JK@DW

So, I just finished this game, and here's a no-spoiler review.

I had this game in Steam Library from a while, i decided to start it somewhat of a mont ago and this is one of the games that made me go "noooo why it's finished" when I got to the end.

Granted, Quern will take up quite a bit of work to get to the end, given the lenght and the many, many puzzles! And it's one of the aspects that reminds Myst... more precisely, Riven, given the aesthetics and what's it's gained from the story. Speaking about Myst, there's a rather blatant easter egg near the end :D

To Myst, Quern is a really great and heartfelt homage without being a simple copy: the atmosphere, the various puzzles, the fact that you need to write down stuff to get to the solutions... and the added mechanics: some of the puzzles needed revisiting to proceed, and there's an inventory of various objects that sometimes has to be combined or reused, and such.

Also, the underlining story -- while I admit it didn't drag me in as i.e. Riven's did -- it left me curious nonetheless, and in the end I was thinking at about some of the details scattered around the game and how some of the details I was shown might be interpreted. Starting from the more general setting and wanting to knowing more.

And there's a Linux version too!

The cons are few and on the technical side: one is the fact that the default configuration might give a bit of dizziness on people who has these kind of problems (like yours truly) -- but it is possible to change FOV and effects and such to avoid this. The other is about a few of the puzzles: on two I resorted to a guide (and I still didn't get why they had that particular solution), while other two are based on audio inputs -- so they might be unsolvable to people with hearing impairment.

The game went in production through a kickstarter, and now I wonder if the producers might be thinking of a sequel...