Reviews

• 

  GenSec39

  Dec 23, 2021

  Came here for the visuals, right? And probably for the music and atmosphere? Let me guess... you also consider yourself as a fan of small and niche games? And you also think that you probably can handle gameplay and technical issues, if all abovementioned aspects are good, right? Well... yeah, right about that... You see, I also started the game on rather positive note and thought that probably people here are a bit too harsh towards this game. Unfortunately the more I played the more issues I encountered. The last drop for me, which shifted the scales, was sudden and kinda abrupt ending and final scene in 1 fps. Yeah, 1 fps in a point and click game, you see it right. There are two endings, and both final scenes for them run in 1 fps. But ok, we will talk about it again, lets start from the very beginning. Visual aspects, music and overall atmosphere - all that stuff that brought you here is indeed great. Gloomy and brutal medieval setting, both beautiful and eerie visuals, twisted creatures, depressive tunes - everything is on it's place to create thrilling atmosphere. Unfortunately, this is where objective advantages end. While I mentioned visual aspects as a strong point... it also has issues. You see, very often when you collect items, you have no idea what you just picked up. You literally stare at your inventory, at all these pieces of... something and trying to guess what tf you just found. Is it a piece of glass? Hm, probably a... hook? Or maybe a claw? Ah, I can use it to start fire, so probably it's a flint. Or another example - you pick some... hm, half-broken oblong item. Is it a log? Or maybe a cane? Some tube? What?! It's a piece of bone?! - uh, o-okay. It is also not very clear which objects are interactable and which ones are not. For example, see that shiny lock near the girls leg on the gif below? Definitely looks like something you can interact with, right? - in fact no. And that's not an exception. Now about gameplay. The biggest problem here is, that rather often your actions here doesn't have sense. And I'm not talking about puzzles yet. You enter new location a-a-and... what the hell you want me to do here? You see, I played a lot of brutal old school point and click games where it was very hard to guess what I had to do. But retrospectively, when you could finally find a solution - it at least looked reasonable. Nothing like that here. Even if you find a solution, it still looks illogical. In many cases you do something not because it seems like right thing to do, but because... well, why the hell not? It is interactable and I have no any other ideas anyway... Now about puzzles. They are different, both in difficulty and quality. The difficulty varies from "my 3 years old brother would solve it" to "e-e-eh, what's going on here, let me out". Same about quality. Few of them were pretty good, while others are totally out of place. Imagine, you are preparing some dark ritual and as a part of it you have to solve... some typical plumber puzzle. Very... immersive. Techical issues. From micro-freezes (constant on some levels) to severe drops to 1 fps. Let me just cut the route to the point where I say that stuff like that is just not acceptable in 2d point and click games, no matter what you PC specs are. Story. Starts rather intriguing, but unfortunately ends abruptly with either happy or bad ending. Few words about consequences? Some explanations? - nothing. You either succeeded or failed in your quest and that's it. As to the One night in the Woods dlc - it gives little more info about events before the main story and honestly even slightly improves overal impression. It even has ending screen which runs in 60 fps (wow). Unfortunately it's ultra short and can't redeem other sins. Overall, I can recommend this game exceptionally for ultra refined connoiseurs, who is not afraid of some painful experience. P.S. "thinking out loud" - white liquid (?) in glass bottle, which can be stored in a kitchen and can also be used to repair shovel broken in half... without any other fixing materials. Some super glue? Secret receipt of super sticky mayo or condensed milk? I still have no idea what was that...
• 

  Chez

  May 23, 2022

  An amazing artstyle. Nergal as a narrator. Interesting soundtrck. What could go wrong? Incomprehensible story, which makes some sense at the end of the game, but no earlier. Events are completely random, seems to be glued together without any particular reason. Then the even worse part - puzzles. There are hopefully only few of them, but solving them requires more guessing than true solving. Another part which could be better was searching for objects. They were same color as background. Many of their shapes did not allow to recognize their purpose - so again - it required guessing to go further. One more thing. If you are going to play on a high resolution screen, consider setting up a lower resolution. On a 4K TV I was unable to see the pointer and there was no option to increase its size. With all my love towards Nergal and Behemoth, I tried to like this game. Sadly, its execution is not good enough to recommend it.
• 

