Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong-Nou 

Playing Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong-Nou for the first time is a life-affirming moment. In a world where games need to be marketable, along comes one so incomprehensible that I mistook it for a fevered dream for nearly a decade afterward.

Eastern Mind is, unquestionably, the strangest game ever made. It’s the interactive equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting. The narrative waxes philosophically and jumps around like a seismograph. The gameplay changes with extreme inconsistency. It defies explanation.

So uh… where do we start? Read more »

Lighthouse: The Dark Being 

Sierra was once the undisputed king of the adventure game, a throne they never quite reclaimed in a post-LucasArts and post-Myst market. But they certainly tried – at least one time – with Lighthouse: The Dark Being.

Lighthouse plays out like a series of poorly calculated missteps from a committee meeting that tried to nail down what made Myst successful.

• Bizarre uncharted worlds ✓
• Obtuse puzzles ✓
• Overwrought, complex mythology ✓
• Free-form, non-linear gameplay ✓
• Lots of reading ✓

The game awkwardly slams all those together, managing to incorporate and bungle them simultaneously, and… aw, hell, it’s actually not too bad.

UPDATE: Lead designer Jon Bock shares some insight into the unusual art direction and story for this self-described “science-fiction folk tale.” Read more »

The Labyrinth of Time 

Art Deco has assumed a near-universal post as the artistic movement of progress, inspiration, and futurism. Few people work in the style anymore, and those that do use it as a throwback to evoke the industrial, progressive drive of the 1930s. Others splintered off to create retro-futurism, a sort of callback to the fictionalized “World of Tomorrow” that became popular during the period.

Wait… art history?

Bradley W. Schenck, the graphic designer (and likely writer) behind The Labyrinth of Time, is one of the preeminent retro-futurist artists. His distinctive, unforgettable art style is the driving force for the entire game. It’s an intangible, chaotic fusion of Deco, sci-fi, surrealism, and even a little Celtic mysticism. Read more »

The Journeyman Project 

For a while, I had assumed that most people knew about The Journeyman Project, or at least heard of it. Turns out this isn’t the case. That needs to be rectified immediately.

Despite coming out the same year as Myst, The Journeyman Project may be the pinnacle of the first-person adventure game genre. It might lack the inventive logic puzzles that its contemporaries use, but in sheer density and immersive storytelling, few games can top it. Read more »

Wrath of the Gods 

The Muses in Greek mythology glorified the spirit of the arts and history through poetry and song. Not one could have predicted that several thousand years later, a grainy adventure game with stilted, public-access-quality acting would take up their mantle.

You have to hand it to Joel Skidmore and the small team at Luminaria: Wrath of the Gods is a fairly compelling attempt to cram the entirety of the Greek myths into a digestible, entertaining, and educational format. The game desperately needs a facelift and a tuneup, but in terms of raw effort, it’s hard to top. Read more »