Adventure Gamers - Forums

This looks like one of the more impressive Kickstarters I have seen. They have a lot of work on the game done already including a demo and it looks great. I like the idea of an open world with new quests popping up like in a RPG. With the quest flexibility they are talking about it could end up resembling something like Return to Mysterious Island.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/256056498/the-unwritten-critias-and-the-lost-island

So I’ve dowlnloaded the demo from the Kickstarter page. The graphics are outstanding! Textures, lights, eveyrything is carefully rendered. It’s quite short, but you can walk around as much as you like. The island is gorgeous, and I love the serene atmosphere in the library. The implementation of physics is a nice touch - you can drag objects around and litteraly drop them, or kick them over as you walk if they’re light enough, thus reinforcing the immersion. Since you can interact with almost every object, it’s nice that the ones relevant to your quests are marked with a small glint, even though the most seasoned gamers might appreciate an option to turn it off. I also love how the daytime changes with the course of the game - I found myself going out of the library even when I didn’t have to, just to enjoy the view under a different sky.

I can’t speak much about the puzzles yet, so far they’re inventory-based and pretty linear, but I still have to reach the final one that involves, as far as I know, searching for stars through a telescope - which sounds a tad more original than the basic use-tool-to-fix-broken-device scenario. Although, in games like this, I can be content just walking around and admiring the scenery.
It reminded me a bit of AGON, with much better graphics and minus the stretching cinematic sequences (at least for the demo!). I can see how an actual quest system could be implemented (so far, they’re mostly tasks that come up as you progress towards your main quest), including optional ones you could encounter or not while wandering around.

I really hope these guys meet their goal. That it’s being developped by a small family team makes it even more impressive. It’s definitely worth checking out (even though not everyone will like it, of course) and I sincerely hope their Kickstarter gets better coverage…