  catbox

  Jun 30, 2022

  artistic expression through grotesque yet inspiring activity. point and click horror that gives you simple challenges to travel through this ancient depressing world
• 

  jane turtle

  Nov 7, 2022

  I understand ther reason they set a discount of almost 90% for this game. It just can't be played properly. The game attracted me with its hand-drawn style. The screenshots are really good, and all the people in the customer reviews section were like WOW THIS IS A GAME. But behind the gameplay, all the graphics, so gloomy and beautiful, is just unable to see. It's lost. I swear, I barely could stand the puzzles and the challenges the game offers. I was soooooo close to quit it and delete it from my library forever, without any other try to get 100% of achievements or even pass the game completely. A level where you have to run under the cannon fire? What a wild random! The shots don't even have any sequence, so you have to make a wild guess when you can run safely. Do you want to get an achievement? Pass a challenge or solve a puzzle on the first try, or you'll have to watch two loading screens and one more loading screen of the levels menu to just try to pass the level again. It's so damn annoying! Behind all the negativity you have to go through the game with, behind the understanding that the puzzles are terribly illogical and meaningless, you also can’t see the plot. But, oh yeah, we will add this little dot turned slightly to the other side above the symbol, so you, player, will waste about 30 minutes to understand what's wrong and why can't you just go ahead as it was in the guide. The game looks absolutely non-obvious. You never know what to expect from this or that object, this or that interaction. Why should I scare an owl with a sword first, and then with just a simple interaction? Why should it be done this way? Why does the owl throw out a bug from its beak, which for some reason is going to be eated by a mouse? I don't, and what's more important I probably won't ever understand. The second stage of the game and DLC is much more simple and obvious, but the first impression is almost indelible, and, as for me, it's absolutely terrible. It's a pity that the best thing this game has is just the design and nothing more.
• 

  Wisdom

  Mar 1, 2018

  I loved the art style and unique puzzles. The music was thrilling and it's certainly top notch. Great game overall. The playthrough is about ~3-4 hours.
• 

  Zethus

  Mar 1, 2018

  I did a 3 hour stream yesterday afternoon. Even though puzzle games are not my thing, art is! This game is packed with amazing visuals. There is always something cool to look at and admire. The story telling is spot on. Being a metalhead, I may be biased in this opinion, but the narrating done by Nergal Darski is nothing short of brilliant. You hang on to that mans every word when that eye opens. Game play wise, you catch on quick as to how it flows. It's a puzzle game after all. But this is no normal puzzle game. The eerie environment, coupled with the creepy, yet calming music flowing in the background, keeps me well engaged. Even though I spent a bloody hour on what turned out to be a pretty simply puzzle! I look forward to playing much more of this. With a price tag that low, its value is in the artwork and talent. Skip 1 week worth of buying coffee in the morning and you have bought this game; and its WORTH IT (even if you don't skip the coffee run!)
• 

  antiklaus

  Mar 2, 2018

  i so wanted to love this game because of the premisse and artstyle. i also love the idea of coming back to an oldschool point-and-click adventure... but sadly this bored me. the puzzles seem uninspired and the sound was... to say minimalistic would be polite, or rather exaggerated. it just seemed more as if it was unfinished. the voice-narration is what you expect, and the artstyle is just as i did wish it is - but that alone did not carry the game for me.
• 

