My Opinion - What Quern does Right and Wrong

[Ritual Magick Lad]

Quern does a lot right, atmosphere, story. How it fits together is a great achievement.

EDIT: It's been correctly pointed out that this post doesn't give the game enough credit for the game's good points - I guess you tend to notice the bad in a game more than the good. It's highly polished, with a long playtime and a lot of love clearly went into it. The soundtrack is also very fitting and atmospheric. Below are my bugbears with the game:

Pacing - The game often rewards the solving of a fiendishly difficult (read time-consuming) puzzle with walking slap-bang into another equally difficult puzzle. There is little space to breathe and be rewarded for your efforts before beginning the next task.
A lot of the story only comes out right at the end. I think this should have been spread throughout the game to give you more of a sense of purpose.

Most of the puzzles require simply too much calculation and trial and error to be feasible to the ordinary working person who has only say 3-4 hours of playing time per evening. You would spend your entire evening working something out and make no real progress.

Non-integrated puzzles - Although the game borrows hugely from the Myst franchise, it, like 'The Witness' fail to create puzzles which are there simply by natural occurrence in the environment. It feels artificial and this is the core concept of Myst games which game designers seem to miss.

It is very unusual in the genre that you are expected to return to solved puzzles with new equipment, there were some mental leaps that I feel were unrealistic.

The sketcher wouldn't sketch close-ups of notes, leaving them unreadable, and the artistic decision to make Quern grey so the crystals stand out would, and has, put off a lot of people. It is immersion breaking - in real life I can see colour.

I am glad these types of games are being made, but I think we need to be realistic in terms of the mental processing expectations of the player.

All in all, a polished game, and a great artistic achievement.

[AB Normal]

While I agree on most of what you pointed out, I feel this review is far too negative and doesn't give enough credit to what it does right.

[WK2Trailhawk]

I love this game so far, but my biggest gripe would have to be the number wheel. I kept getting 1 & 5, 2 & 10 and 3 & 15 crossed. The symbols are the same but the orientation doesn't look right to me. Even after solving the puzzle the orientation still doesn't look right on a couple of these.

[Kickin' Chicken]

Originally posted by WK2Trailhawk:

I love this game so far, but my biggest gripe would have to be the number wheel. I kept getting 1 & 5, 2 & 10 and 3 & 15 crossed. The symbols are the same but the orientation doesn't look right to me. Even after solving the puzzle the orientation still doesn't look right on a couple of these.

It probably due to the specific orientation of the wheel at it relates to each number. You just have to remember that the ones point toward the center and the fives don't.