The Reliquary of Epiphanius

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.