  cyclop3000

  Mar 7, 2018

  I had high hopes for this game. First heard about it through Nergal's social network, as I am a fan of the band and follow Nergal on Instagram and such. Figured if Behemoth is on board, this has to be a cool game. Plus the art looked great, so yeah, I had high hopes. Unfortunately the game did not meet all of my expectations. The art is nice, maybe a little too simplistic for my taste, but still it's a good looking game...I always admire games that put the art in the front seat, especially 2D. The narration is ok, not much of it and is divided from the gameplay as it's only in rudimentary cut-scenes. But hey it's Nergal, so always fun. The story is there, but kinda takes a back seat...no emphasis is put on the story, which is too bad. As for the music, after 2 hours of play I have only heard athmosperic sounds, nothing else. You get tired of this pretty quick and I had to lower the volume after some time. Now for the bad part...the gameplay. Sooooo slow, every action triggers an animation that is too slow, and the animation has to finish before you can do anything else. A point and click is a point and click, but I think the gameplay feel could have used a good revamp before releasing the game. To me this feels incomplete, like the first beta where you tell your testers...yeah don't worry we will make that better, and that faster. The puzzles are just ok, some of them with the glyphs are kinda weird and too hard to figure out. Some others are very simple and you figure it out as soon as you see the scene. Overall I think this game could have been better in terms of gameplay and storytelling. And that is why I would not recommend it. I wish it could have been better, really. All hail Behemoth !
• 

  「The Queen In Yellow」

  Mar 13, 2018

  Apocalipsis is a point-and-click 2D puzzle game, where you play as a boy trying to resurrect his love, after she was drowned in a witch hunt. While the game brings a lot to the table, it failed to deliver on almost everything. Even though I believe this game had a meager indie budget, that's not an excuse that it can hide behind. First off, the music is repetitive. Consisting of maybe 4 minutes of looped ambiance, you quickly grow bored of it and I ended up muting the game about halfway through. While I can understand the limitations of this game's circumstance, 5 ambiance loops doesn't qualify as music in my books, and it just comes off as sloppy. I also found the art style to be frustrating, for lack of a better term. From the screenshots I assumed the game would look like a cross between 15th century art and the 80's-90's psychedealia cover art of metal bands. However it never fully commits to either, and it ends up uncomfortably saddled in the middle, too bland to be great. It doesn't commit to the weirdness of old documents, and it never goes completely trippy. The most interesting design in the game is a creature in a puzzle that'll take you 2 minutes. Speaking of which, the puzzles were incredibly simple. It felt more like a "Zoombinis" rather than a "Monkey Island". Each puzzle consisted of either a simple pattern, or clue that would solve it all. Occasionally an extremely convoluted - Note : not difficult, just not explained - puzzle would be thrown in almost as a time waster. However even these don't do their job, as for most you can guess and check your way through them in a minute. I could forgive everything above if the story - the driving force of the game - was good...it isn't. Even though I'm writing this right after finishing the game, I can't remember the name of the love interest. Nothing else is named either, none of the characters, locations, or items. It all just becomes a blur of boring. So in the end Apocalipsis is a pretty poor game, with little replayability, and easy-ish achievements. Maybe for $2, I'd say pick this up. But really, it just feels half-baked and unfinished.
• 

