Book Travelers: A Victorian Story Reviews

Glitched and section of game missing

This was a fun 2 hour game!

I found this to be a fun little game. If you've played this sort of game before (adventure/HOG/point and click) and enjoyed it, you'll enjoy this one. The theme is unusual and an interesting concept. Some of the reviews which I read said that it is too short and only takes two hours to complete. I played without sparkles, I did not use any hints and I did not skip any of the mini games but I did use the map from time to time to check where the action was. It took me 5.7 hours and, having bought it in the sale, I thought it was great value.

Y'know, its crazy this game is about books, because if the developers had actually read some, they might have come up with basic plot. By plot im referring to the characters, and the lore, but also im referring to the gameplay itself. I first realized something really dumb was going on when i spotted a shiny thing on the ground just slightly under a fallen bookshelf that was still propped up against another bookshelf, and my character says "i need to find some way to move the bookshelf", because for some reason shes too fucking lazy to bend her knees slightly. Then, immediately after you find a plank of wood, Ms "i cant crouch for shit" turns into, "im going to take this plank, prop it against my shoulder, and roller derby check the bookshelf so hard it props back up. The game is super linear, but the story is not, the devs knew this, theres little tidbits you will definitely spot if you play, because i did. Every now and then, you will complete a puzzle, and then go back to another rooms or area, and suddenly out of knowhere, theres a coin, or a block of wood, or something you needed earlier, and where looking for, but turned out the devs didn't want you to have it yet so they just made it appear out of thin air once you got the thing they wanted you to get first. Again, if they read a few books, they would know how not to make this mistake. As for the characters, they are impossible to take seriously, I don't think AI was used, but its clear repeatedly that the voice actors where... to put it lightly... "not happy to be there". My favorite one was the hooded guy, AKA, "batman after spending 24 hours straight filing his taxes". Yeah he sounded like batman, but a very VERY depressed batman. There are also rarely any emotions in the voice acting, which is why I am thinking the voices could be AI. The game is fairly pricey (2$ per hour), and doesn't really meet up to that value because it was rarely enjoyable. Some times I ended up doing a Ispy bit, all of them where super easy, the hidden objects make up half the screen, so just spam clicking lets you find 80% of them. The characters animations where so wacky it made me cringe, like legitimately the worst walking animations, facial animations, whatever animations.... except for hand animations, they did a really good job on the animations when my hand was opening a door. Which honestly made me laugh because everything else was animated horrifically. The art style is exactly like the trailer so i have nothing to say there. At the beginning of the game it says "audio preferred" or something like that. No idea why, the audio is just as nice as basically any other game ive played, and is not necessary at all. Unless there was something I failed to notice, that audio warning isn't really necessary. Speaking of audio though, at one point you get the hardest puzzle in the game, it is a weight distribution microgame where you need to get each chain to 5.5 weight. BE CAREFUL THOUGH, if you accidentally move a weight wrong, the devs have come up with the most monstrous of punishments. THEY WILL DESTROY YOUR EARS FOR YOUR FAILINGS. I am being dramatic, but seriously, the developers didn't fix the audio on the weights, and if you move one off screen it loops the sound 3-4 times at once which is LOUD. In short, this game is an insult to books, it just is, I'd call it a joke, but we both know its an insult to the literature. I don't think any love or soul was put into this game, it just not worth buying.