Macintosh

Alida

I have found myself, for the past several weeks, consumed by Alida, a refreshingly complex and well-designed first-person, point-and-click adventure game from independent Australian developer Dejavu Worlds. Really consumed. Bad. But it's now over, and I'm here to tell you the tale. First let me say I haven't had a game eat away at me like this for a long time.

Still, all in all, Alida is a great game; it is sure to delight puzzle fans as well as music lovers. And even if you don't enjoy mulling over puzzles late into the night, who can turn down a strum or two on a giant guitar? And believe me, after that first strum, you won't be able to put the mouse down!

Alida does not feel skimped at all or rushed out - this is a fully developed game. Like Riven you are not only playing a game but also experiencing a world. A world conceived as a whole, as an entirety. The puzzles interlock to form one single puzzle. This is a work of art and technology.

When Alida first arrived in my mailbox, I honestly expected very little. After all, the game was created by only one man; not an entire team of developers and artists. I didn't think that a solitary developer could create anything even remotely compelling, let alone something on par with Myst. Well, folks, I was wrong.

All told, Alida is a pretty good game. It suffers from an unbelievable plotline, but the visuals and puzzles do a good job in overcoming any problems. I really hope that Dejavu Worlds continue making adventure games, as the potential is fantastic - but I also hope that it becomes a more-than-one person operation. Alida is a phenomenal achievement, but it could have been a much better game had it been really thought through more thoroughly.