When I got the email ‘You wake up on a rickety wooden bridge suspended in the sky’, I panicked. Is this an event set to happen in my actual life? Fortunately, it was the opener for Strangeland, coming to PC next month.
That rickety bridge leads up to Strangeland, ‘a funhouse booby-trapped with riddles of the mind. As you step inside, a woman throws herself down a well before you have a chance to save her. Then a payphone rings, and when you answer it, you hear your own voice…’
I don’t have any beef with clowns, and quite indifferent to them, but the carnival ‘scene’ hasn’t been covered enough, and perhaps why Carnivale was one of the greatest TV shows ever made… anyway.
Jeitaro
Strangeland takes places within a dark dream where a golden-haired woman repeatedly sacrifices herself, a scribe with his eyes removed, repeatedly scribbles away and tosses the pages aside. The further you probe, the more questions arise: will the darkness consume you.
Key features in the game include:
- A bizarre dreamscape brought to life with striking and surreal pixel art graphics
- Clever puzzles with layered solutions — sometimes more than one
- A rich allegorical story about identity, loss, and redemption that can only be fully understood if you look beyond what’s in front of you — it’s a puzzle all on its own
- An integrated hint system, for those who want it
- Play it again: hours of developer commentary and an “annotation mode” shed light on the game’s numerous metaphors, references, and enigmas
Ten years in the making, this point and click adventure from Wormwood Studios and Wadjet Eye Games features some stunning artwork, but the concept looks intriguing. I’m picking up The Dark Eye vibe, but if H.R. Giger was let loose with a digital brush.
You’ll be able to pick up this adventure on Steam from the 25th of May.
