Daedalic Entertainment este o companie germana, care ne-au obisnuit cu o serie de jocuri bazate puternic pe poveste, care au prins bine la publicul international, dupa ce au avut un succes rasunator pe piata germana. Anul acesta au lansat al doilea joc din seria Edna & Harvey, The Breakout.

Edna & Harvey: The Breakout a pornit ca u nproiect independent al cofondatorului Daedalic Entertainment, Jan Müller-Michaelis si a fost lansat mai intai in limba germana in 2008. Succesul jocului i-a determinat pe producatori sa il refaca si sa-l optimizeze pentru limba engleza.

Povestea

Poveste din Edna & Harvey: The Breakout este una absurda si morbida pe alocuri si o are in centru pe Edna, o nebuna inchisa intr-un ospiciu, care are drept animal de companie un iepure de plus, numit Harvey, cu care poarta conversatii. Dupa ♥♥♥ spune titlul, scopul lui Edna este sa evadeze din spital si apoi sa se indrepte spre casa si sa puna cap la cap evenimentele care au dus la inchiderea ei la nebuni. In urma tratamentelor cu electrosocuri, memoria i-a fost stearsa, iar acum trebuie sa porneasca de la zero. Iepurasul este un fel de subconstient al sau, prezentat ca si prieten, dar, de fapt, acesta o impinge sa ia decizii pripite si o pune de cele mai multe ori in incurcatura.

Gameplay

Jocul incepe cu Edna inchisa intr-o celula, iar scopul principal este sa o scoti afara. Controlul actiunilor, miscarilor si dialogului se face cu mouse-ul, in stilul jocurilor point and click clasice. Ai patru optiuni principale pentru interactiuni si anume “look at”(uita-te la), “pick up”(culege de jos), “talk to”(vorbeste cu) si “use”(foloseste). Ca sa folosesti actiunile trebuie sa te duci cu mouse-ul pe ele si sa executi un click de fiecare data cand vrei sa faci ceva. Din pacate nu exista scurtaturi pentru aceste optiuni, ar fi fost dragut sa avem macar ceva optiuni la click-dreapta.

Personajul principal beneficiaza de un inventar, care poate gazdui pana la 35 de obiecte. Poti culege o groaza de chestii, n-am reusit insa sa umplu inventarul, dar am fost pe aproape chiar de la inceput. Ca in Deponia, Edna poate folosi aproape tot ce gaseste in jur. Printre actiunile pe care le poti face se nuara numeroase acte de vandalism, care nu au nici un rol in evolutia povestii, dar care se potrivesc de minune cu firea personajului principal.

Intre misiuni, ai anumite amintiri interactive unde poti juca si cu Edna si cu Harvey iar jucand cu acesta din urma, poti accesa unle locuri la care Edna nu poate ajunge si iti va dezvalui tragedia din trecut, in urma careia, Edna a ajuns la azil. De asemenea, in timpul acestor amintiri, vei invata lucruri noi care iti vor fi de folos in cursul misiunilor urmatoare.

Edna & Harvey: The Breakout este impanzit de puzzleuri, iar pentru a le rezolva va trebui sa-ti folosesti obiectele din inventar si sa comunici in acelasi timp. Primul puzzle e chiar la inceputul jocului cand trebuie sa o scoti pe Edna din celula. In timp ce cauti solutia, poti comunica cu gardianul de la usa, iar in functie de ♥♥♥ decurge dialogul, obiectele din celula se modifica, iar dupa aceea vei putea lua un obiect din celula pe care sa-l folosesti pentru a evada. Gameplay-ul poate fi dificil in aceste momente, jucatorii care nu au experienta ar putea ramane blocati chiar de la primul nivel.

Dupa ce evadezi din celula, va trebui sa indeplinesti anumite obiectiva, ♥♥♥ ar fi copierea unei chei a gardianului sau gasirea unei rute de evadare. Fiecare din aceste obiective va pune probleme in solutionare, iar spre sfarsit misiunile devin din ce in ce mai grele.

Grafica

Grafica este specifica unor desene animate sau chiar unor benzi desenate. Chiar daca impresia e de design simplist, acest lucru ilustreaza vederea copilaroasa a lui Edna, care ne sugereaza faptu lca dezvoltarea ei a fost oprita in ultimii 10 ani care au dus la situatia ei actuala. Cel mai mult mi-au placut designurile exterioare, care infatiseaza o lume complexa, puternic colorata si animata in care Edna isi duce traiul. In contrast, scenele de noapte sunt intunecoase si cuprind o puternica incarcatura emotionala. Interioarele sunt diversificate si incarcate puternic, iar jucatorul are la dispozitie o multime de puncte cu care sa interactioneze. Animatiile sunt rare, iar de multe ori inexistente, in schimbul acestora primesti un sunet care sa sugereze ca personajul a executat o actiune; de exemplu cand Edna taie ceva cu foarfeca, personajul sta nemiscat in timp ce un sunet specific se aude in fundal.

