Trackless

Walking simulator + text puzzle with unusual art style and weird futuristic setting. Puzzles are not very diffucult, you must guess one of several proper verbs. Some puzzles are optional.

A first-person adventure game with a text parser? Sign me up! Cleverness abounds from this low-budget indie game. Your vocabulary skills equal points, so e.g. if you "take" an object you get less points than if you, say, "acquire" or "retrieve" it. But all that is just flavor and don't influence the game itself, which is a smart move. The wonkiness of the graphics (2D flat sprites in a 3D world) would seem like a downfall of any other game, but here it adds to the otherworldly mysteriousness of it all. Combine that with an excellent musical score by Makeup And Vanity Set and you've got a dream-like atmosphere like no other. Only downside (for me) is that when I streamed this game, I kept getting copyright strikes from Makeup And Vanity Set's publishers. Licensing music to a game and then cracking down on YouTubers who try to play said game is NOT cool.

Got this one recommended by a friend and I can recommend it to anyone in turn. A short and enjoyable text adventure with a charming art style.

I feel as if I should add a disclaimer here: This isn’t the typical type of game you’ll see me play or review but I still wanted to give it a fair shot. Starting out the game literally drops you into a train car with no direction or introduction at all and as someone new to the game without any background information as to what it was or how I should play it I spent several minutes just figuring out how to interact with the game and the world I was in. The controls themselves thankfully aren’t overly complicated, you use WASD to move around and right-click to interact with objects The other interesting, and at times frustrating mechanic, is when you’re given the opportunity to type in a verb, e.g. to raise the water level, I was stuck at first because I kept trying things like “push”, “switch”, or “turn” thinking I needed a verb to tell the character how to interact with the control box rather than one to tell them the end task I was trying to accomplish with that control box. I did see somewhere in the game that at times more than one verb would allow you to complete a task but that certain verbs would grant you more points than others, I would have liked to have seen the vocabulary increased to include additional words for some of those tasks that I felt made sense even if they didn’t net you many points. The visuals are fairly simple and are 2-dimensional even though you’re wandering around in a 3-dimensional world and the character cut-outs that you interact with twist or turn at all times so that wherever you are in relation to them they are always facing you (aka, “Billboarding”). The character designs reminded me of something you might see in the Cyberpunk 2020 tabletop RPG manuals. Though I didn’t see any information about this title going to VR, visually it seemed as if it could work with those platforms pretty well. The story itself creates a mysterious and intriguing journey and the music lends very well to the atmosphere and the story. The other two things I felt worth mentioning are the cellphone, which is your constant companion that keeps track of the tasks available in each area and is from time to time used to send messages back and forth to some of the other NPCs, and the Save Game feature which you activate by standing on certain platforms in the game. Fail to find and save your game means you could end up all the way back at the beginning, but these are fairly easy to find and spread out through the game. Activating it to save your game is as simple as walking up to it and standing on it briefly which you’ll then get a notification of the save. Conclusion/Rating Note: Bammsters score different parts of the game on a 1-10 scale, with 4-6 being the average. Design: 6 The design for this title is 2-dimensional and pretty basic and yet still helps to create an interesting and at times mysterious atmosphere. The music was really well done and was a nice compliment to the art and story. Challenge: 3 Though there were moments of frustration at times trying to find the right verb to get something to work so I could complete a task to move on, I didn’t feel as if the game itself was all that challenging. Fun: 4 As mentioned above, this isn’t the type of game I typically play, but it did provide an interesting distraction from the stuff I usually delve into. Replay: 3 I don’t see much reason to play the game again once you’ve finished. Price: 6 While $9.99 isn’t much to pay for a game, this is a title I would pick up on a Steam sale. For myself I think at $5.00 it would be priced where I would be ok with purchasing it. Overall Score: 4.4 out of 10 – Median For more reviews and links to our podcast check out: [url=https://bammsters.com/] Bammsters.com [/url]

An interesting adventure with a unique verb selection gameplay mechanic. Quite straightforward - I didn't have to look at a guide to get two of the endings. The atmosphere was unusual and I'd like to explore more of this world if there were a sequel.

Really great narrative puzzle game. You carry a phone which serves as your guide and method for interacting with the world. Using it you can solve puzzles, or equip themes to see the world differently than everyone else, including literally seeing ghosts. I supported this game through fig (essentially kickstarter) and I'm really glad I did. The custom soundtrack by Makeup and Vanity Set is very good

The text-input mechanic is kind of underutilized, but it's a cool story full of cool environments, and more exploration and optional stuff to find than first appearances would suggest.

That's how it feels to wake up from an extended nap cause you forgot to set the alarm.

One of my favourite games, built around a divisive single word parser that either lights your brain on fire („I‘m a genius!“) or you see it as trivial verb guessing. Every found solution made me (not a native English speaker) feel like the cleverest person of all time (which I am definitely not). So thanks for that. I adore the combination of walkable 3D environments, word puzzles and atmospheric music. Also best intro monorail ride since [i]Half-Life[/i].

Beautiful game. The music is amazing, the graphics are clever and stylish. Moves smoothly. Thesaurus and word guessing puzzles are simple yet satisfying. Definitely worth checking out.