PC Gamer

The Librarian puts you in the shoes of

a magical book shuffler in a lightly

developed fantasy world, who has to

venture out of her house and visit her

workplace in the middle of the night.

And not because of an overdue

library book, or

someone speaking

loudly in the reference

section: nope, a magical

owl has informed her

that something terrible

is transpiring in the

building. So out she

pops with her puzzling

cap on, and with a

ruddy great dagger to set things right.

Right from the off, The Librarian

impresses with scrumptious artwork

and fluid animation, but also with its

subtle use of a 3D camera to add an

element of depth to its side-scrolling

scenes. It’s supported by some

moderately swish lighting effects,

which help make the most of the

pixel art. There’s a larger world to

Y

ou’ll be familiar with Octavi Navarro’s work if you’ve played

Thimbleweed Park, and over the last year or so, the talented

pixel artist has been releasing small adventure games of his

own. We covered Midnight Scenes: The Highway a few

months back – a short point-and-click that’s a little like an

interactive Twilight Zone episode – and now Navarro has returned with an

adventure that’s more ambitious in just about every way.

explore than in the few-screens-long

Midnight Scenes, and several puzzles

to solve before you can put the threat

to bed and finally return home.

Those puzzles won’t test your

brain too much, as besting them is a

matter of paying

careful attention to

your surroundings,

which you should be

doing anyway as the

surroundings are,

frankly, gorgeous.

While many pixel

artists favour the

heavily anti-aliased

look of most of the classic point-and-

clicks – games that generally had

traditionally drawn backgrounds,

only massively compressed –

Navarro’s art tends to go the other

way. His characters and backdrops

are fairly low-res to begin with, and

retain their jagged, cartoony nature

even as they’re blown up to fit inside

modern resolutions. It’s likely a

love-it-or-hate-it thing, but I’m a fan

of this style of art, and Navarro is one

of the best creators of it around.

SHUSH

As with Midnight Scenes, there isn’t a

lot of story, and no dialogue, which is

ironic considering the wordy subject

matter. It’s a simple, quiet game

where you unravel a mystery by

poking around in a spooky library

and the nearby town. The only real

negative (and it’s a matter of

perspective, of course) is that it’s

rather brief, coming to a close after

only 20 minutes or so, just when

you’re beginning to settle into its

fresh-feeling fantasy world.

20 minutes of lovely adventuring

is nothing to sniff at however,

particularly when you’ve paid exactly

zero for the privilege. When you’ve

sorted out the library and returned to

the safety of your home, you can join

me in the wait for Navarro’s next

adventure, whenever and whatever

that might be.

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT?

A point-and-click

adventure game set

primarily in a library.

EXPECT TO PAY

Free

DEVELOPER

Octavi Navarro

PUBLISHER

In-house

REVIEWED ON

A4-6300, 6GB RAM,

GeForceGT610

MULTIPLAYER

None

LINK

http://www.bit.ly/

LibrarianGame

84

Octavi Navarro’s second

freeware game is a step

up from the first, offering

a larger world that’s more

interesting to explore.

VERDICT

WOR D UP

Exploring a strange library in adventurous freebieTHE LIBRARIAN. By Tom Sykes

It’s a simple,

quiet game

where you

unravel a

mystery

The Librarian

FREE GAMES REVIEW

You’ll need to help this bird-brained

creature to progress the story.

Encountering a monster in the

street, just outside your house.

You’ll be given a chance to use

your dagger before the end.

Finally, an honest-to-goodness

book. Let’s do some reading.