Veritas

[h1]Veritas Free Your Mind [/h1] A very difficult escape room clone with puzzles that will provide a challenge but won’t deliver on story or atmosphere. [h1] First Impressions [/h1]🤔 [b]I have played a lot of point and click adventure games, and this is the hardest I have encountered. [/b] This is not a traditional point and click adventure, but lots of escape room scenarios with a weak story tagged on. [b]Sometimes clues are very cryptic and can confuse, and solutions still don’t make sense even after learning the answer!! [/b] This was my main issue with the game. The puzzles are extremely difficult, and that is fine, but occasionally the answers did not make sense, or the mechanics of the puzzle weren’t explained. When the puzzles worked, they were brilliant, and they are the most original puzzles I have seen. It makes you feel intelligent when you finally solve one but if you do get stuck there is a very comprehensive hint system that explains in detail what you need to do. The hints are broken down into stages, so they are excellent at nudging you along without revealing too much. The atmosphere is incredibly gloomy and felt claustrophobic. The dated graphics added to the depressive nature of the game and the story was one of tragedy. I didn’t connect with the story. I found it a bit confusing and not very entertaining. The story was mainly told through short letters or notes found hidden around the facility, but there were also occasional cut scenes, although very brief. There are about seven chapters to play through and roughly four or five puzzles within each chapter. There is a bit of back tracking as you will have to revisit chapters to complete puzzles when you have acquired the correct objects. Moving around the facility is quick and easy as there aren’t that many rooms to navigate. I would estimate that the game could be completed within 5-10 hours depending on your skill level and how much you use the hint system. [quote][h1] If you like traditional point and click adventure games with a decent story, then I wouldn’t recommend this. If you like difficult escape room games, then this will certainly appeal to you and I would recommend on this basis alone. [/h1][/quote] [h1]Story[/h1]📕 [h1]Synopsis[/h1] Having volunteered to take part in a study by Veritas Industries, you find yourself locked in a cell with no recollection of events. You cannot remember how long you have been there or what experiments have been taking place. After receiving a distress call from a fellow patient you decide to investigate the plea for help. As you escape your prison you begin to piece together the activities, conveniently revealed by handwritten notes left about the complex. [h1]Verdict[/h1] The story is quite weak and it soon becomes apparent that it is a side note to the mainstay of the game which is solving puzzles and escaping rooms. There are no real characters, apart from yourself, to get to know, and even then we don’t find out much. I have never been a fan of storytelling through notes. I think it is a lazy way of painting a narrative and it never has enough depth to satisfy. In this game it is purely here to hold together and introduce new puzzles. Don’t expect to be blown away by the story as you will be disappointed. [h1]Gameplay:[/h1]🕹️ The game is played in first person view. You move around by pressing the mouse on doorways, apart from when you want to go backwards, then you have to press the right mouse button. This took me a while to adjust to as I kept moving the cursor to the bottom of the screen, which opens your inventory. Pressing “P” highlights all areas of significant interest and areas which are associated with solving puzzles. You can still interact with other objects in the room but these will only illicit a narrative response and often cannot be picked up. When tasks in these areas have been exhausted they will stop sparkling. You can turn this off if you want to make the game even harder. You have an inventory which will always contain a [i]camera [/i] and a [i]diary [/i] The camera is very useful for photographing clues which you can later use to solve puzzles. Once you take a photo it appears in your diary which you can easily access and place next to the puzzle as reference. This is a novel way of note taking and will save you writing a lot of things down on paper. However, I still found the need to use a pen and paper on many puzzles in addition to the photographs. One thing the game doesn’t explain is that you can write on the photos with an edit feature. The photographs can be deleted once used which is useful for keeping your collection neat and tidy. [h1]Puzzles[/h1]🧩 [b]Most of the puzzles are incredibly difficult [/b] so if you want a challenge this game will appeal to you. As usual, you travel around the rooms picking up objects which you will need to solve puzzles. You can’t really examine objects but highlighting them in your inventory will rotate them and give a brief description. You can occasionally combine objects. Some clues are visual and can be cryptic in nature. Mostly they were clever and thought provoking but occasionally they felt unfair. For example, the words “Shoot Me!” were scribbled in a sink in a dark, damp, decrepit prison cell. Just a prisoner’s plea to end their misery I thought but it was in fact a clue and the answer was to [spoiler] Take a photo of the plughole to reveal an object lodged in the drainpipe [/spoiler]. Other puzzles seem illogical or make no sense even after you reveal the answer. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2008870298 You soon begin to understand the reasoning behind the puzzles however and as you progress you will find it easier. For example, a random set of test tubes filled to different levels or an innocently set dining room table with food on [spoiler] could represent hidden number combinations.[/spoiler] It is a bit illogical as why would they!? But this is the way the game behaves. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2008081480 When the puzzles are good, they are very good and appear to be very original and clever. The beauty of the hint system is that you can have as much or as little help as you require. Each puzzle has its own hints and they are divided up into stages. For example, clue 1 might say “Pick up the security Pass.” Underneath will be a spoiler alert revealing the whereabouts of the pass. Once you have picked up the security pass it will get marked as completed on the hint system. I really liked the hint system and thought it was a brilliant way of making sure you never get stuck. Of course, you have to be disciplined as it is far too easy to use this system and reveal the answer. Here is another example of a puzzle. Finding the symbols is part of the puzzle but when I had all the elements I still couldn’t work out the solution because I didn’t know what the symbols represented. See if you can work out what they mean? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2008869396 [h1]Sound:[/h1]🎵 The sound is average at best. There is a mellow and somber tune playing throughout the game and there are occasional voice overs which are quite good. Special effect sounds are adequate and sound as they should. [h1]Conclusion[/h1]⚖ [b]This game would appeal to escape room enthusiasts who like a decent challenge.[/b] [b]This game will not appeal to people who are looking for a point and click adventure game with a decent story. [/b] The puzzles are original and very difficult to complete and the inclusion of the excellent hint system means this won’t become a sticking point. Curator Info: [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/7871885/]Follow our curator page:[b] OCG-Curations[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] This game was received for free through curator connect.