Sunet

Pe langa efectele sonore amintite mai sus, care sunt destul de bine lucrate si conturate, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout are un fundal sonor constant, format dintr-o muzica Jazz, care isi modifica tonalitatea, in functie de gravitatea si incarcarea scenei. Jocul e plin de dialoguri, insa multe dintre ele sunt absurde si te enerveaza la propriu. Cand porti o conversatie ai multe variante, multe dintre ele inutile, unele haioase, dar majoritatea slabute in continut, iar acestea vor enerva suficienti jucatori. Din fericire, vocile sunt bine interpretate, iar acest aspect salveaza unele din lipsurile substantei din dialoguri.

Concluzie

Edna & Harvey: The Breakout este un amestec de lucruri pozitive si negative. Grafica superb realizata este distrusa de o interfata problematica. Multimea de posibilitati de alegere este ingreunata de puzzle-uri prost alese si mult prea dificile. Povestea buna a jocului e trasa mult in urma de dialogurile inutile. Cu toate acestea, mi-a facut placere sa incerc acest joc, in special pentru ca l-am jucat pe cel vechi si pentru povestea extraordinara din spatele sau. Edna & Harvey: The Breakout este de fapt o comedie neagra, cu tendinte de tragedie, pentru ca oricat s-ar chinui, personajul principal este intr-o situatie fara scapare, iar acest lucru m-a surprins; nu ma asteptam ca lucrurile sa ia o asemenea intorsatura, iar acest lucru mi-a facut experienta mai placuta.

Nota noastra pentru Edna & Harvey: The Breakout este 7/10.

Sursa http://steamgames.ro/game-review/edna-harvey-the-breakout-review/

An updated review after having played the game to completion...

Only buy this game if you are prepared to battle a few technical issues, but if so, then certainly do. And especially when on sale. Point & click fans should not mis this one: it's great fun.

The tl;dr version: you will want to install the 7u79 Java 7 JRE and will if playing the English language version need to change to German for one of the puzzles (the kitchen menu one) and for the ending credits, but that's it. Steam-achievements worked fine for me with either language.

For a bit more detail; it is as to the first and foremost technical issue as of 2015-07-14 likely that the game won't run fullscreen for you after initial install, presenting you with a white screen with sound only and no picture. This is a Java version mismatch. The first run of the game installs the very first version of the 32-bit Java 7 JRE (7.0.0), which at the very least on Windows 7 64-bit does not in fact work for this game.

If you do not need a version 8 JRE installed for other purposes, it's easy to fix. Install the latest and last version of the 32-bit (i.e., "x86") Java 7 JRE manually; version 7u79, released 2015-04-14, at the time of writing available from

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jre7-downloads-1880261.html

If you allow the installation to remove the 7.0.0 version, running the game will reinstall it alongside again but it seems to in fact still use the new version. It for me runs fine after installing 7u79.

You do currently need to not let the just installed new JRE7 subsequently update itself to JRE8; this at the moment installs the 8u51 JRE and will see the game return to its original white-screen behavior. This may of course have changed by the time you read this, but if not, I would advice to simply temporarily uninstall JRE8 for the duration of playing the game. Some 20 hours, that is.

Note that if you insist on not even being offered the upgrade to JRE8 by the JRE7 you will find the relevant option in the Java 32-bit control panel to not stick unless you run it as administrator. If the account that you are running Steam and the game under has administrative rights, this consists of right-clicking

C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin\javacpl.exe

and choosing "Run as adminstrator". If you run Steam and the game under an unprivileged user account, temporarily give this user administrative rights, only to unselect automatic updates as per the above. And blame Oracle. You may or may not have to repeat this for the old 7.0.0 version as installed by the game and as found at

C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.7.0\bin\javacpl.exe

At this point you should be able to start enjoying a very good adventure game, fullscreen or windowed, and in either English or German.

Unless you luck through it, it is likely that you will get the game stuck inside the kitchen-menu puzzle if you play the English language version. If so, Alt-Tab to your desktop, end the game by right-clicking it on the taskbar and restart in German. You can quit and restart in English again immediately after solving the puzzle. The English-language version of the ending-credits is also bugged currently; same solution applies.

If you read to here, you're probably wondering if this game is worth the hassle. Yes, I would say it is. In fact, I consider the game an instant (not-)modern point & click classic. Be sure to check out the sequel, "Edna & Harvey: Harvey's New Eyes" as well; a more modern interface and every bit as entertaining.

