Recent reviews by -=[ BME ]=- Joey

Yes!
(Femtoreview for the steam awards ... will update it once i finished the game ... )

This is imo a pretty well done gem of Artifex Mundi. Nice UI, really catching story (at least for my taste), the cutscenes were well done, the HOGs and puzzles were challenging, but not too hard, many places to visit ... indeed i really have a hard time to find anything to complain about.

Although my 100% playthrough "only" took ~3,6hrs, it felt like it was 3 times as much and i enjoyed every single minute of it - but this opinion of mine might be heavily biased, as my immersion was pretty deep on this title. I shared the thrill for Alice quite often and was happy to play further and further every time.

Even taking the "hard metrics" (e.g. 100% in 3,6hrs and i needed only a single playthrough) into consideration, i still can recommend this title for any adult who's willing to dive a bit deeper. Maybe get it on sale, but even the regular price tag (currently €9,99) is ok imo.

Enjoy your journey!

TL;DR: This one was (as expected from Artifex Mundi) another pleasure to play through.

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The HOG scenes, puzzles and minigames were fun and had just the right amount of challenge for my taste - nothing bad to report here, have fun!

The scenes were fun to investigate and the story was fun to follow, tbh. Unexpectedly entertaining, well done!

I only got slightly stuck one time due to totally overreading what i already have in my inventory ... maybe i was too focused on the scenes themselves; to get more into detail: i already had the 2 missing fridge lock pieces collected ... but i nevertheless searched for more and wondered why i can't find anything more - duh.

Getting 100% of the achievements was possible in one run for which i spent ~2,5hrs of non-rushing playtime, so this is rather a short title.
The bonus chapter (not needed for any achievements) took another 30min to complete. While the bonus story was nothing too captivating and not comparable with, but rather an extension to the main story, the artwork was drawn fine again.

But anyway i recommend this one, as i enjoyed the setting/story/extras indeed.
(Maybe - according to 100% play-through-time - get it on sale, though.)

The Minotaur's Curse is imo a pretty interesting HOG - a nice one (again) from Artifex Mundi!

The story somehow didn't get boring, even after the 3rd playthrough, the HOG scenes are hard (but not too hard) and the puzzles were interesting and the artwork was also done really nice and detailed.

I also liked the idea that the collectibles were spread over both, base game plus bonus mission - made it somehow more interesting (and easier to replay and find the ones i missed before).

I spent ~5hrs for the 1st playthrough (base game + bonus chapter) and maybe another 2 hrs for 2 further replays (because i indeed missed 3 collectibles during my 2nd playthrough - duh).
At the 3rd playthrough i set the "skip" timer to 5sec and flew over the minigames but didn't skip the HOGs ... nice move of AM that you could customize the timer ingame.

(So everybody can set the difficulty according to his'/her/whatever's abilities, if one gets stuck or needs more resistance.)

Thanks AM, i enjoyed the game and can definitely recommend this one!

Really nice HOG, fun (and rewarding) to find all the items, folks and solve all the riddles :-)

Also the level sequence was refreshing, as you have easy scenes, hard scenes and "action scenes" (where you have to guide e.g. a car through a map and clear the way for it).

It's good for casual, relaxed gaming (as you can hop really fast into the game, at least on LinuxMint, but surely also on Windows i assume) and also for longer sessions. Keep in mind you can "soften" the monochrome colours (or even invert them, if you like w/b instead of b/w).

Looks all hand drawn with love and if you look closely in some levels you can find some hidden "easter egg" figurines from other games, movies or comics - nice effort, thanks for the fun finding them :-)
Also the sounds are sometimes pretty funny and helpful, but if you don't like them, you can finish the whole game "silently" (e.g. when others in the same room want to focus).

You can drag & zoom all over the levels, which is handy not only for finding the hidden objects on smaller screens, but also for finding those above mentiones references.

I spent ~10hrs to 100% the game, but i was also constantly searching for (above mentioned) hidden references. If you want to "fast finish" the game without any necessary extras, you can do it maybe in 4-6 hrs.

It didn't get boring and - sometimes after multiple re-reading the hints text for the searched object - all things could be found with a bit of thinking out of the box. I (DE native) played it in EN and it was fun and solvable anyway :-)

Worth a play(through)! Thanks for hiding - was fun to find you ;-P

A bit older, but still fun Artifex Mundi HOG classic game.

The story couldn't catch me fully, but it wasn't distracting either (a bit much of magic hocus pocus for my taste), but the objects were hidden in plenty of scenes - also (as i'm not a native EN speaker and didn't change the language to DE) it was fun learning a few more EN words and figuring out the possible matching items XD

The 1st playthrough of the base game itself plus the bonus mission in normal mode took me about 3,5hrs (including the search for things so i take as many achievements as possible on my way), while the last speedrun on hardest mode (to get 100% achievements) took me about 1hr.

