Once Glorious Artahk

A great exploration-based puzzle game. I've heard it called a Metroidbraina, and while I don't quite agree, it was a wonderful experience still. I also saw that the dev added multiple options to the game to help various player complaints, which is a great touch. Good dev, good work. For a game like this, the worldbuilding was surprisingly interesting, I really liked the tales, the mysteries and the evocative way various concepts (such as the garden, or "white") were conjured in the imagination. I loved the experience, despite a few things I really didn't like. One was the beast. I understand the vision, but if, say, Talos Principle randomly killed you if you stayed on a puzzle too long, I'd hate it. Thankfully, the dev added an option to turn it off which I ended up using. The other thing I didn't like were the timing puzzles - the controls of "magenta" kept tripping me up, and I had to redo some of them way too many times, just because I found the input too difficult and the timing too tight (for two, I had to look up guides - I was doing the right idea, but my execution was lacking). Despite these, I still loved the experience to fully complete the game until every last puzzle I found was solved. If the dev ever returns to this world, I'd be happy to visit it again. Highly recommended. For the antler foxes, may they learn much from this.

Good puzzles, cool story, deserves more love

EDIT: The complaints in my review have been adressed. The puzzles seem great, but navigating the first major area is horrible. It's an almost featureless maze of forest paths, and you're expected to find a bunch of things in there. After looking for a specific place I knew had to exist for a while, I consulted a steam guide, and was told I had to go to the "ruins area of the tangled overgrowth". I had not found this area yet, and figured I missed some path, so I spent 20 minutes walking around the forest trying to find a path I hadn't taken, until I gave up and refunded the game. The game seems cool! But the high zoom level, lack of map and low texture variety made exploration extremely frustrating.

This game is immediately gripping and intriguing. The writing, art style, and level design is all really detailed and impressive so far. Great start and I'm already hooked :) looking forward to a lot more of this!

Excellent puzzle adventure game. If you enjoy knowledge-gated games and exploration, you will enjoy this.

I want to love this game but it can be so frustrating I'm not sure I want to continue. 😭 Mostly I really dislike the light orb timed puzzles. I just want to read the rest of the very good journal entries and story, but I don't have the willpower to attempt the puzzle again after 30 mins of failure so I'm throwing in the towel. I'm still going to recommend the game cause this is a me problem and the story is so good, I'm going to be wondering about that fox for a long time. 🥲

Fun, engaging enough to complete, and not too overwhelming re: linking together disparate clues for a exploration-puzzle game like this.

A very good, very polished, very challenging top down puzzler. An enjoyable story complements the puzzles, which can leave you with your head scratching for a bit, and great satisfaction when you get it. Take notes and screenshots, and maybe draw a map.

A very interesting metroidbrainia! Also, the lore and the atmosphere are very captivating dark fantasy.

An interesting take on information games supported by a surprisingly good lore. Slow burn. Long game. Starts easy, but it ramps up. Be ready to read, it is the most important (and interesting) part of this game: it goes all-in creating a deep lore that you will need to understand to move forward. Its rawness in its design is kind of a blessing today: you won't be handheld here. And be patient. Some days you won't advance that much, some days you will have plenty of epiphanies.