Wadjet Eye Shardlight by Wadjet Eye Games

[MRY]

There are also the lesser known WEG titles like Da New Guys, Puzzlebots, and ECC, which seem to get mixed reviews.

 

[toro]

Finished.

TL;DR - The game is stupid and unremarkable, that's really the only way I can describe it. The only positive thing I could name is Abe Goldfarb as the big bad Tiberius, which is downright 10/10 and quite possibly the best acting he's delivered yet in WEG.

Spoilerific details:

Spoiler

1. Why the gaem is unremarkable:

The setting and everything about it is completely wasted, there's no meaning or purpose behind it whatsoever. The basic premise is - there's a city, there's a ruling class, there's a rebellion and there's a plague. This could have taken place anywhere, there's no reason for it to take place specifically in a post-apo environment. The supposed cataclysm of 20 years ago is only a backdrop that fuels the art, and that's it. Put the same scenario into medieval times, ancient times, modern times and you'll see no practical difference at all. The same is true about the smaller setting details - why is the ruling class called the aristocracy? Because. Why are they named after Roman emperors? Because. Why are they stylised as 18th century wig-wearing dudes with flintlocks? Because. There is no significance to any of this. You never even see any of those red bluecoats use their rifles for shooting, they just stab shit with bayonets. Fuck, there is actually not even any significance to the green uranium shards that gave the game its title. They are just there, hangin' 'round, givin' da light, acting as nothing more than props.

It's a meaningless theme park, and it quickly makes you wonder why the hell are you even doing all those rather insanely mundane tasks in this specific world.

Plus, there's also the part about the story at large, and the puzzles, and the characters (except maybe Tiberius) being about as deep as a sheet of paper. It's all mundane, generic and unremarkable. There is no flair. No shine. Just bleh an' feh.

2. Why the gaem is stupid:

Ho boy there's a lot of that. The vast majority of it happens due to the complete lack of any logic all over the place.

- Start with our protagonist. Amy Wellard is a car mechanic's daughter. In the first scene she's reluctant to mercykill a guy that asks for it, her hands trembling as she aims the crossbow. But then she can wrestle a burly rifle-wielding guard and stab him in the eyes with a syringe, shoot another guard in the head from some 50-100m away with the crossbow, consistently shoot small buttons with the crossbow without multiple tries, hit a rope holding a chandelier with the crossbow, and consistently murder people towards the end of the game without doing as much as flinching. And then at the end, she actually becomes the PERFECT GOVERNOR that outshines all the other aristocrats who came before her. WAT?

- Shit all over the game that made me shake my damn head. When Clem the rebel receptionist gets fatally wounded by the guards, he still has enough time to cross out shit from his letter to Amy to leave only the few important characters in to tell her where to find the rebels? When the iron bucket has just finished baking in a furnace, Amy can take it out with her bare hands? When Danton runs into the two guards in the ministry tower, they just charge with bayonets instead of shooting her with the rifles? The super high security prison is patrolled by ONE GUARD and NOBODY HEARS the piano being dropped on his head? A bolt with an affixed rope can pierce a steel chute and become embedded in it firmly enough to let a guy climb over said rope? When the quarantine zone has a corpse disposal chute, there are still dozens of corpses piling up in the streets? To open an elevator door 20 years after a cataclysm, with no electricity, all you need to do is pry open the button caller panel outside and put in a fuse? A guard just goes ahead and drops his pistol in the street, letting Gordon take it up and sell it? What the hell is all this and who thought of it?

- The factions are idiotic.

Let's start with the rebels - if they just take any random person off the street into their Super Sikrit organisation, even though said person is quite possibly a spy (OR BUGGED, WHY DOES NOBODY THINK OF THIS?), I can't say I'm surprised they are as hilariously incompetent as they are. Because actually, do they DO anything? To my knowledge, the only thing they actually achieve is sitting in their basement drawing shit on a blackboard. Also, ministry of medicine spy dude learns that the gubmint is hoarding vaccine. But he's just some shitty receptionist. And he doesn't know where the main storage is. How does he get this info? Also2, I would say their constant blabbering about MUH FASCIST OPPRESSORS is considerably ridiculous when you see the representatives of said fascist oppressors try to cut fair deals to citizens in the market, and the citizens just respond with GTFO FASCIST OPPRESSOR VIVA LA REVOLUTION.

