Daemonica
March 26,2006 - So here we have another mystery adventure game, surely to be gobbled up by fans of budget-price puzzlers without much thought. But here's the real surprise: Daemonica ain't bad at all. It does have some of those old adventure game standbys, but adds enough intriguing original elements to stand out. At its core is a great story and a mysterious starring character, and it features enough decent and logical puzzles to please picky traditionalists. Daemonica doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it does keep the wheel spinning smoothly, even when its austere presentation and annoying item searching slows things down a little too often.

It also features combat, albeit in a highly simplistic form, and depending on your first decision in the game, you'll get to try it out even before you know what the game's all about. In fact, while the purpose of your visit to the formerly sleepy hamlet of Cavorn is superficially clear, discovering the truth about your own character is as fascinating as getting to the bottom of Daemonica's main mystery. You play as Nicholas Farepoynt, a kind of private investigator with some unusual methods of detective work: he talks to the dead. Of course, he just can't pick up a telephone and give the deceased a ring. Instead, he must mix a variety of potions and enter the Temple of Sacrifices, where he can summon the dead only after identifying portions of that individual's life. The mayor of this careworn village has hanged the local undertaker for the murder of his fiance and the disappearance of two others, but under pressure from the restless townsfolk, has called in Nicholas to confirm he made the right decision.

As with any adventure game, the truth is never so cut and dry, but Daemonica deserves credit for avoiding cliché. It begins with a graphics engine completely different from the usual point-and-click adventure game. The genre normally eschews 3D visuals in favor of static 2D backgrounds, but Daemonica features all three dimensions using a method resembling Neverwinter Nights or Dungeon Siege more than Syberia or Myst. You control Nicholas from an isometric view, and you can zoom in and out as well as rotate the camera. The upside is greater freedom and less confined exploration; the downside is that you don't get the gorgeous artistic backgrounds we've seen in other titles. Cavorn is a dreary town, so Daemonica isn't brimming with beautiful graphical touches or eye-catching surprises. Its visuals are functional; nothing more, nothing less.

The next surprise is the potion-making mechanism that comprises the most original aspect of the gameplay. Nicholas has a miniature laboratory in his basement, and you need to mix various herbs together to make potions for different purposes. Most commonly, you'll be mixing the Soulgreep potion, which allows Nicholas to leave his physical body and enter the Temple of Sacrifices. In the temple, you'll solve a small puzzle relating to the victim you need to acquire information from. If successful, his or her spirit will speak to you; if not, Nicholas dies and the game ends. Fortunately, you'll only enter the temple once in each of Daemonica's five acts, and as long as you pay attention during the rest of the game, solving the puzzle for each spirit is pretty simple. The mechanic is solid but not overused. On the other hand, scouring the landscape for the necessary herbs is the most laborious process in the game, and at odds with other features of Daemonica, which does a great job of making exploration and travel a streamlined process.

One way it makes this easy is a quick-travel function, which makes getting to places you've already visited as easy as clicking its marker on your map. You can also click anywhere on the map to generate a waypoint on the screen. It all does a good job of removing the usual back and forth travel, although the herb hunting makes exploration unavoidable. There are also moments where solving a required puzzle rewards you with a somber monologue from Nicholas and a quick jump to a more convenient location right afterwards.

Daemonica also lessens the tedium with puzzles that make actual sense and avoiding most inventory shuffling. For example, in Act 2, the mayor will not let you leave town to search for a suspect. However, you can earn the local monastery's good graces by retrieving the body of a suicidal monk, forcing the mayor to let you leave. In Act 1, you need to steal the body of the hanged suspect, so you mix a potion to put a guard to sleep. Some of the puzzles are tougher, but none of them require incomprehensible combinations of illogical items.

The all-important story moves along well, relying on dialogue trees and sinister characters to keep the player interested. Eventually, the dialogue gets tedious, but it's the only true way you pursue the narrative: there are no cutscenes or other techniques to immerse you more. It takes you through a few twists and turns, and also sheds some light on Nicholas' past. It does hit a few snags, though, such as the banal local herbalist, a character that's been done ad nauseum since tall tales have been told. There are some small episodes of combat to break up the story, although it's quite simple: attack with the left mouse button and block with the space bar. As long as you pay attention to the timing, there's no reason to worry about these moments much. It's a shame, however, that this aspect feels like a throwaway. Yes, it's a small addition to a game that tweaks standard adventure game convention, but it whet our appetites for a full-fledged RPG system of combat, and doesn't really add anything to Daemonica since it's so stripped down.

There is little in the way of voice acting, apart from Nicholas, who will interrupt the proceedings with a few haunting comments here and there. While the acting isn't groundbreaking, the actor playing him is solid enough: we would believe this is a weary man who has grown jaded with entering the world of the dead and melancholy from the loss of his beloved. The soundtrack is excellent, avoiding tiresome musical horror standards, although the the number of tracks is limited. Sound effects are sparse, however. Daemonica needs more sonic ambience; where are the groans of the wind and the howls of far-off ghosts? The few bright spots, such as clucking chickens and squeaking rats, aren't enough to set the mood.

Daemonica tells a great story, although its length is more due to the character-developing dialogue trees than a good deal of gameplay content. Still, it's definitely worth a look for adventure game fans and anyone that appreciates a good, creepy story. We like Daemonica for its refreshing variations on tired themes, and a sincere attempt to introduce a nifty potion-mixing element into its chilling story. It may not have succeeded as well as it could have, but it's a solid addition to a game genre sorely in need of modern ideas.

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