wfmag.cc \ 61ReviewRated
ReviewA puzzle-infused space oddity with a lot of heart
he flirtatious relationship between
games and time travel has always
been cause for inventive game
design. Proving this once again,
albeit in more stripped-down form,
is the debut title from Moscow-based developer
Caligari Games. That’s because, despite letting
you flitter between past and present at will, The
Great Perhaps is one of those rare puzzle games
uninterested in dumbfounding you and more
concerned with guiding you on a melancholic
journey filled with deep sci-fi themes. Its core
time-hopping gimmick is merely the quirk with
which to hook you onto this
thoughtful tale, being relatively
successful for the most part,
despite a short length.
The first thing you’ll notice
about The Great Perhaps is
its lovely hand-drawn art
style, which sees it sit somewhere between the
aesthetic of 2014’s Valiant Hearts and cult CITV
show Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids – complete
with a Soviet twist. As a fan of both, this drew
me in instantly, especially since it makes the
tonal dissonance between thriving society and
post-apocalypse even more unsettling. Part of
the fun in jumping from one time to the other
is picking out the environmental detail found in
both; it kept me engaged and made up for the
basic mechanics.
You play as a lowly cosmonaut who’s been
left floating in space for 100 years, eventually
touching back down to Earth to discover what has
caused a cataclysmic natural disaster. Getting tothe core of this issue involves working your way
through a series of puzzle-filled levels, using a
mysterious lamp artefact to bamf between past
and present. What you do in one era affects
elements in the other as you’d expect, but a nice
touch is the ability to shine the lamp’s cone of
light into the past or future ahead of a jump, to
see what lies ahead. This comes in particularly
handy when wanting to avoid a patrolling guard
in the past or mutated creature in the run-
down present.
The settings in all 14 chapters have a good
variety, but there is just a tad too much ‘grab this
key from this time to unlock a
door from the other’ in each.
The game’s unwillingness to
move beyond such simple
tasks is where The Great
Perhaps really reveals itself as
the studio’s first title, as does
its insistence on introducing new tweaks to the
time-bending conceit only to have them disappear
later. One section has a rift pass up and down the
environment to unwittingly force you between
past and present. Here, I had to think on my feet
rather than at the typical leisurely pace, but it’s
clear that applying this type of pressure isn’t what
The Great Perhaps is interested in.
For as rudimentary as The Great Perhaps’
puzzles might be, I still found myself charmed
by this thoughtful two-hour sci-fi adventure.
Its sketched art style and sombre tone combine
to deliver a personal story about lost time and
the lengths someone will go to try and get
it back. Beautiful!The Great Perhaps
T
VERDICT
A charming, if simple,
puzzle game unafraid to
ask life’s big questions
through the prism of
time travel.64 %
GENRE
2D adventure,
puzzle game
FORMAT
PC (tested)
DEVELOPER
Caligari Games
PUBLISHER
Daedalic
Entertainment
PRICE
£8.99
RELEASE
Out nowInfo
ReviewRated
REVIEWED BY
Aaron PotterHIGHLIGHT
The Great Perhaps breaks
up its general bleakness
with some interstitial banter
between the cosmonaut and
his sarcastic AI companion,
L9. Both voice actors do an OK
job at relaying their awkward
relationship, but not having L9
perform audio cues to point
out puzzle tips feels like a
missed opportunity.“One of those rare
puzzle games
uninterested in
dumbfounding you” Is that a Doctor Who reference
scrawled on the wall?