The Reliquary of Epiphanius

In this game, you play as a young adult whose archaeologist father has gone missing while searching for the titular reliquary. Concerned about him, the PC rides out to the countryside on their motorbike to find out where he went.

What follows is a puzzle game in an old-school vein. There’s a maze (which felt reasonably justified and well-integrated!) and a light source management mechanic and a decent number of puzzles to solve in which you open up passageways by manipulating the environment with objects that you pick up. The puzzles are largely not too complex, but it is definitely a game that rewards mapping and a certain amount of general note-taking. (An in-game diary is helpfully provided for the latter purpose, although I used a real pencil and paper.)

The game also has simple but evocative descriptions of wilderness and ruins and one rather endearing major NPC. Reliquary of Epiphanius’s most unusual puzzle essentially tests how much attention the player has been paying to all of these things, and I liked that quite a bit. Contributing to the atmosphere are small illustrations for each location and a lot of custom styling for things like inscriptions and handwritten notes, all of which added up to a strong aesthetic appeal.

While the ending reveals that (Spoiler - click to show)the reliquary has likely been destroyed due to careless development of the area, this didn’t make Epiphanius feel like a shaggy dog story. It helps, I think, that the PC has a separate goal to start with and that you accomplish this goal and more—you discover a lot of interesting things and solve an archaeological mystery, even if the solution isn’t what one would hope for. “Surprise, the thing you were told was your goal in this game isn’t achievable!” endings also often feel kind of smug and condescending to me, and this one didn’t, perhaps because it seemed like it had a point to make other than “adventure games and/or certain genres of fiction aren’t very realistic.” The researcher’s joy of discovery is here undercut by the actions of greedy developers and a country that hasn’t always been very careful with its archaeological bounty.

Implementation was a little fiddlier than I tend to prefer (if you can intercept me trying to take action on an item to tell me I need to pick it up first, you can make me try taking it automatically) and I’m not sure the light source management added real, interesting challenge as opposed to busywork (which is how I tend to feel about all light source management mechanics, to be fair). But other than that, this was a very solid traditional puzzle game with some appealingly distinctive aspects, and I hope to see more from this author in the future.

I will say upfront that I did not manage to finish this game. I got softlocked about an hour in when (Spoiler - click to show)the flashlight battery ran out in the crypt, so I couldn’t examine anything, but also couldn’t leave to charge the battery since I hadn’t finishing examining everything… But I did enjoy my time with the game up to that point, and perhaps I’ll give it another go later on if there's a post-comp release.

I went into this looking forward to a classic text adventure experience, and that’s precisely what I found. The premise is that your father has gone missing while researching an ancient monastery, leading you to follow in his footsteps to search for clues on his whereabouts and his research.

Firstly, I was impressed by the presentation of the interface. Love the little maps for each location! And the music is well-suited to the game and not distracting. Only small complaints are that in some places (eg the tower) there is no space between paragraphs, and I don’t think the font is the most readable for small text on screen.

The puzzles are intuitive and fairly straightforward, mostly in the vein of picking up items and realising where to use them. In some places the hints may in fact be too obvious, such as one instance where the game explicitly tells you that (Spoiler - click to show)you need something long to push the stone (emphasis original to the game).

I enjoy a large map to explore and this certainly delivered on that front. The writing was excellent at establishing atmosphere and sense of place, with each ‘area’ (the semi-abandoned town, the forest, the monastery ruins) feeling distinct and immersive. Especially appreciated the illustrated map and descriptions of the entire landscape in-game, which gave just enough guidance to make exploration feel really exciting. Stumbling on (Spoiler - click to show)the lake beach and ruins in the forest was such a thrill. (side note, I appreciate the forest design with each room having different exit configurations, that make it a lot easier to keep track of where you are)

That said, it’s clear that some locations received more attention than others. For example most of the village is great, but the tower could do with more thorough testing: the tourist information panel has the exact same information as looking at the panoramal; the box explicitly says it has a transparent door but you still can’t look inside when it is cloased; it doesn’t quite make sense that you can’t sit on the bench. My excitement at finding (Spoiler - click to show)the lakeside beach was hampered by there being nothing to see or do there; (Spoiler - click to show)the lake, mountain, and embankment don’t appear to be implemented corectly despite those nouns being bolded. At one point the game describes a pile of artifacts, “and likely much more, if one were to dig” but the game doesn’t recognise digging as a verb.

In general the fundamental design and structure of the game is excellent, but some more polish and thorough testing would be beneficial.

This was a very polished parser game, with no real bugs that I found, a full map that adjusted based on the room, music, and an interesting story.

You play as someone whose researcher father has disappeared, leading you to track him down to a small town in the mountainous forests of (I presume) Italy. Once there, you have to find where he went, following clues of an ancient monastic order.

I was worried the game would be overwhelming at first, with its large-seeming map and tons of scenery items, but the game is essentially organized with 3 or 4 areas that are pretty small (just a few rooms together) connected by linear paths that can either be walked on slowly or ridden on with the bicycle. There is a maze type area but it is easy to solve by stumbling around and there are multiple ways to solve it without exploration. So it's not as intimidating as it seems.

I did neglect to examine one important bolded scenery item and got stuck, so I had to check the walkthrough. After that, it was smooth sailing.

I liked the NPCs in the game. Two of them have not much of a role but all have very distinct personalities.

The game doesn't last too long, but it was pleasant to play while I tried it. It made me want to see these places in real life.