A note on my rating system. If something is bad, I feel there’s not much room to move there so I came up with a simple 5 star rating system where there only “bad” rating is 1 star. Here are how you should take any rating below:
= Bad, * = Okay, *** = Good, **** = Great, ***** = Exceptional
Dimhaven: The Lost Source
Finding Dimhaven: The Lost Source was hardly straightforward, nobody I regularly follow in the industry had talked about it nor had it been on any sort of radar of mine. It appeared in my Steam Personal Calendar queue and after being intrigued enough to at least hover over the thumbnail, the small video playing was enough for me to click on it. It was only then that I realised that this was the new game from the developers off Quern, a puzzler that I enjoyed but didn’t love. Dimhaven seemed different though, there was a deliberate choice in style to go for PS1 era graphics and a cool eastern European look where Quern relied on the somewhat traditional trope of this genre in finding yourself in an almost alien world. A short play of the demo later and I was pretty quick to line this one up once I got paid.
It’s hard to talk about what makes Dimhaven so great because I found a lot of what engaged me in the game were how well the puzzles felt natural to the world design. Just exploring the game's areas was a joy in and of itself but the big prize was always finding some clue or note and taking a photo or in my case, writing it in the notebook I had beside me at all times. There is a great tactile feel to a lot of these puzzles too, one early one in particular has you using a machine that slowly lights up as the various elements of your solving efforts are validated and had me pumping my fist in the air upon success.
I don’t know how to discuss puzzle difficulty because honestly, I don’t know my level, I will say that there was one puzzle in this game that I just couldn’t get and I gave it a while to work out. Eventually I had to look up a solution but I still didn’t get it, so I read a lot more into how it actually worked and, it was a lot but thankfully, if I ever go back to the game in a few years, I’ll be able to approach this puzzle with that knowledge and work it out. As for everything else, it took a lot of work, I had 10 pages of notes by the end and at this point, I have a lot of experience with puzzle games like this, I’d say this is on the harder end, but again, I don’t know how to answer that.
As for the story, well it’s a pretty standard one as to how these go, you’re chasing a relative and you end up on a puzzle island because of that. There’s nothing ground breaking here but for me, the world building of games is so much more important in whatever generic story you want to throw at me, that is the strength of games and Dimhaven’s world is one I found fantastic, the graphical style is used to the full advantage and I constantly took in the sights and even did my best to read all the non important information. I didn’t take part in the game’s photo challenge though, again, maybe something for a replay. I also want to make note of but don’t want to talk about it in great detail because I encourage people to check this game out, but the game’s final puzzle has a pretty fun twist to it that I only got to after exhausting a lot of other options, normally I would have been a little bit annoyed, but it was a cute enough choice for me to go with it. That’s pretty vague, but again, I encourage people to check this out and don’t want to spoil it.
Last month, I noted that Call of the Elder Gods another great game in the genre was probably my game of the year at this halfway point and this month, I’m saying that I enjoyed Dimhaven more than that game…which probably puts it at the top of the list so far. There’s still a lot to go for this year and a lot to play but I’d like to think this one will be up there when I’m considering an end of year list. *****
Pointing and Clicking – July
We’ve hit 14 for the year and I’ve made it a point to get at least three more done in August. Only one in July though and that was basically all done on the last day.
Tormentum – Dark Sorrow: This game made me think a lot about how closely associated the point and click genre is with, if not comedy per say, at least light hearted adventuring. Tormentum does not have whimsy, it’s a dark and dreary game that plays as a journey through HR Geiger inspired landscapes. In a lot of ways, the seams show in terms of the indiness of this one and it’s all fairly straightforward and basic in its approach but that works to its advantage, I rarely found myself stuck or had any pathing issues. There is a moral choice system here which I didn’t really understand at first and made a bit of an evil choice which had an impact on the end of the game, I don’t normally like that in adventure games, but it worked here. I think Tormentum is more than a sum of its parts and if you like dark art, this seems to be a project that is forward in presenting you some. It’s funny to say that such a dark and dreary game was breezy, but that was kind of my experience and I actually enjoyed that it didn’t really push back against me at the end of the day. ***
Other Media:
The Odyssey (Film): To start with, I saw The Odyssey as intended, 70mm IMAX on film, this was in the only cinema in the southern hemisphere that is showing it in that format and just from an experience perspective, it is genuinely one of the most all encompassing experiences I’ve had in a cinema. I found the balance of the film in general to be a bit of a mix, I enjoyed the adventure aspect that reminded me of the Harryhausen films I loved when I was young of ping ponging from one crazy adventure to the next and the story back home was also driven by a great cast. I did find myself a little distanced from it overall though, that might fade on a rewatch but for now I’m not quite ready to proclaim this one as an all timer and instead just put it in the great column. ****
Kill Boksoon & Mantis (Films): As I’ll be going to South Korea in November, I wanted to start watching some films and television from the country and my choices here with the semi connected contract killer films were a mixed bag. While I enjoyed Kill Boksoon, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t already seen before right down to the balancing of a difficult personal life with the life of being a killer. That being said, it is driven by a pretty entertaining performance from the lead and the action is always a lot of fun. The set in the same world follow up Mantis doesn’t quite have the down to earth relatable story aspect to it and as the film goes on, the reality of the world starts to fall in on itself. Again, the action here is fun but the characters and their motivations just didn’t really land for me.
Kill Boksoon: ***
Mantis: **
Stargate (Film): I don’t know what drove me to rewatch this film I’d not seen since I was a kid, maybe after the Odyssey I wanted something that had that mythological aspect in a pulpy adventure. While going back to this was fun, it doesn’t really hold up with some less than spectacular action sequences but again, it was fun and its easy to see why this world caught on with people and resonates so well to this day. **
The Fifth Elephant - Discworld 24 (Book): The Night’s Watch books are my partner’s favourites of the Discworld novels but I’ve been a bit at arms lengths with them personally, I really liked Jingo but thought it fell away a little towards the end. That distance all went away with The Fifth Elephant which was one I enjoyed from beginning to end. There was a fun realisation I had while reading this and understanding why the Watch and Vimes in particular became such an important character for Pratchett and I think that just had a lot to do with how he changed as a person, while he may have seen himself as a Rincewind figure when he first started writing the novels, by the time he got to the late 90s with this one, his life had changed and it’s fun to see how I presume he put himself in Vimes. If the books continue to soar this high, it’s going to be a fun race to the finish. *****
August Plans:
I’m still working my way through Dragon Quest VII reimagined, that’s been somewhat slow going but I can see the end even though progress insists I’m only 60% through. I started playing Halo Combat Evolved and I just really love that game so I’ll pick at it but wont dive in completely. I’m going to give Beast of Reincarnation a go and then later in the month, Mortal Shell 2, not sure if I’ll finish either by the end of the month, but I’ll make sure there’s something to write about.