I’ve loved Amanita for so long, and joined Arcade when I saw they had a new game. This one is so much fun and so thoughtful. It’s a great game for a new player, because they don’t try to trick you or hide anything. There are no alternate choices, you move straight through the game as you progress so you don’t have to wonder if you’ve missed anything. And there are no stupid ways to die, you don’t constantly fall off a cliff say, because you keep getting too close on accident. The game just keeps you from wasting time so you can devote all your thought to solving puzzles. And the puzzles are fabulous. They are so incredibly clever, I don’t know how people come up with this stuff. Every time you’re thinking “there’s no way!” But then you think of something you haven’t tried yet, and make progress. It’s a very consistent game - if you like it in the beginning, you’ll like it in the end, and it doesn’t necessarily get harder and harder as you go. Just more clever. It’s a very special game. The sound design and music are incredible. And best of all, like all of Amanita’s games, it’s a narrative on some level so it’s that much more emotional to actually finish it. I hope these developers are richly rewarded for their efforts and can publish again soon! Not soon enough!

It’s not creepy. Really it’s not. I have gotten so tired of games that have a lot of filler fluff in the form of just making things spend a lot of time that are not interesting in order to make the gameplay longer. I also have been looking for some thing that’s at least a little mentally challenging instead of just having villains that you have to kill by clicking a button really fast or something. This contains puzzles that are reasonably challenging to complete without getting super frustrating. I think there was one I sort of cheated on by looking it up. But overall, I very much enjoyed the gameplay and the story and having something to take my mind off of life for a little while every time I sit down to play it. Because it’s divided up into scenes, it’s very easy to play it for a certain amount of time and have some sense of satisfaction without having to feel addicted or obsessed, which is something a lot of other games also rely on. Obviously games on this level are rare because it takes a whole lot of work ,I’m sure, to make some thing this complete that doesn’t depend on addiction or gimmicks.

This dark and haunting puzzle journey is reminiscent of a mazelike and dystopian Alice in Wonderland. You follow a clueless but intrepid Victorian era scribe in slacks, down a figurative rabbit hole through various labyrinthine ladder linked chambers. You intermittently spy on several well heeled avian characters in their quest to repel a giant invader that continuously tears at the crumbling dungeon that you all now inhabit. There are some animated paintings at regular intervals that serve as short interludes between the progressively challenging puzzles you must complete. You use your wits to avoid getting bitten by aggressive dogs, jellyfish and scarecrow like creatures that instantly transform into harmless furniture as you solve the puzzle. There is enough guidance by way of button hints to help with getting started. Though I did get stuck at times, it wasn’t many, thanks to the help of YouTubers. Since you cannot advance if you’re stuck, the option should be given to skip a puzzle or receive hints, unless the developers intended players to search online for a walkthrough. Fantastic game and the playing environment and acoustics were excellent.

This is far and away my favorite game in Apple Arcade. The art reminds me of Machinarium, the controls are easy and intuitive to understand and the puzzles are challenging without being impossible. While the game page recommends using a controller, playing on an iPad was fine. Importantly, the game indicates when you can interact with things and when you can’t, so you aren’t stuck endlessly touching the screen in hopes something will happen. Most of the puzzles are simple logic in which your movement and actions influence the behavior of the other creatures on the screen. Once you figure out how your movements impact them, it is usually just a question of figuring out the right sequence of steps to make your way through to the next set of ladders. There are also a series of puzzles within the game hidden as paintings - some of these were interactive, others ween’t. As a whole, not as much fun as the rest of the game, but I appreciate adding in a bit of diversity into the game play.Lastly, the game lasted me a LONG time. While you are definitely left wanting more, you don’t feel cheated by the amount of puzzles.