Game Reviews

Violett

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Violett
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There's certainly a lot to do in Violett. It's a strange point-and-click adventure that blends puzzling with object-finding to create a sometimes intriguing, often painfully esoteric game that neither holds your hand nor gives you any clue as to what you should be doing.

The very first puzzle - involving cages, fire, a paper clip, and a trapped fairy - is almost nonsensical, and there's no indication that the bits of scenery you need to tug or the objects you need to find are in any way special.

It makes for a frustrating and confusing experience, and one in which the internal logic is so well-hidden that it's sometimes impossible to find.

Violett tendencies

The game casts you as a little girl lost in a fantastical world. You start off locked in a cage, and have to find a way to escape your immediate prison, and then the batty universe you've somehow been dragged into.

Doing this mainly involves tapping on everything until something happens. And then tapping on everything again. There's no way of knowing what you can interact with until you flap a digit over it, and even then it's not always clear whether what you're doing is having the desired effect.

A fly needs to be swatted into a pool of goo you've dragged out of a container, so it'll get drunk and fly into a bottle you knocked over with a spoon and held down with a set of tongs that appears to be sentient.

Sometimes the fly can't be bothered, though, so it buzzes around the screen like you're doing something wrong.

Worse than the feeling of flappy helplessness that emanates from the puzzles is the unshakeable sense that the actions you're performing are utterly devoid of context. You do this, you do that, and you're constantly wondering why you're bothering and how this is helping anyone.

I'm lost

It's fine to play your cards close to your chest and keep the player guessing as to where they're going and the impact of their actions, but Violett takes things about 15 steps too far.

Instead of creating a mystery, it leaves you stumbling around blind in a world that constantly, glibly, doesn't make any sense.

Violett

A game that leaves you lost and confused from the start, Violett just doesn't make any sense
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.