[b]veritas[/b] is the mostly competent pc version of a 1st-person point & click / escape room adventure also available on mobiles. you wake up in a cell, a lady on the intercom prompts you to find her, so you get to it. flashbacks, notes from different people, plus the usual variety of inventory-based and regular puzzles. [b]you also have a camera[/b], can take pictures of anything, put notes on them and bring them up while looking at puzzles. for the most part I found it easier to use a pen and paper than go through the photos, it was too finicky with mobile-like controls. it's a human experiment gone wrong situation, who knows what happened in the facility and to the others. well, you'll find out eventually by playing, won't go into more details, though [b]the ending is pretty disappointing[/b]. some puzzles are a bit out there but [b]no real-time or timed stuff, enemies to avoid or any of that nonsense[/b], and the one qr code only requires an in-game reader, not your phone and a website that's bound to go down eventually. typical point & click controls, left click to move around and interact, right click to zoom out/go back. getting around was a bit slow but it might be my old pc being old. various hotkeys are also in play: esc for the menu, backspace to zoom/back out, 'h' for hints, 'p' for points of interest (mouse wheel click would've been nice for this), space takes a photo, enter opens the album (both are also in your inventory). tooltips and easy access to hints can be turned off if you know you don't have any self-control. good stuff, except [b]the hotspot indicator has to be the most annoying I've ever seen[/b] with everything sparkling in different colors and [b]they don't disappear while you're trying to read a document[/b] either, though the hotkey works. most things have some flavor text, but only stuff with actual use is highlighted, so whether sparkly or not, it's worth a click. there's also an 'increased difficulty' toggle, whatever that does. the rest of the [b]settings include some really neat stuff[/b] besides separate volume sliders, screen flash and shader effect toggles and a brightness slider. there's a setting for subtitle speed, size and background for better readability, which can be further improved by enabling a dyslexic font. inventory scaling can also be set, inventory animations can be turned off (the 'whoosh' sound of the inventory opening and closing on mouseover sadly cannot), and there's a bunch of settings for the in-game camera (photo quality, animation and flash toggles, flash brightness, etc.). [b]constant autosaving happens in the background[/b] and you can press 'b' anytime to make a backup and export/import saves over multiple slots if you so desire. the dev has a [url=https://glitch.games/support/exported-save-files/]page of 'exported saves'[/url] (codes to copy-paste) that basically act as chapter select. too bad [b]they were too lazy to add proper chapter selection and manual saving over multiple slots[/b]. took me longer than I thought, [b]5 hours or so[/b], and it's [b]pretty good overall[/b], if nothing extraordinary, with [b]a surprising amount of detail for an 'also on mobile' title[/b] (or any game in general), but [b]mouse controls can bug out[/b]. it happened after a few alt+tabs on more than one occasion, right click simply stopped working (backspace still did the trick) and I couldn't bring up the inventory either, had to restart the game. serves me right for taking notes for the review while playing. [b]terminals can bug out too[/b], they only use the first few lines of the screen sometimes and text almost immediately disappears on top. there was some post-release support but some things are still not fixed 2 years after release, so [b]half price is the most anyone should pay for this, about the same as the mobile version[/b]. they also removed the demo after a while, always a ♥♥♥♥ move.

