Moon Castle

[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow our curator page: [b]IndieGems[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] Moon Castle self-advertises as a "new adventure game like Myst, Riven, and Obduction." Unfortunately the simile drives up expectations to not unreasonable standards. Dare I say, however, these expectations are not met. The game's 19.99 USD price tag is way too high, there are so many much better games out there for this price. The game is supposed to be a series of puzzles, instead of offers a plethora of senseless locations and things that do not go together. There is no hint of what to do or where to go. Your goal is escape from Moon Castle, but the only way I found to do this realistically is by leaving the game. The game starts you on a path and you walk around, looking at the poorly rendered graphics, polygonal rocks, trees, leaves, random shadows on the ground, small random open spaces that do now allow you to go, an environment of clouds that spins in a circular pattern, and a couple of rooms that do not make a lot of sense. You walk into a small chamber and are locked up by two drawbridges on either side. Why any place would have two drawbridges seriously beats me. Okay, looking past this, you are face to face with a small button and box, within which is a basic "hangman" puzzle that you get only by trial and error. After which, the game begins. The following is a first look video of the game. The game introduction begins at 4:45 after the initial first bits of this game. Not exactly high quality in my mind. I will let you judge for yourself. https://youtu.be/gTuJDtKC7i0 The controls are super wonky, you have to click and hold down the mouse in order to look around. You walk forward and backward with scrolling the mouse wheel. Or you can use WASD to move forward, backward, and turn to the left and right. There is no way to strafe left and right. Interactive objects do not change the mouse cursor at all, so you have no idea whether what you are looking at is something you can do anything with. You just have to randomly click all over the place to find out. The game does save automatically wherever you are. There seems to be a place for saved games, but there is no way to select or to have multiple saves. You can restart the game if you get stuck, and this seems to be very often. The reason for the need to many restarts seems to be how buggy the game is (V. 1.0.9). On my main computer, I had no way of interacting with any physical objects (even the ones that I am supposed to be able to). I tried multiple times, tried restarting my computer, tried reinstalling the game, etc. Nothing worked. I switched to a different computer and I could run the game, and the interactions were all right, but the game inconsistently throws random variables at me. One time after the start video, the "door" in front of me was open, another time, it was closed. Another time, I interacted with the button in the first room before the intro and before that first "puzzle" I got transported to the second room, skipping the intro altogether. Then the game would not proceed. 10+ different game starts with different outcomes based on bugs seems to me a good indicator to not continue. Unfortunately I cannot comment on the rest of the game, perhaps the puzzles will make more sense later on, but I am too disinterested in it at this point to continue. [quote]I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.[/quote]

Positive: - Puzzles are very good in the last third of the game. Developer definitely knows how to design nice challenges and integrate them into the gameworld through interesting mechanical devices. Rotating bridges, giant telescopes, lasers.. etc. Nothing too original, but it is well executed. - Pacing and overall flow is well done. Once the game picked up around its midway point, I couldn't turn it off and finished it in a single 7 hour session. Negative: - Control scheme is bizarre.. I have no idea why this game does not have standard first person controls. - Early puzzles are a bit over-clued and does not offer the same satisfaction level as the later ones. It is obvious that the developer matured his design skills as he was completing the game. - Music doesn't really fit the atmosphere. - Point systems is not a bad idea, but since you end up gathering all points as you finish the game (there are no extra/secret puzzles that makes you earn additional points), it doesn't really add anything and works more like a progress bar for finishing the game. - I think the game would have been more interesting if it was nonlinear. Current design has three major areas that should be completed in sequence. - Visuals are adequate but some of the shadows are too dark, which makes it difficult to navigate and observe clues in such areas. Being a huge Myst fan, I enjoyed Moon Castle a lot. Unfortunately first few hours of the game is its weakest part, hence I think a lot of people will be put off by the weird controls, muddy graphics and medicore puzzles. However, the game definitely picks up after the initial areas and later stages have some very solid puzzle and area design. If you are a hardcore puzzle adventure fan I think you will like this game. Hopefully the developer will continue to pubish new games.

This thing was fun for awhile and then it fell into the trap of being seriously overcomplicated. I was ok until i stumbled into that underground lab with no real motivation to solve it. Games jump the shark when puzzles seem pointless. I can handle difficult in context (Riven) but can't handle tedious grinds for filler.(Myst 4) This started out promising but became a chore. When the fun is gone and it feels like work, I'm done. Sorry.

