CastleAbra

As Nubbin Pureheart, an [i]almost[/i] gormless village boy driven to heroism by the nuclear fire in your loins, you must rescue frosty princess Myrna Loo from the clutches of a manic-depressive incel wizard. Prepare to solve your way through an eye-popping storybook castle chock-a-block with [b]perfectly balanced puzzles of old schoolish difficulty[/b] -- meaning that, unlike most modern point 'n' clicks, your cat can't beat it for you by walking on the keyboard (or batting the mouse around, I guess), and unlike the [i]moldier[/i] oldies, it won't take a deep ayahuasca dive into the narcotic realm of the [b]Great Corn Maiden[/b] to finish without a flippin' walkthrough. For a poor, deprived wretch like myself . . . such golden puzzle perfection is a thing of the utmost beauty! I seem fated to wander this accursed realm, ever searching for adventures that meet the [i]Deponia[/i] standard: games that will genuinely stymie me on occasion, but which a rugged adherence to logical thinking and a few shallow dips into the formless sub-mind will ultimately untangle. Oh, [i]CastleAbra[/i] is an oasis in the desert! (Nah, I actually like the easier ones too, but this [i]is[/i] really, …

https://youtu.be/YiD9s3Z9Hy0 Much of the visual style dances between off putting and discordantly compelling. If the puzzle design and QoL was more modern the article novelty would make be able to pull players through.

It's more or less the Saturday Morning Cartoon version of Shadowgate. Unfortunately it's not quite as intuitive as those ICOM games, especially considering it's about 25 years newer than them. However, David Bowie is great in his final supporting role as "dude in the mirror" and that's almost enough to push it into "buy" territory all on its own, but the representations of Agnetha and Anni-Frid are way off and that's really too ba - wait what? It's called what? Silly me, I thought it was CastleABBA. So get it on sale I guess. Or don't, whatever.

Basically impossible.

Bad

Tags: Adventure - WC - Walk Clicker Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library TLDR: Thin story. Tedious inventory puzzles. Dated walk clicker interface. Low quality visuals. Walkthrough mandatory to cut on frustration. Not really worth investing time into.