There’s something occasionally surreal about certain games that use a limited graphical style or other lo-fi production techniques. While there’s a certain amount of nostalgia from these experiences, they also stray often into the territory of the uncanny valley, resulting in an intensely disquieting feeling. Phoenix Springs is a classic point-and-click adventure game that hopes to make heavy use of that trope to create a surreal adventure game that will leave you wondering what you just went through.
If you enjoy this review, why not check out our review of Reynatis, the game based on a game-within-a-game? If not, consider checking out our recent feature titled ‘Sony – You Blithering Idiots’.
What Is Phoenix Springs?
Phoenix Springs is a surreal point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Calligram Studios. It features hand-drawn art, a strange, off-kilter tone, and a great twist on the classic formula of the genre. You play a reporter who seeks to reconnect with her brother in a future dystopian state. Having done so, you find yourself in Phoenix Springs, a strange oasis town in the middle of the desert where no one will give you a straight answer.
As you explore and solve puzzles, you unlock more information about the town and interact with more of the bizarre inhabitants. Your goal is to discover whatever secret the town might be holding and what the hell you or your brother have to do with any of it.
A Refreshing Take on Point-and-Click Gameplay
If you’re a fan of point-and-click adventure games, then you’ll probably get a decent kick out of Phoenix Springs. It manages to take the classic style of gameplay, having you click around various environments to solve puzzles, and adds a new spin. Instead of gathering random objects in the game world to throw at puzzles until you find a solution, you have a “memory palace” where you store subjects that you use to progress the story.
These can be simple things, such as the name of your brother whom you’re searching for, or they can be complex sequences of numbers or letters you’ve remembered. You can ask most NPCs you speak to about various subjects, often resulting in new subjects to use. There are also various sections that require you to combine subjects with objects in the game world to produce new results, eliminating the slightly kleptomania-coded nature of your traditional adventure game protagonist.
A Feast of Sight and Sound
The visuals also serve Phoenix Springs well, with the style being somewhere between a rotoscoped music video and FAITH: The Unholy Trilogy, which adds a layer of uncanniness to the whole experience. This works well considering the off-kilter vibes the game is going for, and having a slightly unreal feeling to every location and person you meet helps to provide an eerie background tension, a feeling aided by the sound design.
The sound design is awesome, with the minimalistic music and SFX going hand-in-hand. Again, the music does a fantastic job of setting the scene, with a decent mix of ethereal chanting, ambient sound, and expertly crafted synth riffs and bass loops depending on your location. The designers also have a fantastic understanding of when to drop music entirely, leaving an eerie void of uncomfortable silence that is only filled with the echoes of your footsteps as you explore your environment. In general, the music is mostly diegetic outside of the occasional cutscenes, but it still does a fantastic job.
What Is Going on Here?
It is at this point that I have to admit that the overriding theme of the latter hours of Phoenix Springs caused the phrase “Up Itself” to appear unbidden in my mind more than once. That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty of value in the title, far from it. Visually, aurally and in terms of gameplay, Phoenix Springs has a lot to offer, and the interesting way it handles memory and information to solve puzzles is inspiring.
That said, I’ve seen far too many student films to avoid rolling my eyes. It’s clear that the plot deals with immortality, morality, surrealism and dystopia, but it’s also relatively clear that the writer of the plot was aiming for a The Cell/The Fountain “Ask Me What It Means!” sort of vibe. While you can sit around waxing philosophical about symbolism, the truth is that the surreal and vague presentation of the plot just left me cold and bored by the end.
Summary
Phoenix Springs has a lot to offer to the right sort of person, but if the size of the ‘special thanks’ in the credits is anything to go by, then all of those persons already backed the damn game on Kickstarter already. The visuals and music are fantastic, and the puzzle design is unique, but it’s also got the sort of story that goes from being mysterious in the beginning to utterly incomprehensible by the end, and with the relatively short running time, no one would blame you for getting fed up with it before reaching the final curtain. Those complaints aside, if you’re in the mood for some artsy-fartsy entertainment, you may find it much more palatable depending on your taste.
Developer: Calligram Studios
Publisher: Calligram Studios
Platforms: PC
Release Date: 7th October 2024
