Alum

Great game - IF YOU WANT TO PLAY CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA, which we did not. Very disappointed. We WERE really excited to play a traditional point and click, enough that we tried to overlook the godawful writing (seriously, why don't indie game makers hire actual writers?). Then we get to chapter two (just beyond the demo) and realize we paid $15 to endure bad writing and have the voice of pixilated jesus in our ears whispering to us about the "soft heart" of the sea monster. This game has no sense of humor, no pathos and is essentially set up as a metaphor for salvation. The only saving grace (ha ha) is that everything the jesus-voice stand in says kind of sounds like it's referring to gay sex. (drink of my rushlight, boy-o.) The old Sierra games were brilliant because of their sly sense of humor, their complex and original referentialness and the trickiness of the gameplay. But if you're nostalgiac for pixels, maybe you'll have fun with the free and unpedantic demo.

Whoa! This game was beyond what I expected. Everything was amazingly executed... The art, the story, the game play, the puzzles, the real time mini games, the characters, the voice acting, the music. Just top-notch all around. During my play through, I could feel the game developer's genuine passion and love for the game. You just don't find that anymore in this day and age. This game will touch on all of your emotions as you play through it and leave you feeling inspired to live for a reason. What a gem.

I can get over the strong Christian parralells, its set in a fantasy land, and i think its the perfect place for that stuff. So could treat it as a concept in the axioms inside the story, and not as a real meta truth which i believe it not to be, but could be as true as it liked in pixel land. Although i was continually irked by the weak character devolpment, and piss easy puzzles just to have everyone advance the blisteringly obviouse Christion allegory, and to what gain?? To win over a small amount of maybie Athiest or agnostic retro pont n click enthusiasts. It had no charm as a story unto itself, and got more and more bogged down with the bigger accompyning 'wink wink' that the aulterist is actually God/Jesus, until it was unbearabley foie grase'd down your throat. It killed it, as every character was just a sound byte for that single Linear interest, which was an advert for the big bearded one. Other characters where so suddenly shoe horned in to make a puzzle work it lacke...

Excellent point-and-click adventure game! Puzzles are generally fun and intuitive. Artwork is beautiful. Pays homage to the LucasArts and Sierra greats of yore. A superb entry in the genre. PROS: - Excellent puzzles for the most part - Full voice acting - Very few bugs - User interface easy to use CONS: - Some of the action sequences were a little off-putting as part of an adventure game, but are fortunately skippable. Very minor issue Overall, 5 out of 5! =)

I'm really disappointed. This game started out so well, with good puzzles, an engaging story, and good pacing. When the Unfeigned Altruist first showed up, I really hoped the game would turn into a good metaphysical allegory I don't know something. But it just gets more and more preachy and it becomes unavoidably obvious that Unfeigned = Jesus, and the way the various characters interact with him gets more and more fervent and hard to ignore. I finally gave up in Chapter 6, I think most of the way through. So, if the preachy aspect wouldn't bother you, then it's a good game. It does have some weird timed sequences but some of them can be bypassed.

Cringeworthy Christian fable. Puzzles & world-building are decent but dialogues & voice-acting ruin this. Arguably worth it for the cult factor: the increasingly questionable actions it has you do in the name of its divine saviour (pestering children to proselytise them, attacking unbelievers for no reason other than their faith) raised a chuckle or two.

It's a great graphic adventure, one that puts the narrative at the center of the stage, and does so successfully.

Started out fun but eventually got super preachy with massive Christian overtones. It was just too much in your face. If it was more subtle it would have been fine, but this was just way over the top.

When you get to the sword fight "Stop", seems after all is said and done the whole thing is meant as a bible lesson Horrible ending As for up to the sword fight, puzzles are interesting and actually have bearing of the plot, but the characters leave a lot to be desired.

Alum is a nice little retro point & click, but the story is a bit heavy on religious matters.