiple puzzles. The first set are physics experiments. Read a textbook and apply what you’ve learned in real life. Not as easy as it sounds. The second are dialogue choices – have you been paying attention puzzles. And the last set consists of 6 sets of clues. Solving each set opens one lock on a safe. I thought this last set was great. To solve each one, you need to talk to the right person, solve some puzzles and integrate multiple clues into a numeric solution to open each lock. Very high challenge level to get to the end of it all. A journal records all your conversations for reference. You have a phone with a Mini-Wiki. It has a set of key pages already listed, but you can also type terms in and see if there is an entry. There are maps upon exiting scenes, so you aren’t walking for days. And if you click as the character is entering a scene, it will jump straight to dialogue time so you don’t walk to keep watching that over and over. Although the game got off to a slow start for me, by the time the pace started picking up, I got hooked and did enjoy the super challenge and interesting story of the game. It’s not for everyone, but if you have patience and want to spend some serious time talking and reading about science and puzzling your way through, I’d say give it a go.

I would respectfully suggest that I disagree about the game. OK, if y9u want an action-packed, bang bang, zap zap, testosterone-loaded game, this game is not for you. This game is really a detective story and, I think, quite interesting for all that. As an older player, I prefer more cerebral games, and I have to say that action games leave me totally cold. However, each to their own. I enjoyed the game.

Великолепная игра, пусть и не без некоторых мелких недостатков, - редкое на сегодня сочетание Edutainment, красочного FMV-квеста и зубодробительных головоломок в лучших "мистоидных" традициях. Должно быть, не все любители историко-культурных адвенчур в реалистичном стиле знакомы с предыдущей работой венгерских авторов - "Кольцо Юмурджака", которая в настоящее время доступна в продаже лишь на платформе iOS. Джонатан Хант тем временем продолжает свои приключения: теперь уже в городе Дебрецене и - сюрприз - в Институте ядерных исследований Венгерской академии наук. Не волнуйтесь: сюжет по-прежнему интересен, держит в напряжении и скучать не заставит. Актёры играют хорошо, как венгерские, так и дублирующие их англо-американские (к сожалению, оригинальную озвучку в Steam не завезли из-за несовпадения хронометража), - ну а головоломки настолько забористые, что авторы отнюдь не случайно сразу же опубликовали в местном сообществе готовое прохождение... Из недостатков стоит отметить разве что дисбаланс между тремя главами: первая немного растянута и отличается почти что одними разговорами; вторая на удивление динамична и предлагает поиграть по очереди за двух персонажей сразу (впрочем, всё здесь линейно и происходит согласно сценарию); ну а третья представляет собой мистоидо-подобный марафон из шести сложнейших головоломок. Настоятельные рекомендации всем любителям приключенческих игр! Моя подробная рецензия: http://questzone.ru/reviews/miazma.php

pros ✅ story is intriguing. journalist Jonathan Hunt is approached by a friend who works for Atomki, a Nuclear Research Institute, to investigate the disappearance of her brother. What begins as a simple missing persons case soon turns into something much more than Hunt bargained for, which sets him on the trail of a piece of ancient meteorite nicknamed "The Devil’s Stone". ✅ when you press the space button, hotspots are highlighted, so there is no need to pixelhunt ✅ decent english voice acting ✅ there is a nice variety of interesting and eccentric side characters. ✅ well quality FMV ✅ generally well acted by some lead actors ✅ decent length ✅ there is auto save ✅ mostly nice variety and many complex, challenging puzzles. There are also inventory-based puzzles to solve, so you can also make multiple combinations in your inventory and create new items. The majority of the puzzle solutions in this game are based on science and historical scientific figures. ✅ there is a quick travel map, which prevents some backtracking ✅ there are two difficulty options (easy and hard) ✅ there are some interesting indoor and outdoor locations from Hungary. ✅ nice background musics cons ❌ there are too many boring scientific and mundane conversations with side characters ❌ there are no Steam achievements and cards ❌ some campy acting from side actors. ❌ general B movie and cheesy feeling ❌ there is too much back-and-forth between areas ❌ the last six safe lock puzzles are quite convoluted and tedious. Overall this is an interesting and fun to play/watch FMV interactive point and click adventure game.

Good game, I purchased based on playing Yumurchak's ring first, so cannot avoid to compare to that game: What is better in Miazma: graphics, quality of videos, pictures, good to keep Hungarian focused story and Hungarian famous people and Debrecen is a nice city, but we do not see too much of it, while we were able to explore Eger very well in previous game. What is not so good: actors not using their voices, but their speech is dubbed with other people, this is a bit disturbing. The end of the game is a bit too quick, the story is not so strong as Yumurchak. Overall it is not soo special, but good game to play once. I played around 14 hours.

Extremely boring FMV game wich tests your level of patience with non stop dialogs and little or no puzzling. Not recommended even for the fans of FMV games of the past, many of which were actually good. This one is not, so beware...

This is not as good as the first game in the series, Yoomurjak's Ring, the plot of which was far more intriguing, but this one is still worth playing. primarily for the puzzles in the second half. I think part of the problem with this game compared to its predecessor is the pacing. Here all the detective/investigation work is in the first half of the game and all the puzzles are in the last half. Because of this you get a bit bored of each before they are done. Additionally, I really wish this Steam version had an option for Hungarian voice with English subtitles. It only has English dubbing, and while a couple of the actors are okay, the majority are terrible. It's also a bit disappointing that, although it bills itself as a full motion video game, this is only once in a while. Mostly you look at still images of the actors. Overall, the game is unique and you learn a bit about Hungarian scientists, and their contributions in physics, which is very nice. I might have heard, at some point, the Hungarians found the first evidence of the neutrino--for instance--but this put it in context and made me care about it. The puzzles are all logical and solvable without a walkthrough, though a couple of things take quite a bit of trial and error since they don't work the way you'd like them to. What I don't really care for is all the walking around required to solve them. And quite often you see just what you are supposed to do and where to go to do it, but even if you go to the proper place, the game won't let you do the thing until you've talked to another person in a different room who tells you to do the thing you already know. So, yes, this is a very weak recommendation. I'm sure there are better adventures games than this out there to spend your time with, but I suppose I'm clicking the positive button on the review because I didn't regret my time with it and I would like to see another similar educational game in series.

grating english dub WTF? slideshow WTF? no puzzles WTF? irritating characters WTF?