Aporia: Beyond The Valley

Where are the Puzzles in my puzzle game? Aporia: Beyond the Valley is a very strange game. The description of this game makes it seem like a large world full of puzzles and mysteries. That just not accurate. Also, the claim that it has fantastic music? Most of the game only has atmospheric sound effects and NO music. What music is there isn't all that stand out either. What this game really boils down to is a poorly optimized walking sim with some interactive elements, and maybe 2 puzzles. Most of what this game considers to be puzzles are simply finding items and clicking on them. In my close to 3 hours with the game, I really can only think of two puzzles that I actually had to think about to complete, and even those were pretty easy and can be solved without really knowing anything. There ARE additional things that you can accomplish in the game, and some additional "puzzles" to get the required items, but I just didn't care to search for them. Aporia is too large of a game with too many mechanics that don't contribute to interesting or fun game design. Why do I have to spend a full minute walking down a corridor each time a complete a section of the game just t…

Walk around and drink simulator. Turns my computer into a jet engine.

Thank you for hurting me. A beautiful tale. Only one puzzle broke, and I found the solution in the community tab from a Dev. Just restart the level. A non-issue, really. A hauntingly beautiful, surreal, and at times, a little abstract, story. If you get it, it will stay with you for a while.

I got this game for 80p so difficult to rate poorly. This is a decent attempt at a puzzle / walking sim. The presentation is very good, visually quite polished. (apart from a few strange artefacts of the cryengine) I especially like the design of the shadow-puppet like projections, and the overall narrative is quite engaging. There are a few strange design choices that detract from the experience slightly, mainly the main item requiring constant refuelling, as well as an arbitrary slenderman-like encounters. which only left me asking 'why include this at all?' But perhaps worse was the way in which both mechanics exacerbate the issues with the already hopeless open-world navigation. I found a great deal of my time disoriented, fighting against the over-saturated lighting, or with the camera pointed into walls, crevices and bits of shelf as I searched for shards of glass or potions. Further to this, there's no journal or progress check or any way to mark when you have been somewhere or done something already, so the middle chapter was spent mostly walking around the circles. I was mainly kept going by some genuinely lovely set pieces, but the whole experience was pulled down…

Good enough game, but nothing to rave about. Puzzle mechanics are seen in many other titles, and the difficulty overall is pretty low: It would be the perfect game for someone who wants to start getting into puzzle games. Graphics are beautiful, and the atmosphere is enjoyable. Controls are often somewhat annoying.

Excellent graphics, puzzles are not too hard or easy to solve. Non-violent.