Finally completed the game. And I think it's a 100% myst-like game with enjoyable environmental puzzles (my favorite one is about lasers; *those Myst feelings*). Yes, graphics and optimization leave much to be desired, but don't let it scare you off :) This game is a little gem. If you are a fan of mystoids - and there are not many of them nowadays - just give it a try.

spiel jetzt 4 std erste bewertung -habe ich mir mehr von erwartet --- keine grafik gamma einstellung usw . ,habe meine grafikkarte voll gamma und helligkeit -- mein bildschirm voll gamma und helligkeit ist ein teuer samsung --trotzdem sind die grafiken im spiel sehr dunkel und entsprechen nicht dem video ..gerade bei so einem spiel mit versteckten sachen ,hebel , schalter sollte die grafik schon stimmen ! ...die steuerung ist schon sehr ungewöhnlich ätzend . ich weiss nicht was der programierer uns damit sagen will .. du must immer eine taste beim drehen drücken warum auch immer. dann dieses von selbst speichern -fällst du in eine schlucht durch ein bug ,speichert er genau dort .so das du beim laden wieder dort landest und kannst praktisch wieder neu anfangen mit dem kapitel...also mit dem geilen spiel "quern" hat das spiel wirklich nichts zu tun .. aber abwarten...

If you enjoyed Myst and Quern, then you should enjoy this game. The puzzles are fun. The graphics are very good, of course. I've played it twice and enjoyed both times.

I had low expectations about this game. The trailer did not look so good. But this game advertises itself as a Myst style game and I have a hunger for anything that is like Myst. I am so glad I played it because this game turned out to be a very good puzzle game that offers plenty of hours of fun gameplay. After playing it I can confirm that this game is 100% a Myst style game. The game has a room with rotating walls, a rotating temple, moving platforms, a cleverly hidden room, laser beams, strange devices to operate and a rollercoaster ride. The game has plenty of puzzles that are very good. An extra thing I liked about this game is that there is text to read in this game, but it is not a lot of text. The text is short and to the point. I welcome that because I don’t like lots of reading as it is sometimes the case with Myst style games. What I did not like was that the game contains two mini-games that involve quick timing. One of them is the famous three-cups-and-a-ball game. Luckily both games can be won easily by using the film-camera on a mobile phone. Another negative part of Moon Castle is that the shadows are 100% black, this makes parts of the environments non-visible. There was one elevator button in particular that I was unable to see. Even after consulting a walkthrough I had great trouble in detecting that button. I even thought for a while that the walkthrough was wrong. Other than that I only have positive opinions about this game. It is a great Myst-style game to play while waiting for the next game made by Cyan. A must play for Myst fans.

It is myst like and doesnt hold your hand. Good puzzles fun atomosphere and all around enjoyable experiance if you like Myst like games buy moon castle.

Nun denn... Da ich ein großer Freund von Grafik Adventures bin, hatte ich eine unwahrscheinliche Vorfreude auf das Spiel. Und ich bin absolut nicht enttäuscht worden. In diesem Spiel steckt viel Liebe zum Detail, sowohl bei den "onrides", als auch bei der Rätselqualität. Einige Puzzles konnte ich schnell mit Logik lösen, andere bereiteten deutlich mehr Kopfzerbrechen. Genau die richtige Mischung für mich. Leider gab es (ganz zu Beginn) viele Bugs, aber hier wurde vom Entwickler nach kurzem Hinweis schnell reagiert und durch Updates Abhilfe geschaffen. Allerdings hätte ich es ohne seine Unterstützung wohl nicht so schnell geschafft. Vielen Dank nochmal an dieser Stelle! Mein Fazit: Absolut empfehlenswert! Super Spiel! (Allerdings möchte ich zu einem "schnelleren Computer", als es meiner ist, raten, da das Spiel sonst alles andere als flüssig läuft. Da braucht man dann schon einen "langen Atem" und viel Geduld. Die Mindestanforderungen an den PC sollten also beachtet werden.)

Generally I love this type of game, having played Myst and Riven. However, this one will not function with my Rift system. It works fine up to the point where you ride the car from the castle, then the whole point of view goes out of whack. from that point on, you are looking at the ground and to see horizontally, you have to look straight up (very uncomfortable). I tried different settings to no avail. It might work on other systems, but if you have a Rift, forget it.