Apple Arcade - The Bradwell Conspiracy (2019) [+]
Jan 30 2023
The Bradwell Conspiracy is a first-person puzzle game, like a first-person shooter except instead of a gun you have a matter dematerialize/materializer.
I think you are a new employee of the Bradwell Corporation visiting its Stonehedge Museum facility when disaster strikes. You wake up in the ruins of the museum. You have VR glasses on which is also a guide giving you instructions, a camera that allows you to take pictures, and a communication device.
After wandering around a bit through the tutorial phase you "meet" another survivor, Dr Amber trapped in another part of the museum. Thereafter she will be talking to you constantly (voice of Rebecca LaChance whilst the guide is voiced by Abubakar Salim) and giving you objectives. Oh, your throat was injured so you don't talk and can only communicate to Dr Amber via taking pictures. Sometimes she will give you hints, sometimes the pictures are used to trigger an action from her (i.e. a picture of a door to open that door), and sometimes she will not understand. It's also nice that if you are taking your time Dr Amber has little bits as she finds random things or tells an anecdote. The dialog is pretty good and keeps you from getting bored.
Controls are very simple. Walk/run, turn left and right and crouch (there is no jumping; strangely with a controller I couldn't run which doesn't matter except for one part of one puzzle where you have to run because you have 30 seconds to accomplish something; speaking of controller I did use one almost all the way through and it mostly works though a little finicky getting the cursor to point at an object to interact with it). If you walk up to some objects you can interact (there is a + icon to show that).
The most complex action is using the Bradwellian matter converter. You can use it to scan some objects into storage and if they are new objects you also create a blueprint. Thereafter you can create objects that you have a blueprint for. As you create an object you can turn it horizontally (in 90 degree angles) and move it around and the holographic of the object will be when if you can place it. Most puzzles involve getting material and blueprints then printing them out in the right places.
This game is on the order of 10 to 20 hours long. I like it because it's not scary: no monsters, occasional dark places and foreboding music but not too bad. You can't die and I'm not sure it's possible to screw yourself and make a puzzle unsolvable. The museum and underground labs are not maze-like so you can't get lost wandering around -- for the most part you are stuck in small sections, green doors show which doors you can go through, and if you unlock a door the guide tells you (a lot of the unlocking is done by picking up the guide some with more access to the complex and you can also then read their email which tells more of the back story but no must have clues since Dr Amber tells you what to do all the time).
This is a medium or maybe less complexity puzzle game with a fairly good narrative. Not a AAA title but more like what you can get from an indie developer and the game is designed on lower end iOS devices. I did finish it. I did have to use a walkthrough guide three or four times. It was a fairly satisfying challenge for me. Overall a good game.
I think you are a new employee of the Bradwell Corporation visiting its Stonehedge Museum facility when disaster strikes. You wake up in the ruins of the museum. You have VR glasses on which is also a guide giving you instructions, a camera that allows you to take pictures, and a communication device.
After wandering around a bit through the tutorial phase you "meet" another survivor, Dr Amber trapped in another part of the museum. Thereafter she will be talking to you constantly (voice of Rebecca LaChance whilst the guide is voiced by Abubakar Salim) and giving you objectives. Oh, your throat was injured so you don't talk and can only communicate to Dr Amber via taking pictures. Sometimes she will give you hints, sometimes the pictures are used to trigger an action from her (i.e. a picture of a door to open that door), and sometimes she will not understand. It's also nice that if you are taking your time Dr Amber has little bits as she finds random things or tells an anecdote. The dialog is pretty good and keeps you from getting bored.
Controls are very simple. Walk/run, turn left and right and crouch (there is no jumping; strangely with a controller I couldn't run which doesn't matter except for one part of one puzzle where you have to run because you have 30 seconds to accomplish something; speaking of controller I did use one almost all the way through and it mostly works though a little finicky getting the cursor to point at an object to interact with it). If you walk up to some objects you can interact (there is a + icon to show that).
The most complex action is using the Bradwellian matter converter. You can use it to scan some objects into storage and if they are new objects you also create a blueprint. Thereafter you can create objects that you have a blueprint for. As you create an object you can turn it horizontally (in 90 degree angles) and move it around and the holographic of the object will be when if you can place it. Most puzzles involve getting material and blueprints then printing them out in the right places.
This game is on the order of 10 to 20 hours long. I like it because it's not scary: no monsters, occasional dark places and foreboding music but not too bad. You can't die and I'm not sure it's possible to screw yourself and make a puzzle unsolvable. The museum and underground labs are not maze-like so you can't get lost wandering around -- for the most part you are stuck in small sections, green doors show which doors you can go through, and if you unlock a door the guide tells you (a lot of the unlocking is done by picking up the guide some with more access to the complex and you can also then read their email which tells more of the back story but no must have clues since Dr Amber tells you what to do all the time).
This is a medium or maybe less complexity puzzle game with a fairly good narrative. Not a AAA title but more like what you can get from an indie developer and the game is designed on lower end iOS devices. I did finish it. I did have to use a walkthrough guide three or four times. It was a fairly satisfying challenge for me. Overall a good game.