  GunsnDonuts

  May 7, 2018

  Apocalipsis - Andy Plays Indies Audio/Video Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by_YdnmwbXA Don't buy this game. Sorry guys. I guess that's giving it away. But I just barely got through playing Apocalipsis, and even at its $6.00 price tag, it's hard to recommend this game. Let's set it up first. Apocalipsis is a point-and-click adventure by way of flash arcade game, with two sales gimmicks: That it's narrated by the lead vocalist of Polish comedy metal band Behemoth, and that the art style is taking conscience influence from medieval woodcuts, like those of Albrecht Dürer or Hans Holbein. Obviously I don't care about the former, but the latter was intriguing enough for me to pick it up. On paper, the game looks good, but the execution relentlessly lets it down. There's basically three elements at play here, the story, the puzzles, and the artwork. Of the three, the art is probably the strongest, but none of them are likely to carry the game for you. The plot is that we are Harry, a bog-standard adventure game adolescent boy hero, whose girlfriend was executed as a witch, and who goes off to try and resurrect her using black magic. So far, so generic. We're playing as a depressed guy, out on a hopeless quest to retrieve his dead love. This is only the eleventy-first game to pull that old chestnut. I'm not saying that no one is allowed to do a depressed widower horror story after Silent Hill 2, but if the broad strokes of the plot are going to be that obvious, the details have to carry it. In Apocalipsis, the details just aren't there. The plot basically has two beats: Girlfriend dead at the beginning; girlfriend possibly alive at the end. On the way from point A to point B, there aren't any significant revelations or character development. And aside from a a general tendency towards getting more supernatural as the game goes on, the puzzles and locations are barely connected to one another. The player just finds themselves stumbling from one largely disconnected set-piece to another. I'm sure that some people will argue there's some kind of deep symbolism here, but the plot just isn't interesting enough for me to want to go looking for it. I saw some reviews making the claim that this game has a fatalistic gallows-humor to it, but I'm a pretty damn unpleasant person, and I can't say I cracked a smile once. The game does make some use of occult and alchemical imagery, and you can clearly see the attempt to borrow some of the style from 15th century art, particularly of the type produced after the Black Death, but I have to say that the game is sorely lacking in the kind of detail and imagination that appears in the real McCoy. In fact, I suspect that some of the tongue-baths this game has been getting from mainstream reviewers stem from those reviewers not actually being very familiar with medieval art. All of the reviews I read seemed to imply that everyone in 15th century Europe must have been manically depressed. A view of history commonly espoused by Gen-X cretins who can't imagine how anyone could be happy living a different life from theirs. Yes, medieval art does sometimes treat with some pretty dark themes. --war and disease were persistent realities of these people's lives, after all-- But their artwork is whimsical and inventive, not dour and depressing. The gameplay's a big zero in my book, too. The puzzles seem to oscillate between blitheringly obvious and frustratingly obscure, without ever hitting the happy medium in between. Far too many of them fall back on the old point-and-click bugbear of just figuring out what order you need to click on the items in. There's a couple of cool ideas, such as configuring the gears in a locking mechanism, but the solutions aren't all that clever. The really bad puzzles mostly involve lining up alchemical symbols according to a variety of criteria. They're always irritating, and are typical of the general problem with the way this game is constructed. You see, in a good puzzle, you immediately understand both the goal and the essential mechanics, but you still have to work to get to the solution. In Apocalipsis, the only difficulty to any of the puzzles is in figuring out what the rules are. From there, the solutions are easy. So instead of a satisfying challenge, all you get is a series of irritating roadblocks. Still, if I was invested in the story, I might have muscled through the more annoying puzzles, or just gone to check a walkthrough, but I wasn't, and the puzzles are interspersed with timing-based arcade sections, mostly involving dodging one or another type of incoming object. These are all terrible, but a section towards the middle of the game, involving dodging monster tentacles and floating debris, and which might as well be a much worse version of Space Invaders, was a particular monkey in my wrench. Look, I'll freely admit to not being the world's biggest adventure game fan, but I don't think Apocalipsis is going to offer much for enthusiasts of the genre. I don't know. Apocalipsis is nice and cheap, at least. Without all the gameplay frustrations, I might recommend this game for people who just like weird old timey-art, but if you're a real devotee of medieval woodcuts, you probably won't find this a suitable tribute. The bottom line, for me, is that if I hadn't been planning on reviewing this game, I doubt I would have made it past the first hour. Even if you consider the cost of this game negligible, I'm pretty sure there's more valuable things you could be doing with your time. So if you'll take my advice, this is one to miss.
• 

  Criwall

  Jul 3, 2019

  Sorry, I can't recommend this game. It has a nice artstyle and having Nergal from Behemoth as the narrator was a nice touch (even if he is barely there). But there are too many problems. The point and click parts are *very* easy, each screen have a handfull of objects you can pick up and a few places where you can interact with them but it's pretty obvious what you are supposed to do most of the time. The more straightforward puzzles are not any better, it's the same you have seen in tons of similar games. Tower of hanoi, arranging gears, pipemania, figure out the next icon in a series, a sliding block puzzle... The animations are also very sluggish and the fact that there are no item descriptions makes it very hard to actually guess what some things are supposed to be. But it's more anoying than anything else, since like I said, the point and click puzzles are far too easy. Finished it in just about two hours and even if I got what I assume is the bad ending, i think I knew what I needed to do to get the good. Not going to bother going back for it anytime soon. It's not bad, but very bland, even if the aesthetics where nice.
• 

