The Almost Gone

This game was played in its entirety on a MacBook Air M1 8gb ram 7c gpu running MacOS Sonoma. There were no bugs or crashes throughout my time with the game. All achievements unlocked at their appropriate times, thankfully. I hated this game. Well, that's not entirely true. I hated much of this game. In this simple adventure game, players are tasked with navigating a handful of locations and solving puzzles that range from simple to ever so slightly complex. The puzzles are a bit too easy, but they are of average or above average quality, and there were a good number of them for the length of the game (more about that later). So, overall, I did like the puzzles. What's left? Well, the graphics, the sounds, and the story. The graphics were okay, but almost every single screen had all of the action focused on only around 30% of the exact center of the screen, with complete empty space filling the rest of the screen. This might have been an atmospheric choice, but it's not the most fun way to play a game (this concept will be repeated throughout the review). I really wish I could have zoomed in on certain areas, as the images more often than not had some neat things going on with th…

Honestly can't make up my mind about this game. I think it needed to be a bit longer and meatier. The art style is beautiful and it does a great job of creating atmosphere and tension, but it felt like the story and gameplay were vying for attention with neither being sufficiently satisfying, or super well integrated with each other. I think the puzzle aspect should have been leaned into more; it was frequently hard to work out what was set dressing and what was actually important because it was so light on the puzzling and the important objects were often chosen seemingly at random, but solving the puzzles was necessary to gain more plot points. Overall I feel like I've been half-fed with something intriguing but ultimately not filling enough, but I recommend it because it has so many cool and well-executed aspects when looked at in isolation.

Initially neat but exceedingly short with a very disappointing ending.

A decent compact point and click puzzler to dive into for a couple of hours. It has unique visuals, great atmospheric soundtrack, and an intriguing story that doesn't take the center stage (gameplay does), which is both a pro and a con of the game, depending what you want from it. Graphics are simplistic and puzzles are straight forward which makes it hard to recommend it for desk PC sessions. Playing if on mobile or handheld feels way more organic.

Overall, a great puzzle game with beautiful art. The controls are a little fickle at times (I had to restart the game once or twice because the cursor would not click on any elements) and some areas could be a little clearer (like [spoiler] the code in the hospital diorama to get to Act 4 [/spoiler]), but what it lacks in gameplay, it more than makes up for in plot and art. The plot is heavily implied, but if you follow along, you'll get it. I [i] loved [/i] learning about Emily's life and family in this dream-like liminal dimension. I thought the recurring motif of the treehouse was a brilliant way to anchor the story. The game is pretty quick to complete too (I finished in ~3 hrs). I would absolutely recommend this game to anyone who likes puzzle games with great art story, or who's looking to kill a few hours!

I would suggest getting this game only with discount. It's decent puzzle game. not too hard not too easy, I enjoyed it, but base game is roughly 2 hours long but... story is a bit wierd, more questions than answers. and like half of the "hidden" achievements are truly unnecessary. like replay the game, or spend 5 hours in one room.