Pavilion: Touch Edition

In stately Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree — S. T. Coleridge. If you have ever longed to wander in Mr. Khan's pleasure-dome, then perhaps in the meantime this game will keep you in a smoky dream of endless buildings with rooms and terraces and balconies and fragments of sculpture and . . . Well, it goes on and on. I haven't finished it yet, and have no idea how many more absolutely gorgeous environments await to meddle with my bedazzled brain. Absolutely gorgeous graphics, the best of any game I have seen, and I am a graphics enthusiast. On my retina screen the detail and subtlety of these screens are . . . Well, "eye candy" is an overused term, but this is visual confection of the highest mark. The game? Fairly easy to get through (so far) but there are some inexplicable behavior from the little man you are guiding through this world. Nothing I couldn't get past with some brain work and patience (so far.) If you value split-second rapid-fire gameplay above all else, this probably isn't for you. (But check out the screenshots — they may change your mind.) But you don't automatically laugh at the idea as electronic games as art, dive in.

I absolutely LOVE this game! It was well worth the money. Wait...it IS well worth the money as I keep on playing! The puzzles are challenging & fun & whilst I get that some reviewers say it's repetitive, I don't think that fact in any way detracts from the fun & interest. (Isn't a crossword puzzle "repetitive?" - same concept, but different puzzle?) I totally recommend playing. I haven't actually got through it to the end, so hopefully hours of enjoyment yet ahead. Well done to the makers & I hope there's more to come! 😁

Where am I? Why am I here? How did this world come to have/need all this mystical, magical interaction? Why am I so easily startled? The game is beautiful and the puzzles are decent albeit repetetive in nature and non-sensical in their logic (why is it my character has no problem moving two boxes into position on his own to climb up a level but I need to turn off two lights and move a block on the other side of the screen to make him turn left instead of go straight??). Ding bells, turn lights on and off, and move blocks. Thats the extent of the puzzles in gradually more difficult configurations. Which would be plenty given a great and compelling story line to keep you interested which we are not given despite their being "chapters" (chapters of what?! There's no story.) Chapter 1 complete in about 4 hours.

If you like gorgeously made puzzle games that aren't too hard, you'll enjoy this. The difficulty is on par with games like the The Room series with similar, but not quite as good of production values. It has some flaws. It's repetitive and the controls are occasionally frustrating. The controls are meant to be part of the mystery, but they're not hard to figure out. Once you do, most of the puzzles can be solved without too much effort. There were only a few spots that stumped me and a couple of them were because of a bug in the game that caused the level to be unfinishable. So there are a few bugs. If you find that you just can't seem to do anything meaningful after being stuck a while, it might not be you. It might be the game. As art, it's not without issue either. As an art game, I'd have expected more of a story. There really isn't one. You just run around a multilevel castle world of sorts with spooky sound effects playing and it's impressively rendered, but there isn't much more to it. This is just the first chapter so maybe we'll learn more about what the story is in future installments.

While little context is given and much is left up to interpretation the world and music and visuals all tie together making you want to keep moving forward to the next scene, like a good book might. If you like games like Monument Valley think of this as a similar experience with a bigger focus on visuals and wonder instead of user experience of mechanics. I never got stuck, but I can see where others might. Some later puzzles I ran into glitches forcing restart. Namely Stuck on ladder after moving block and a block getting stuck moving in one direction despite not touching screen. All in all it's good. But... it gets you to the part where you want more but the game ends with a Chapter 1 End, chapter 2 coming. The exact moment this occurs killed much of the build up the game was growing and instead of desiring to share what's going on with others, I'm left with just saying "really?" For that reason until the next chapter is released I feel many will come away with a poor experience.