Something Amiss

Didn't we used to have to pay for games like this?

Reviewed by Shawn from afro-ninja.com

Something Amiss is a new point and click adventure series that has some serious production values. Your first clue is the actual [movie trailer] that was produced, along with the book. This game isn’t a one-time experience.

You play as a woman named Alice. After waking up from an MRI, she finds that her surroundings have changed drastically- and it’s up to you to figure out just what is going on. All the environments are rendered in beautiful 3-d. Not amateur 3-d either, but the kind of 3-d you would find in point and click games produced by actual companies. As usual you click around your environment, finding items and solving puzzles. The item/menu system is fairly intricate. Any area you wish to explore on the screen, you click and hold for a couple seconds. The ‘verb disc’ will pop up, giving you three choices- talk, examine, take. The three verbs are tailored to change to the item in question. For example if you pick up a tape recorder your option wont be ‘talk to tape recorder,’ it will be ‘record voice on tape recorder.’ Likewise, if you pick up food, ‘talk’ changes to ‘eat.’

Once items are in your inventory the same set of three options apply to each one. Furthermore, you can combine items together in your inventory, combine an inventory item with something on screen, or simply use the item. Through the first couple chapters there wasn’t a large amount of item interaction (until near the end) but the system is in place for when it needs to become more complicated.

As I said, the graphics are well above par compared to other games like this, and mimic a game that you would have to pay to play. The only thing I don’t really like is that while the environments and characters are shown in fully rendered 3-d, your main character is shown in cel-shaded 3-d. It’s an odd contrast at times, but I suppose it helps you distinguish your character from the background. The sound department checks out ok too, with all the necessary sfx and ambience music you need.

For as good of a game as this is, there are a small set of quirks that bug me. First of all, the level loading times. Every new screen you progress to must be loaded. This is overkill in the first chapter, which is only a few screens long. The second chapter is much longer though and the loading is more necessary, but it’s still annoying to have to pause between each screen for loading. Once you’ve been to an area though you’ll only have to wait an extra second to load it back. Also, the ‘verb disc’ and control scheme aren’t explained in the game itself, but rather in the help section. That’s fine, but the link to the help section (along with others) are right above the game, and they appear to be part of the game itself. Click one though and you’ll be taken to a different page, killing your game. Lastly, the loading and game menus seem a little lackluster in design compared to how awesome the rest of the game looks, but that’s nitpicking.

Something Amiss is currently two chapters long, with more slated for release. Aside from the introductory chapter I found the puzzles fairly engaging and not too hard (except for that damn ruins maze, had to check the hints on that one). There’s a little bit of pixel hunting too, but it’s not bad. Something Amiss is an excellent adventure game- multiple chapters, great environments, an engaging story, everything you need. Go play, and support this indie project!

Click here to play Something Amiss






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