Adventure Gamers - Forums

I tried a new, pretty meaty demo with some real puzzles today. Nothing too hard but I had fun with it. The game is called Monolith and you are a space explorer who crash lands on a strange planet. You work for a mining company, but you have lost your memory. the game opens up with you waking up in a hospital recounting how you got off the planet to a doctor. Something strange seems afoot. Anyways the puzzles are 90 percent inventory based with some other very light puzzling thrown in, like adjusting power cell power and wiring. The demo last a little over an hr and the game comes out at the end of september. Im really curious to see what yall think, here is the steam link.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1542390/Monolith/

diego - 30 August 2023 06:32 PM

Thanks for the heads-up, I just want to add that Monolith is not just a random new title, it’s been in development for almost 10 years, it’s been announced on this site in 2014 - https://adventuregamers.com/news/view/27840

The developer is no stranger, too, Animation Arts made pretty cool Secret Files: Tunguska and Lost Horizon, along with sequels in each series.

I liked lost horizon a lot, did not care for secret files at all.

I liked their previous games but the setting “surviving after crashed on a planet on her own” doesn’t get me excited tbh.

dirac - 31 August 2023 07:20 AM

I liked their previous games but the setting “surviving after crashed on a planet on her own” doesn’t get me excited tbh.

You have a robot companion who is fun. I say try the demo and see what you think.

diego - 31 August 2023 08:35 AM

Amazing graphics in the first few screens I’ve seen so far, especially the deserted planet, gives strong The Dig vibes. The puzzles were not bad, either.

yeah a lot of inventory based puzzles, use this on this to get out of the ship, or to fix this on the ship. all pretty easy and very logical, so far in the demo.

I like the ID cards with lore on them

diego - 31 August 2023 06:56 PM

Wow, that’s an instant classic sidekick! Couldn’t be more up-to-date with the rise of ChatGPT. I say this looks like contender for a Top 5 games of the year - very polished, solid puzzles and cool sidekick. It DOES have some flaws already associated with Animation Arts games, like somewhat sterile atmosphere and main character, but I guess in the deserted planet in space, one can’t expect more than that.

I agree and while the voice acting ain’t great/not terrible eitherfor the main female character, I actually love the robot.

The alien world looks awesome and the game ran fine, even on my old machine. although it did take forever to First boot up which kind of worries me and the opening cutscene did stutter a bit but after that it was fine.

Also I want to give props on the demo in general, to me this is the perfect length. Plus it gives a very good idea of what the puzzles will be like and so far I like them.

Bit mixed on this. Seems interesting; all sorts of classic tropes (is it a Space Odysee perhaps?) - strange planet that sends out signal, amnesia, shady corporation. Plays fairly smoothly, visuals are nice, solid production value.

But the writing seems a bit ... eh, simple? “Oh, he’s probably in the cockpit, but let’s for some reason randomly try to get out there first” or “wow look at this weird green gas, eh, whatever, I don’t like wearing my helmet” and such.

I also really don’t like cliche narrative framing like the “hospital debriefing”. Reminds me of so many average stories (like Annihilation, also very much about that sorta “let’s figure out some weird zone”). Just let me experience the story naturally WITHOUT telling me where we end up (and with different character models apparently which might or might not mean something ^^).

Lastly I wanted the tone to be more urgent, desolate, mysterious. Feels too quippy p&c adventure-y. Which is the one where you crash on a seemingly desert planet? Forgot what it was called, but more like that (as far as I remember ^^).

Pyoro-2 - 01 September 2023 11:41 AM

Bit mixed on this. Seems interesting; all sorts of classic tropes (is it a Space Odysee perhaps?) - strange planet that sends out signal, amnesia, shady corporation. Plays fairly smoothly, visuals are nice, solid production value.

But the writing seems a bit ... eh, simple? “Oh, he’s probably in the cockpit, but let’s for some reason randomly try to get out there first” or “wow look at this weird green gas, eh, whatever, I don’t like wearing my helmet” and such.

I also really don’t like cliche narrative framing like the “hospital debriefing”. Reminds me of so many average stories (like Annihilation, also very much about that sorta “let’s figure out some weird zone”). Just let me experience the story naturally WITHOUT telling me where we end up (and with different character models apparently which might or might not mean something ^^).

Lastly I wanted the tone to be more urgent, desolate, mysterious. Feels too quippy p&c adventure-y. Which is the one where you crash on a seemingly desert planet? Forgot what it was called, but more like that (as far as I remember ^^).

Writing seems good to me, the delivery of some of the lines seems iffy, i agree on that. The Tone does seem pretty urgent to me, its just the robot has a deadpan delivery, and it comes off as humorous.

I love the look of the world. Plus the MC clearly has done these type of missions b4 so she is trained and wouldnt be running around like a chicken with her head cut off.

The game I was thinking about is JULIA. Obviously, I’m now re-playing it a bit ^^; Bit I gotta admit, I remembered that wrongly ... the heroine is similarly kinda quippy about her situation at the beginning (until she gets more morose as she keeps finding dead people which I hear tends to be bad for the mood).

Either way, I didn’t mean to suggest it was extremely comedic or anything. Just a little bit too much on the “adventure game lead character” tone for me - I’d have liked something more analytic, scientific, that sorta tone. But eh. We’ll see how the narrative plays out and how the tone may change then.

Thanks for bringing this up, Jdawg445!
Monolith is a game I followed and kept my eye on for some time.

I tried the demo and was very impressed, generally speaking.
Quite a few flaws, like the seriousness of the character, didn’t feel quite believable to me, and things like 10 feet tall steel bar or a flaming torch or an open fire in your pocket, didn’t quite seem logical to me either, especially for such a realistic approach of the game.

Yes, a game is a game and some things are forgivable, but if you aim for realism with such beautiful visual quality, then everything else should match up as well.
True, most of the PnC ancestors are rather funny and comedic and you have to contribute to that as well, out of respect, but it does leave a taste like maybe developers were just too lazy to invest in puzzles.

It’s a demo, I get it, and hopefully will be improved in the full version, but considering that the release date is so close, then I doubt it.

But judging by the demo…

Graphics - 10/10 (Impressive. Probably the best-looking PnC I have ever seen)
(...After Syberia)
(...And Broken Sword)
Animations - 5/10 (Good, but not so good. Look a bit sloppy and rough, and would like to see more custom animations to blend in with the environment)
Gameplay - 8/10 (Felt smooth and solid. Controls were simple and enough)
Story - 7/10 (Nothing special in terms of originality and innovation, but it did intrigue me enough to want more)

Well done!
Will look forward to the full version.

This looks very interesting! Was only watching trailer (won’t even try the demo, I’ll rather wait for the full game), but the only thing I didn’t like was sterile voice acting. It felt so fake. But the story looks intriguing and I love The Dig vibes.