Point ‘n’ Click Adventure games have been around for over forty years. For me, the heyday was the Lucas Art adventure times of Monkey Island, and Day of the Tentacle, in the early nineties, but thankfully games companies like Bildundtonfabrik’ (btf) are still producing games in the genre, games like Trüberbrook
If you’re a veteran
video gamer then you may remember 1967, the era that Trüberbrook is set in, a
time with Cold War’s, and moon landings.
However, these events pale in comparison to the events that took place
in a small, overlooked and sleepy German province called Trüberbrook.
You play as
American Student Hans Tannhauser who rather inexplicably wins a trip to the
titular village, in a lottery he can’t remember entering. With his ph.D. in
Quantum Physics in hand he sets off for some much needed RnR.
It isn’t long before a mysterious stranger breaks into
his hotel room and steals his physics papers. In order to solve the mystery, he
must get to know the quaint yet peculiar residents and guests. In particular a young anthropologist called Greta
Lemke, who is on a research trip to Trüberbrook.
She seems normal but before he knows what’s happening, Greta
becomes Tannhauser’s accomplice on the adventure of a lifetime, saving the world.
As far as
gameplay goes, Truberbrook is a fairly standard point and click affair, he investigate
the various scenes, pick up and use objects within the world, while talking to
the residents. You know what they say, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, and I
personally have no problem with btf following a very tried and tested game style.
One feature you don’t often see is a kid’s mode. Activate the kid’s mode, and
not only does an adult”¦ err”¦ massager not appear but the characters smoking has
been removed as well.
Trüberbrook on
the most part looks and sounds great, the animation is nice and smooth and graphically
you’re looking at a bright, and colourful style. The sound fits, though for
some reason the voice acting just seems that little but off. Not a major thing
and probably isn’t a major issue for others but for me, yeah, there’s just something
not quite right.
The difficulty
of a point and click game is a very subjective thing, and you can’t really be
too specific in difficulty. However, I’m glad that the puzzles are not insanely
and illogically difficult like Discworld, and at the same time, I haven’t
breezed through the puzzles. I made steady progress with the game, not getting
overly stuck on anything, so difficulty seemed mostly about right.
On the PS4,
there are few controls. The lift stick controls Hans, the right stick controls
a further curser you can use to select things. There are also buttons for highlighting
items, and speed-walk, as well using the D-pad for your object and person
interactions. It’s simple and it’s very easy to pick up and play. You don’t even
really need the left stick most of the time, as you can simply use the right
stick to select an item to walk to or interact with.
The only area
that Trüberbrook might conceivably suffer in, is in wanting to go back and play
it all over again. Once, completed there are not a wide array of reasons to go
back and play it again. There’s the story of course, but it’s going to play out
in pretty much the same way. Having said that, leave this on the shelf for a
year or so, and I dare-say you’ll want to jump back in and follow the exploits
of Hans again.
Trüberbrook is
available on Steam, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch,
Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Linux and MAC.
Share this article:
Jim Franklin
Jim Franklin is a freelance writer, living in Derby UK with his wife and his player 3. When time allows he likes nothing more than losing himself in a multi-hour gaming session. He likes most games and will play anything but prefers MMO's, and sandbox RPG's.
