Codex Crusade

This game was in a poll for games that need more reviews.

In this game, you play as a lowly librarian who has been tasked by a mysterious stranger with finding the Babylon Book, which contains all stories that can ever be written.

This is meant to be the first in a three-part series. The bulk of the game takes place in a bizarre student cafeteria where history, magic, and collegiate life mingle.

The game uses a lot of styling, and has cycling links, background images, music, and a lot of text boxes where you can type what you want. I'm not sure how often the game checks what's in the type boxes; I had one puzzle where for sure it mattered, but others didn't.

The story is madcap and surreal, so it can be fun but also hard to follow at times. I wasn't quite sure how I ended up in the cafeteria, or why I couldn't leave it; and I encountered many things before I knew how to make use of them.

But, this is fairly compact, and it's not too hard to explore everything even though there's a lot. So I was able to figure out things in the end.

I definitely think I'd play the next few games. The one thing that I wish were a little different was the many times where I saw a cool feature (especially text boxes) and didn't know if it was 'cool feature just to have fun with that is only used for characterization' or 'essential puzzle component'.