  The Horror Network

  Aug 11, 2020

  Apocalipsis is the story of a man named Harry who lost his wife, who was his world. There's very little story, so let's just kick things off with what's good about this release. The art direction is solid; it really is a good throwback to depictions and artwork from ancient Greece, as well as Greek mythology as a whole. The muted neutral tones, contrasting blacks, and occasional snippets of color only push the dreary atmosphere to new heights. It's all very aesthetically pleasing. Additionally, the glum soundtrack really instills a sense of deep melancholy, disparity, and loss. If you're looking for atmosphere, you've come to the right place. However, if you're expecting anything more then know that in this instance beauty is only skin deep. Where Apocalipsis is bad, it's terrible. Despite all of my best efforts, the majority of the game lagged horribly when interacting with puzzles or when walking from one side of the screen to the other. Frame dips as low as 1 FPS in the ending scene and 15-30 in puzzle areas were seen. Thinking at first that this may have been an issue with the game downscaling from 4k to 1080p, I set my native resolution to such, rebooted, and all seemed well for a few levels before the issue returned. The problem seems to lay within the fog effects, as levels without it run fine. For reference, I have an i7-6700k/GTX 1080 rig that runs all modern games at 60+ FPS in 1080p, so a 2D point and click should be of no issue. Optimization problems aside, the gameplay just isn't that fun. The story is obscure, and a lot more narration could've been done to help get audiences even interested in what's going on. The developers put a clear focus in on the puzzles, but there's no hand-holding here and you're left up to your own devices to figure out what you're even supposed to do. Some of the enigmas are straight-forward and almost child-like in their simplicity, while others are completely obtuse with solutions hearkening back to the notorious 90's era point and click difficulty. Man, okay so here's where my two worlds really come together. I started reviewing some 11-12 years ago now by writing about metal music, and my roots are seated primarily in black and death metal. Every extreme metal fan knows Behemoth, and their vocalist/guitarist frontman Nergal is pretty well revered in the underground. From how the developers have presented his presence in Apocalipsis, you can tell that his inclusion is their main selling point for the entire game, but you may be disappointed to know that you only get four or five lines from Nergal in the entire 2-3 hour campaign. It's unsatisfying, and moreover whoever was responsible for the sound completely botched the narration by recording Nergal's voice at max capacity; you can literally hear the mic trembling and distorting. And yes, I always have, and always will, use headphones of the highest quality when it comes down to me talking in-depth about anything relating to sound quality. It comes across like some mega fan's dream come true, and that they used a video game as an excuse to make it happen. Apocalipsis is a game with a lot of potential, but it's weighted down with some overburdening problems. How a 2D point and click game could run as low as 1 FPS (for the ENTIRE end cutscene) on a rig that can run every modern game at 60+ FPS in 1080p is baffling; optimization here really needs to be addressed. A lot of additional disappointment could've been avoided by not pushing the Nergal appeal so hard as well, since he has relatively little to do with the game and speaks perhaps an entire minute of narration in total. The puzzles are also all over the place, with some being incredibly obtuse and some childishly simple; a lot of them aren't very ingenious either. With all that said, the art direction and sound are spot on, but there is much here to be desired. [h1]Rating: [b]2.0/5.0[/b] - It's not awful, but it's not great.[/h1] The Horror Network [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28221963/]Curator[/url] | [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thehorrornetwork]Group[/url] Click for Gore
• 

  Orderly

  Aug 12, 2020

  Since the authors were going for the Durer-Bosch aesthetics, I hoped this quest would be medieval in nature as well as form. Nope. Medieval conciousness is fully religious. Any grimness and darkness is alwas counteracted by divine intervention of some sort. No, this game doesn't have that. It just takes all the occult grimness and darkness of medieval imagery, strips away any potential for humor, any potential for light, brings about modern-day atheist despair and a liiiittle bit of courtly attitude (the protagonist goes off into hell to save his beloved). Except I have doubts the authors thought of it as a courtly attitude and just made a game about a boy saving a girl. I may be mistaken, but I have a feeling that only the artist made his research before production here. It's a bit like [i]Blasphemous[/i], except [i]Blasphemous[/i] is better because it creates a religious system of its own, while this one supposedly imitates a real one. And the gameplay... Well... It's just a regular old point-and-click quest - what's there even to say? And the animations are stiff, which wounds the visual factor - the game's strong suit. Listen, I don't want to give it a thumbs down, because it's a solid game that's been put quite a bit of effort into, and its rating is not great as is. I'm sure the true fans of the quest genre will enjoy it, but for the rest of you - just watch the trailer. The trailer is really good. Plus, everything that has a Saint-Saens' tune in it becomes better.
• 

