Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Byzantine Perspective

by Lea Albaugh profile

(based on 57 ratings)
7 reviews69 members have played this game. It's on 47 wishlists.

About the Story

Your task is simple enough. Just nab the chalice.

Awards

9th Place overall; 3rd Place (tie), Miss Congeniality Awards - 15th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2009)

Winner, Best Individual Puzzle - 2009 XYZZY Awards

Ratings and Reviews

5 star:
(3)
4 star:
(20)
3 star:
(25)
2 star:
(9)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating: based on 57 ratings
Number of Reviews Written by IFDB Members: 7

3 Most Helpful Member Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
A single idea, but a good one, November 16, 2009

This is a very clever little game. It is one of those games that basically have a single puzzle. In this case there are a couple of things you have to do, but once you work out what’s going on, it’s not enormously difficult to do them. The tricky part is working out what’s going on. The best procedure if you are having difficulty with this is but don’t want to be told the answer outright is (Spoiler - click to show)to make a map, showing where you actually can and can’t go, and compare that to the map that is provided.

It is hard to say any more than that without spoiling the game.

The basic mechanic is very simple (if utterly confusing at first), and there is nothing really to the game other than this: no objects besides the couple involved in the puzzle, and not much else to look at along the way. The puzzle itself is short and the game does not take long to play at all once you twig. What content there is seems to be well implemented and I didn’t find any bugs.

Overall, then, this is a simple game that does little other than introduce an initially confusing but ultimately elegant mechanic and leave the player to work out what that mechanic is – but it does it very well indeed.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Byzantine, October 16, 2009
Related reviews: Byzantine

This is a rather short game, but a relatively enjoyable one. It has one larger "worldview" puzzle in which you must work out the fundamental nature of the game, including how to interpret your senses, and one minor puzzle that stems pretty directly from this. It can be solved pretty easily without any assistance from the walkthrough while still being satisfying to complete; a quite positive trait, really. However, the atmosphere of the game is very sparse, the room descriptions are minimal and the world feels quite empty. Objects seem to be only minimally implemented, and one of the puzzles involves being alerted to something you have likely already guessed the existence of. All told, it is a fun diversion and an interesting concept, and, as a one-trick-pony of a game, its brevity does it a favor.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent Puzzle, August 11, 2010
by Tristano (Italy)

I rated 5 this game because I found it to be an excellent piece of playable-IF to solve. A mind-bending puzzle that captures the player without a sense of frustration. Overall, it shouldn't take too long to complete it.

Since the very beginning of play you "sense" that something is strange ... that sensation kept me going ahead without frustration even though I moved around in circles for quite a while, but I knew that somehow I was on the right track. Then ... it "clicked" to me and everything was clear. Nevertheless, once the core of the puzzle is grasped it still takes some strategic moves to actually solve it.

No distractions, just a polished and well presented puzzle with all its elements in plain sight. Nice atmosphere.

Surely one of its own kind -- I don't recall coming across any similar puzzles.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 


1 Off-Site Review

Jay Is Games
Byzantine Perspective makes the perfect lunchtime game: quick to play and very satisfying to work out.
See the full review

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Edit Tags
Search all tags on IFDB | View all tags on IFDB

Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Delete Tags

Game Details

If you enjoyed Byzantine Perspective...

Related Games

Other members recommend this game for people who like Byzantine Perspective:

All Things Devours, by half sick of shadows
Average member rating: (93 ratings)
From the game's about command: "All Things Devours is a short piece of interactive fiction, leaning strongly towards the text-adventure end of the spectrum. It explores an all-too-familiar science fiction paradigm in what I hope is a...

Suggest a game

Recommended Lists

Byzantine Perspective appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Xyzzy "Best Individual Puzzle" winners by Nusco
All the games that won the Best Individual Puzzle award, year by year. I'll avoid giveaway spoilers in my comments, but I'll still comment on the type and difficulty of the puzzle. I'll describe the puzzles by my own categories....

Mind-benders by Juhana
Games that make you think or have a surprising twist.

Crime and Heist games by MathBrush
I've played a lot of these recently, so I'm making a list. A contrast to my Detective and Mystery games list and similar to my Espionage and Spy game list, where I put Spider and Web, for instance.

Polls

The following polls include votes for Byzantine Perspective:

Games with maps... by Xionix
I started playing Counterfeit Monkey, and I notice a good map is a way for us newbies to get into the game more easy. And I hate to draw so, are any other games that got a in-game map? It can be any genre.

Games that take place completely in museums by Andrew Schultz
IFComp 2023 had a couple, and they reminded me of another I tested in Shufflecomp. I like having the ability to leave when I want and see what I want. I'm looking specifically for ones with no winning or losing, and ones where you can...

Great games that consist of a single puzzle by Spike
I'm looking for well-designed and challenging games that revolve around solving a single puzzle. The puzzle may have multiple parts, but the whole game needs to be essentially about solving that single puzzle.

See all polls with votes for this game

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page


This is version 11 of this page, edited by JTN on 13 December 2023 at 8:44pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page