If you get it on sale and want a bit harder HOG scenes, this might be for you, and even for the ~10€ it costs regular it's ok (i spent more on worse things) if you want to support Artifex Mundi.

Maybe even better start with this one, as other AM games have a better story (at least imo).

-> Was fun 100%ing this one, too :-)

TL:DR: A decent game of Artifex Mundi - recommendable and enjoyable :-)

The plot is interesting (and didn't get boring for me, even after 2x replaying).

The puzzles are all well doable and you don't have a time limit, so you can relax, enjoy and just take your time to think.

Getting 100% achievements took me about 6hrs, but for the 1st lazy run (which i always recommend to "just enjoy the story") was about 4hrs (and the follwing 2 speedruns to gather all remaining items) were roughly 1hr each.

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The graphics are fine, but the cutscenes are a bit less detailed. It doesn't really disturb the flow, but might have to be mentioned.
(But "fun > HighRes", so don't worry here.)

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Overall:
I played quite a few other Artifex Mundi games and this one fits well into the "base" corner - not too exciting, but well painted graphics and definitely no waste of time, go ahead and play and enjoy ;-)

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To be mentioned aside (Might be fixed in a later Steam Client version.):
Steam Overlay crashed for me 2 times (playing on Linux Mint), but in it's current "we prefer a blingy fancy GUI over a stable base client" state i'd blame the Steam Client itself (and it was some JavaScript error, which would fit to this claim). Disabling the Steam Overlay and no more crash occured.
But this crashes both were during my speedruns and when heavily (ab)using the Overlay :-P

Hit the notes or miss them - you might have a good time anyway!

- Free2play (no pay2win ... how would this work ?)
- Runs fine on Linux/SteamOS
- Music!
- UI somehow customizable
- Small disk size (depending on your songs ofc)
- ...

-> Get it and give it a try, get frustrated, return the other day, be happy again :D

A very nice point'n'click HOG from Artifex Mundi, where you play in a steampunk kind of scenery.
The gameplay is pretty linear and you can get help in any situation (depending on the currently chosen difficulty) but it's ok in this game as it follows the story. This makes the game a very good casual game, as you can quit and resume anytime in the last scenery.

I took my time at the first playthrough to enjoy all hand-drawn backgrounds and items (and in order not to miss any secret for the 100% achievements) and the main story plus the bonus chapter (the prequel of the main story which intentionally is meant to be played later) it took me about 3 hours and the "fast-click-speedrun" (to also get the achievement for playing it on hard difficulty) took roughly 1 hour (with skipped movie sequences wherever possible, but many puzzles can be solved faster than being skipped).


I can indeed recommend this game from Artifex Mundi, which ran flawlessly on my Ubuntu 18.04 familiar to almost all other Artifex Mundi games. Plus the system requirements are pretty low, so you might be able to play this game nearly everywhere, wherever your steam desktop client runs. So this game is also well suitable for children (maybe when they're old enough to read and when they're able to combine little information packages and draw conclusions). Apart from that you can play together and share the fun ;-)

It is also sometimes included in "Artifex Mundi game bundles" on 3rd party sites (Indiegala) and often on sale on steam for a few bucks (currently ~3€) which indeed is a very good value per playtime.

-> If you like how the images are drawn (and ofc like HOGs) go for it, there's nothing wrong with it (especially when on sale).

Nice HOG game. Not too complex, pretty linear gameplay and you can quit/resume anytime. To 100% this game you have to spot all the little collectible items, but if you replay this game, you only have to find the missing ones (which is really helpful as you only have to focus on these and not the ones you already found).
Also you can switch difficulties anytime, so you can adapt it to your playstyle (if necessary).

The story feels a little bit flat for me and i could not immerse completely into it, but is casual fun to play this one. I got it in an Artifex Mundi bundle and had a few hours of light fun with it. (Maybe the WW2 scenario of the story and the mild violence isn't well suited for kids; better play it by yourself before and decide yourself.)
There are many better HOG games out there, but i'd recommend this one anyway (especially when on sale), because it's not a completely bad game and it kept me playing for ~7hours.


Playthrough time can be estimated about 2-3hours maybe in the first run (depending on the chosen difficulty and personal skill) and if you rush it in order to 100% it later you might play through in under an hour (skipping all skippable scenes etc.).


The game ran just fine "native" on my Ubuntu 18.04 without any glitched/crashed or any negative side effects. It needs about 767MiB free disk space installed. As in every HOG, Mouse strongly recommended, but e.g. with the steam controller (or a wireless keyboard with a touchpad) you can enjoy it on your couch, too.