Total Mayhem Games hasn’t quite nailed the layering of story and gameplay yet, but this is still a noticeable improvement over its thinly plotted predecessors. The final puzzle is a great set piece moment for the story, but it’s practically a gimme that requires very little from the players. It just so happens that all three of these one-sided puzzles are also plot-heavy in theme. While they search through each book trying to solve the riddle, their partner just has to stand around waiting.
The worst example involves one player listening to a clue and relaying it verbatim, while the other reads through books of character bios to find which two people are referenced in the clue.
#WE WERE HERE TOGETHER BOTH ESCAPE FULL#
While We Were Here Forever’s best puzzles require both partners to be active participants, a small handful put nearly the full cognitive load on one player while the other stands by, occasionally feeding information when necessary. Three in particular come to mind that share the same flaw. Not every puzzle left us with the best impression though. When I told my partner, “It sounds like you’re flushing a toilet and the toilet is angry about it” and he responded, “Is the toilet being terse, or does it sound like it’s ranting at you?” I knew we had one of the series’ best on our hands.
It’s a game of interpreter where neither player speaks the language, nor can they easily relay it to each other, since the creature speaks in sounds the human mouth is not equipped to make. During an underwater excursion, one person is tasked with interpreting messages from a sea creature and relaying them to their partner, who has the resources to translate the message and relay a coded response back. We Were Here Forever has some of the best examples.
#WE WERE HERE TOGETHER BOTH ESCAPE SERIES#
The We Were Here series is at its best when it’s iterating on the core concept of sharing information in order to discover solutions combining obscure clues to make something greater than the sum of its parts. The handful of jump scares and deadly puzzles shouldn’t turn off sensitive players though – unless you’re deathly afraid of clowns. It does a good job of balancing casual encounters with tense ones so that you aren’t in a constant state of panic, but there are still a good number of high-stress puzzles. Vision, and a lack thereof, is a constant theme throughout, and partner-led navigation – whether it's through the crypts beneath a graveyard or in the sunken mines where oxygen is limited – lead to some harrowing moments of claustrophobia and helplessness. Tonally, We Were Here Forever recaptures the dark, horror-tinged personality of We Were Here Too. It’s a well deserved pay-off after four games, but the greater emphasis on story sometimes gets in the way of the puzzles. We learn a lot more about the specific residents of Castle Rock, as well as the citizens of the nearby town of Rockbury, and by the end there’s something of a resolution that ties things up nicely. Narrative is woven into many of the puzzles, much in the way that the original We Were Here’s Theater Puzzle broadly explained the Mad King’s descent.
While the series has traditionally been pretty light on story, We Were Here Forever finally brings the history of Castle Rock into sharp focus. We return once again to the abandoned castle where a corrupt king and his ignoble jester are locked in an eternal, ethereal battle. We Were Here Forever uses the formula in its most refined form yet and maintains a strong pace – albeit with a few major stumbles – despite having a run-time slightly longer than all the previous entries combined. This is the entire tutorial for We Were Here Forever, and it tells you everything you need to know about the dozens of puzzles that lie ahead of you.įour games in, it’s astounding how much mileage Total Mayhem Games has gotten out of such a simple concept. Meaningless words, until they’re combined with the message on the other side, “We are the sum…”. One player can see “…of our parts.” written on the wall behind them. We begin in a dungeon, both partners separated from each other by a locked door.
0 kommentar(er)