Daedalic made a lot of games. Some of them good, some of them mindblowingly awesome, some of them The Night of the Rabbit. But this one is the best of them all. It's one of the best adventure games in existence. It's made of pure fun. You should try to combine it with every other game made by Daedalic and see what Edna has to say about it.

Edna & Harvey: The Breakout is a point and click adventure game developed by Daedalic Entertainment.


Edna breaks out begins with the main character Edna waking up in a soft cell. She has completely lost her memories and knows neither how she got into the cell nor why she is in a psychiatric hospital in the first place. But she firmly believes that she is not crazy. Her only friend is her blue stuffed bunny, Harvey, who she can talk to. He also helps her to escape first from her cell and later from the institution because he gives her flashbacks when she sees certain objects, with which she remembers her childhood and especially the skills she acquired back then. After Edna escapes from her cell and overpowers her guards, she is relatively free to move around the clinic.

In the adventure I meet all kinds of borderline genius characters. Each of them is a real original and has its very own, lovable neurosis. Despite having different skin colors, Hoti and Moti consider themselves Siamese twins and therefore wear the same sweater. The inspector, who has a North German dialect and a good dose of tidiness, ensures that only people with a proper coat hanger ticket are allowed to misuse the laundry lift as a means of transport. If I've outsmarted him, I'll run into Herr Mantel, who thinks he's a frock coat and travels through the laundry lift in an umbrella.


+ entertaining story told
+ a lot of black humor
+ interesting characters
+ weird weird texts
+ Trashy original comic style fits perfectly
+ loads of inventory puzzles
+ bizarre but catchy musical accompaniment
+ Achievements and trading cards


- cheap sound effects
- cumbersome controls


Edna & Harvey: The Breakout gives you a fresh cell treatment with a wacky adventure trip.



Edna & Harvey: The Breakout ist ein Point & Click Abenteuerspiel, welches von Daedalic Entertainment entwickelt wurde.


Edna bricht aus beginnt damit, dass der Hauptcharakter Edna in einer Weichzelle aufwacht. Sie hat ihre Erinnerungen komplett verloren und weiß weder, wie sie in die Zelle gelangt ist, noch, warum sie sich überhaupt in einer psychiatrischen Klinik befindet. Sie ist aber fest davon überzeugt, nicht verrückt zu sein. Ihr einziger Freund ist ihr blauer Stoffhase Harvey, mit dem sie sich unterhalten kann. Außerdem hilft er ihr, zunächst aus ihrer Zelle und später aus der Anstalt zu entkommen, weil er ihr beim Anblick bestimmter Gegenstände zu Flashbacks verhilft, mit denen sie sich an ihre Kindheit und insbesondere an damals erworbene Fähigkeiten erinnert. Nachdem Edna aus ihrer Zelle flieht und ihre Wächter überwältigt, kann sie sich relativ frei in der Klinik bewegen.

Im Abenteuer treffe ich auf allerlei grenzgeniale Charaktere. Jeder von ihnen ist ein echtes Original und hat seine ganz eigene, liebenswerte Neurose. Hoti und Moti halten sich trotz unterschiedlicher Hautfarbe für siamesische Zwillinge und tragen daher den gleichen Pullover. Der mit norddeutschem Dialekt und einer gehörigen Portion Ordnungsliebe ausgestattete Kontrolleur sorgt dafür, dass nur Personen mit einem vorschriftsmäßigen Kleiderbügel-Ticket den Wäschelift als Transportmittel missbrauchen dürfen. Habe ich ihn überlistet, treffe ich auf Herrn Mantel, der sich für einen Gehrock hält und in einem Regenschirm durch den Wäschelift reist.


+ unterhaltsam erzählte Story
+ viel schwarzer Humor
+ interessante Charaktere
+ unheimlich komische Texte
+ trashiger Original-Comicstil passt prima
+ jede Menge Inventar-Rätsel
+ skurrile, aber eingängige Musikbegleitung
+ Errungenschaften und Sammelkarten


- billige Soundeffekte
- umständliche Steuerung


Edna & Harvey: The Breakout beschert dir eine Frischzellenkur mit einem abgedrehten Abenteuer-Trip.

I love this game. It had great voice acting, witty dialogue, and nice music. Overall I had a lot of fun playing this game, but I can't bring myself to recommend this game to others. The English version of the game has a couple game breaking bugs that will keep you from not only getting achievements, but, more importantly, also keep you from finishing the game.

