About a month ago, I wrote a preview article based on the first third or so of Shardlight. The game has since been released to the masses and I’ve been able to continue the adventure of Amy right where I left off. Much of what I have to say about Shardlight I have already said in the preview article, so please refer to that for a more robust read, but the bottom line is that if you enjoy a solid character-driven adventure or are a fan of the genre, Shardlight is a must-have.
Shardlight gets far more right than it does not. The puzzle design is mostly great, but there are some outliers (as you would expect) that sees a literal few puzzles being a bit too obtuse and annoying and a few more that are just too obvious. Don’t get me wrong, the death-kneel of any point and click game is often being stumped hours on end, and to that point Wadjet Eye did a great job of ‘containing’ the player and the total number of options. At no point is your inventory excessively large or your list of interactable objects too big, or the number of ‘rooms’ you can visit too much. As noted in the preview, Wadjet Eye chose to actually limit the player from straying too far away from a solution at times by having the protagonist impose upon herself that she could not leave an area until some task was complete. This acts to significantly reduce the chance of the player wandering away from the required puzzle and this design does a lot to counteract the few irritating (for me at least) puzzles.
You know as I look over my notes again, any other points I had to make in the ‘con column’ pretty much fall under what I just got through describing. To be fair, Shardlight is not a complicated game, and being a point-and-click, you might say that nearly half of the battle in making a great experience is having good puzzles. Shardlight triumphs there, and, honestly, every where else it sets out to. Consider Shardlight for what it’s meant to be — a throwback, SCUMM-esque engine adventure from the Lucasarts and Sierra heydays — and you’re bound to be pleased. The story is good, but made much better by strong characters, including Amy, Tiberius, and several other NPCs. The plot takes several surprising, ‘mature’ turns that actually caught me off guard, and that was a pleasant surprise especially as it stood in stark contrast to some of the obvious puzzles. No serious bugs were encountered either, so Wadjet Eye nailed the core experience, but even better the presentation quality is absolutely commendable.
Graphically, Shardlight features some really pretty pixel art. Not every scene is worth writing home about, but the vast majority are. Tiberius’ appearance and voice-acting set an appropriate chilling tone for example, while the wide color palette from the radioactive greens of the shards to the browns and darker tones of a dystopian world push for a great atmosphere. Combined with a script and voice-acting that ranges from good to excellent, and a soundtrack that compliments the mood perfectly, and you got yourself a great game and it’s only $15 or less.
To the summary…