This is yet another excellent puzzler from Glitch Games. Veritas has been a long time coming and it did not disappoint! Clever puzzles (some of which were quite difficult for me) make this much more than a typical 'escape' game. The atmosphere is dark and mysterious with a solid sound track. I enjoyed this immensely and, if you have not been a Glitch gamer before, I'd recommend you play this and circle back through ALL of their previous adventures. All are outstanding examples of why the point-and-click genre can still be as fun as ever! Note - I finished this game in about 7 hours. My Steam time is less than this because I played the game (to completion) on my Android tablet

I have to agree with several reviewers. Way way to buggy to waste your money. Lost all progress several times. Also the response time to back out from a scene just gets longer and longer as you progress through the game. I just gave up after spending 8 hours over the past week. I like the mechanics and the puzzles but it just wasn't worth the aggravation and I don't see how I could have ever progressed to the end anyway. Sorry Glitch Games. Come out with some serious bug fix work and I'd consider trying it again. Right now I'm out $12.99. UPDATE: The developer has corrected the issues I mentioned and the game now plays well. I would however recommend that going forward they implement some kind of regression testing before releasing "platform" updates or other similar kinds of peripheral changes to the application eco-system.

As much as I like the puzzles and atmosphere as single concept, the execution is more than lacking. The controls bounce from sluggish to rebellious at times, often rejecting the correct use of objects and literally moving me out of the room I'm in just because I dared to click something too fast. On top of that, the game seems dead set on traveling between each scene as slow as possible, which is particularly frustrating in a game where you have to back track constantly to solve every puzzle. It's been a long time since Myst pioneered this kind of game, and yet with all this time, my modern gaming PC can't seem to run this poorly optimized point-and-click romp in any way I'd call satisying.

I really want to like this game. To play this game. But the game engine is just too slow. What should be quick or near-instant movements between screens are unbearably slow. It's like playing on a 20 year old computer, yet my machine is brand new

I like the game - the puzzles are interesting and not too difficult - but the issue I have is with items that are essential to completing the game disappearing from your inventory. Glitch Games seems an apt name for the company.

Glitch games are teh best!

Malgré certains problème de Fluidité et de clicks qui ne fonctionnent pas bien le jeu est vachement cool et nous met a l'épreuve à chaque moment !

I played a lot of Glitch games on my iPad back in the day - they had some of the most consistent point-and-click adventure game content in a market frankly oversaturated with awful point-and-clicks. They've tackled a lot of very different styles, from the corny pun-filled Ferris Mueller's Day Off to the ambient horror Forever Lost series. Their staple game mechanic - the camera which lets you screenshot various game elements - is a brilliant way of providing the player with the tools necessary to take notes without having to grab a pen and paper (or commit long codes to memory). While a lot of the individual puzzles in Veritas are still very fun, with answers hidden in the environment in interesting ways, the game itself is bogged down by a bizarre genre-hopping story with a lame ending and frankly awful performance for the PC. The story presents itself as a horror story - filled with diaries to find, blood trails and bodies - but it also includes humorous pop culture references which clash with that theme immensely. Similarly, many of the puzzles involve interpreting your environment in clever ways to find codes to solve puzzles, but then one puzzle involves a bizarre out-of-place pun straight from the world of Ferris Mueller which I would never had guessed without the game's hint system. The story itself is also incredibly cliche, and I quickly found myself disregarding the more detailed logs on the computers throughout the game when it became clear the story would likely lead to nothing [spoiler](and indeed it does, the whole thing amounts to something similar to 'it was all a dream', making all the lore pointless, and the stakes next to zero)[/spoiler]. None of this was helped by the fact that, despite coming out in 2022, this game performs worse than Myst, which came out almost three decades ago. Moving between screens in order to navigate the massive map is tedious and frustrating, and makes the (normally satisfying) process of returning to an earlier area to solve a puzzle take ages. There's no clear indication of which areas or objects are interactable, which is especially problematic when half of the set pieces in the game are 'glued on' or 'fake' in-universe, which makes it hard to tell which objects you should interact with and which you shouldn't. The most egregious interface in the game is the one used to navigate the game's computer terminals (which are not essential to complete puzzles but contain much of the game's 'lore') which are so slow and clunky (and, frequently, broken) that after exploring the first one a little, I never interacted with another again. If that weren't enough to make you think this game lacks polish, after Chapter 4 comes Chapter 8 (according to the title cards between chapters). I am at a loss as to how something basic like this gets into the final product of a game, unless it was a genius trick by the developers to make it feel like the game you just played was longer than you thought (which isn't necessary, because this game was so tedious it already felt like it took longer than 3 hours to finish). These issues make the game feel incredibly unpolished and disappointing. The few good moments you'll have with this game - both with the story and puzzles - are bogged down by the foreknowledge that the story won't amount to anything substantial, and the slow, tedious interfaces you need to interact with to play the game. I'd hazard a guess that this game is nearly a direct port from some mobile version, which is understandable, but doesn't make the game any better to play.