  Feyron af Digerdød

  Sep 2, 2020

  A graphic delight with a creepy ambience that only a plague-ridden rottening world of terror and death can create. For the experienced puzzle-solver this game will def be too easy, but if you are after enjoying a short story with a fantastic ambience, then this little fairy-tale of 2-3 hours is totally worth the time. ___________________________ Play this game if: - You want easy puzzle solving - You'd love to dive into graphically cool and thought-through environments Do Not Play this game if: - You are looking for more challenging puzzle solving - You are after a deeper story Verdict: 7,5/10
• 

  Ylthin

  Oct 11, 2020

  Apocalypsis is more than your average point and click with puzzles to solve with a zest of Gothic aesthetic. The story is very basic (at least for the main story, I didn't play the DLC yet), a young man sees his lover punished for witchcraft and obeying her lasts words he follows a ritual allowing him to find her in the Death's domain. Each scene is really short, usually no more than two rooms and you don't keep any items in between. The difficulty between the puzzles vary from logic to WTF with the excellent option to restart a scene by using the map which is extremely valuable when it comes to a few achievements requiring you to not do any mistake. This game is one of the few which managed to keep my attention all along, and I'm known to be so distracted that at least 80% on my gameplay is just me forgetting that the game exist and is running. If you like puzzles and Gothic / gloomy aesthetic, this game is perfect for you, now if you excuse me, I need to buy the DLC.
• 

  obi

  Nov 27, 2020

  I really tried not to give up on it because so much work was put into the beautiful artwork, but the puzzles and the controls/movement are horrible. Its the kind of game where even completing it with a walkthrough isn't worth it. It's incredibly tedious. It's just not fun.
• 

  laurencek

  Nov 29, 2020

  If you don't mind carpeting a game scene with mouse clicks in search of interaction, then Apocalipsis might appeal to you. While the artwork is beautiful and the sound is atmospheric and evocative, there remained too little to hold my interest for very long.
• 

  ℬℓα⊂₭ ℙℜ¡ℵ₠

  Dec 14, 2020

  Once the novelty of the artwork wears off you are left with a very basic 2D point-and-click on rails game with frustrating puzzles, some that make sense like 'rotate the pipes to make a connection from A to B' to utterly nonsensical things like make a pile of leaves so a woman jumps down into them and then walks off and gets a bone for you, then you have to throw the bone at a tree with some birds in it to make them fly away and drop a feather because of course it was obvious the woman needed a feather to walk into cave and clean a wall. Eventually I got so bored I just found an online walkthrough so I could complete it and then delete it and never have to give it a second thought. Overall 3/10, very dreary.
• 

  Pigeon, formerly noble

  Feb 5, 2021

  I recommend it with a few caveats. Pros: - The atmosphere. Artworks, sounds, whimsical puzzles, colours invoke the Classic Death theme. They did a commendable job on this. - easy achievements with a guide. (100% can only be achieved if you have the DLC - 7 achievements relating to DLC) - Puzzles are interesting, varied and strange. But no clear instructions. Sometimes I just cant figure out what's next. Game could be going for the slow burn but I am not fond of this type of mechanic. Cons: - Controls. Clunky. I need to go back and forth to try different combos. I was moving so slowly, everything takes twice the time. You are so slow you kept getting killed also. You have moved away but the game deemed you have not moved far enough. - The story. It serves its purpose. *edit: I just found 7 of the achievements belong to the DLC that I don't own.
• 

  Odin

  Jan 7, 2022

  Although it is a very good story, it is a little too easy. It is so easy that it only took a day to finish it. Is it worth the money? Probably. But I'll be looking for further chapters in this game. Maybe then I can say solidly "Yes".