The good news is that within the guide section for this game someone was kind enough to post a patch that fixes both of those bugs. Bad news is that that link is outdated and doesn't take you to the patch, but thankfully someone else posted a link in the comments which takes you to a different site that contains the necessary download for the patch. Sadly, the game is still prone to problems even after you go through the trouble of downloading the patch and swapping out the necessary files. I quickly learned to save after I did anything, because the game often crashes. The game also has a problem where sometimes it won't start up properly (the music will play, but the window won't pop up or, if it does pop up, will simply show a white screen).

All of those things can add up to a very frustrating experience when trying to play the game. The main thing that kept me from simply calling it quits was the fact that the first time I played I was very close to the end before I experienced the first crash (and learned the importance of saving) and I wanted to know how it ended.

It's a point & click adventure from German developer Daedalic Entertainment.
It has references of games such as Monkey Island, the dialogues and visual style has a strong influence of Day of Tentacle. The dark humor reminds us of the first Sam & Max.

Story

The story starts off a bit slowly, with Edna trying to figure out how to escape from her cell. Her memory has been wiped by electroshock treatments. Edna counts on her stuffed rabbit, Harvey, that takes over a form of an imaginary friend.

Gameplay

The interaction with the characters is linear, although there are many hypotheses of conversation, the result will always be the same and there's one way to resolve the puzzles. The mechanic used by the game is the "tempomorph". So it takes Edna and Harvey back in time to explore traumatic scenes from her past. The memories acquired from this experience provide new abilities to Edna. Control is point & click, along with usual options to interact with your environment in many ways, talking, picking objects up... etc.


Graphic

Graphically, the game features a striking cartoon art with a slightly abstract using a retro interface reminiscent of Lucas Arts-style comedic that fits perfectly into the theme of insanity and dark humor of the asylum. Great voice acting especially for Edna and Harvey; an unexpectedly touching storyline; massive amounts of interactivity. The sound is great at some points, especially when it uses piano and a mix of jazz. Tedious dialogues and repetitive travel sequences.

Conclusion

Edna & Harvey: The Breakout, it's assumed to be a tribute to Lucas Arts. It has an old-school flavor with many of the same annoyances as older games, but many positive surprises as well. so if you seek to revive the memories of the 90s then it's a perfect game to remember the worst and the best that the past has given us.

This game is a great throw back to the classic point and adventure games of the past. The artwork is great and fits the bizzare feel of the game and its colorful cast of insane characters. And the story is great from begining to end, though it does get very dark as it progresses, even with some genuenly shocking revelations. I had my guesses of what would happen but I was way off. If I had anything bad to say about the game, the controls point and click interface glitched every so often making me stuck on a puzzle because I am unable to click on an item that is clearly regestring in the game. Also, just like the p.o.c. games of yore, you may be stuck on a puzzle for a very long time til either revelation or gamefaq comes to you.

Escape isn't about breaking free physically—it's about running from what weighs on the mind. Puzzles are just the means; freedom is something you feel.

In my defence, this is my first review, so don't be to harsh with me ;-)
But this game is just great. In fact, it is just so good, that something tells me that I have to write a review.
So if you like old fashion point and click adventure, you will love this one!
But enough of the glorification, here are the facts why it is so superb.

As everything in the game, the story plot is weird, but in a really lovely way. Basically, you (Edna) and your little pyromaniac stuffed rabbit (Harvey) are trapped in an asylum and you have no clue why. So you have to find a way to break out and get your memories back. On your way you will meet a lot of crazy people, which are helping you out (one more, one less).

The voice acting (just played the german version) is well and fits perfectly to the witty dialogues and its characters. Sometime you can hear that not all of the voice actors are professionals, but that's no big harm to the game. You can literally talk to everything and you will always get a unique answer. Even if you combine things, you will always get an impertinent comment. All is attended by catchy music. The puzzles are creative, but never unfair. At some parts I had to riddle for a while, but I've never really stuck or was forced to use the internet to get the solution. The game is basically divided into two sections. The first is bright, colorful and the pure joy of life. The second part is dark, morbid and almost serious. Especially the second part shows that the game is not made for young kids! But, no matter which part, both are detailed made with heart and fantasy.

But, there are some downsides as well...
The game crashes a lot. Because it uses Java underneath, it's doomed to perform badly. So the strategy is "save early, save often". The resolution is low and if you play the game in fullscreen mode, everything becomes a little bit blurry. Also the animation and drawings are miles away from being technically perfect. But on the other hand, if you know that the most of the game is made by only one lousy german student (now a cofounder of Daedalic), it starts to feel "authentic" and charming.

Conclusion

If you are able to overlook the few rough edges its a 10/10.
And beside that, if the game is on sale its a must buy for every p-a-c adventure lover.

Very funny adventure game where you must think like a lunatic. Some of the puzzles are a bit irrational, but the humor is great if you like absurd humor.