Miasmata

The Good

• Beautiful vistas
• Cartography
• Exploring the island in search of specific flora
• The feeling of movement and momentum
• The lighting

The Bad

• The creature becomes annoying later in the game
• Hunger daemons
• Artificial hand and inventory limits

The Bottom Line
When I first read about this game - a couple weeks before its release - I was immediately intrigued. It appeared to be some sort of outdoors Amnesia with a bigger emphasis on exploration.

Well it's not exactly like Amnesia, but it surely borrows elements of it, such as being a first person puzzle game, in which you are defenceless against - in this case - a single enemy.

I was lucky enough to get a free gog.com gift code for this game on the forums here and would almost feel guilty not paying for the game myself. For it is a true gem. At the time of writing I haven't finished the game yet, but I'm about two thirds through.

The first thing I noticed when I launched the game were the graphics. At times they can be incredibly beautiful, while at other times you start to realize this is indeed a game built by two brothers and not an entire development team. Level-of-detail models often pop in too close and don't look very nice (particularly the often used dry leaves). Fauna animations don't look so great (except the creature) and birds often don't fly away until you've already past them by. Some ground textures tile awfully bad when viewed from a distance, particularly in meadow valleys. There are a few character models in the game which look to be straight out of 2005. But on the other hand the water, most flora and particularly the sky look beautiful. There are particular nice touches such as beams of light shining through the foliage, casting patches of light on the arms or map of the avatar. Rarely does a game acknowledge the existence of the player in the game world in such a way. All in all the graphics are good and are particularly technologically impressive, as apart from the initial loading screen there are no hiccups or loading/transition screens. The only hiccups I noticed are when a piece of music is loaded when nearing a camp.

As for the music, it is sporadic and desolate. It fits the game well, but I didn't think it particularly noteworthy otherwise. When exploring the island I was often playing with my own music on. As if I was walking around the island with an iPod. Which works well until your heart starts beating because the creature is getting near...

At the start of the game the avatar washes ashore and you almost expect velociraptors to show up soon. Where Trespasser started to become boring and repetitive after an hour of play or so, Miasmata remains fascinating throughout the entire experience. But where Trespasser has awesome dinosaurs as the antagonists, Miasmata has the nameless creature. The creature looks a bit silly, but behaves like an animal. It preys on you, circles around you, tries to intimidate you, prances at you and can be distracted by throwing stones or torches. All in all though, I often felt the game would be better off without the creature. The creature spawns from time to time and will then move towards the player. You can then try to hide or run. Running attracts its attention and you can't really outrun it, but you can outmanoeuvre it in the hope to reach a camp, which serves as a safe haven and saving point. Hiding often seems impossible, because even in the thickest bush the creature often still seems to spot you. At least later in the game; earlier in the game I did feel that hiding worked well enough. Encounters with the creature are always intense, but at a certain point in the game they become way too frequent to be fun any more.

What is fun is picking flowers, strolling along the beach and cartography, but I guess your game wouldn't be greenlit if that was your sales pitch. In the game you go search for a cure for the plague that you (and millions of others) have caught. This involves creating three ingredients which consist of several plants. Along the island you will find various research stations and outposts in which research can be done on plants, and notes can be found by scientists who lived on the island previously, but - judging from the bodies - are all dead now. You keep an automated journal which keeps track of flowers picked, research done on them and drugs, tonics and stimulants that you synthesized with them.

The cartography element is really cool. Through triangulation with known landmarks you can mark your location on the map. And once you have your location you can mark the direction (but not distance) of unknown landmarks. Once you've oriented the direction of a landmark from two different positions, it's exact location becomes known on the map. Thus you're constantly expanding your map to show more and more of the world.

Running around feels really well. Not often did walking around in first person feel this good. The only game I can think of which did it even better was Mirror's Edge. The movement system uses momentum, so you can't sprint to full speed instantly from standstill and the avatar will automatically start running when going down hill too fast. When running into a tree he will knock back a bit. Steep slopes can usually be climbed up, but going back down has the risk of going to fast and sliding down (accompanied with a very gratifying sliding sound). When running to fast on uneven terrain or sliding down the avatar can trip which will send him tumbling and causing him to drop all items he was carrying in his hands. That last part is rather annoying. Even more annoying is that after tripping as well as almost drowning (the avatar can't swim very well due to the plague I guess...) a fever will act up, which requires pills to keep in check. Pills are very easy to make, but you can only carry one pill at a time. Which feels rather forced. This holds also true for all the other tonics and stimulants that can be synthesized. The player can also only hold three flowers in his hand and no more. All three must also be different types of flowers, the player cannot carry two identical flowers at the same time. This all feels a bit weird. There is a stationary inventory in most tents, which servers as a transdimensional portal to some pocket plane judging by how whatever you put in can be taken out in any tent on the island.

Annoying are the hunger daemons, such as the aforementioned fever and in addition there is thirst, which is mostly a chore and so far has never been a danger. You can find water pretty much anywhere in infinite supply and can carry up to five portions in your canteen.

All in all I really love exploring the island. It reminds me in a vary good way about Myst. I feel that in the early game the creature added something to the game due to its sporadic appearances, but later in the game he spawns way too often, making him a great hindrance in enjoying the exploration part. It's cool to find new outposts and notes and finally find that flower you were looking for. One thing I felt was missing was an option to manually add notes on the map. I would've liked to mark the location of known flower beds, and perhaps even sketch part of the map when unable to triangulate.