Now, the gubmint. For a large part of the game, I was actually wondering how this gubmint was supposedly this band of EVIL FASCIST OPPRESSORS. As mentioned, it tries to cut the merchants fair deals. It more or less keeps a functioning society. It has a vaccine for the green lung and does distribute it, albeit on a meritocratic basis, but it's a dog-eat-dog world out there. I have a silly feeling that the game developers also came to this conclusion at some point - "hold on, the gubmint is not evil enough, we must ramp up the evilness to overdrive", and so they started consistently putting chaotic stupidity into its agenda. The whole vaccine hoarding thing - Tiberius gives two reasons, and both of them are stupid. First is that other countries/cities would try to invade them if they learnt they had stocks of vaccine. But... nowhere in the game is any other country or city even as much as mentioned and even if one such existed and was comparable to the city where the action takes place, it would hardly have enough strength to go to a full scale conflict. Plus, how the hell does it matter whether the gubmint is sitting on a small or big hoard of vaccine? Isn't the very fact that it DOES have it in the first place reason enough for a desperate rival to go to conflict over it? And then his second reason is that the population would be much harder to keep in check and resources would become sparse if green lung was cured. Hold on. I thought 20 years have passed since the cataclysm? And green lung has been around for long now? And it kills a person in what, 2 months? How the hell hasn't the population been culled into "manageable" levels yet with the controlled vaccination of desirable elements only?

- The endings are ridiculous.

Let's see, our heroine Amy can get rid of Tiberius, Danton or both.

a) Kill Tiberius, Danton makes America great again. The city streets run with blood but THE PLAGUE IS CURED AND AT LEAST ALL OF AMY'S FRIENDS DIE WITH DIGNITY BELIEVING IN A BETTER WORLD! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
b) Kill Danton, Tiberius makes America great again. The plague is cured, as predicted by Tiberius the population gets out of control, resources are scarce. Amy is left with her friends in her luxury house and FEELS LIKE SHE'S LOST HER PURPOSE IN LIFE, BOOHOO ;____________;
c) Kill both, Amy makes America great again. The plague is cured and... Amy becomes supreme ruler? And fixes everything? People are happy? Industry will get restored in 5 years? There's a new, better government? ALL THANKS TO THE CAR MECHANIC GIRL RELUCTANT HERO, WHO ACTUALLY TURNS OUT TO BE A BETTER RULER OVERNIGHT THAN THE ARISTOCRATS THAT HAVE BEEN RUNNING THE CITY FOR 20 YEARS NOW? AND SUDDENLY RESOURCES ARE ABUNDANT AND THE POPULATION DOESN'T GET OUT OF CONTROL?

????????????????

¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿

yeah fuck this game

Thanks. You saved me some dough.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Why are there only white people in the trailer?

 

[evdk]

Why are there only white people in the trailer?

Don't worry, there is an aboriginal scammer in the game for proper representation.

 

[StaticSpine]

 

[WhiteGuts]

Darth Roxor's review is mostly spot on, but I didn't really have a problem overlooking Shardlight's flaws. I just feel -like in Technobaby- that it doesn't really take off at any point. The plot, the protagonist, the factions, nothing is believable enough to grab your attention. You're just constantly rolling with it, hoping the next predicament you find yourself in will be the spark this game sorely needed throughout.

About the ending, I actually disagree with the dominant opinion which seems to be that the "kill both" option doesn't make sense. On the contrary, I feel like, after witnessing first hand the fact that Danton is as instable as Tiberius, both of them needed to die. However, I do think that Amy becoming the supreme governor is laughable. During those last few moments, I was secretely hoping it wouldn't come to that, and that she'd just offer the job to the Doctor, who seems to be far more capable.

P.S : I do appreciate that the setting is inspired by the French Revolution.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I actually disagree with the dominant opinion which seems to be that the "kill both" option doesn't make sense.

the option itself is legit, it's only the supreme governor follow-up that's idiotic

 

[Berekän]

The game just lacks any internal logic and instead of trying to build a world it just throws all these clichés at you to show you how cool it is.

As for the gameplay, or lack of thereof, well, it can be completed in a short afternoon without thinking too hard. I don't see how could anyone get stuck at the blackboard puzzle when it's practically spelled for you.

Really disappointing, all style and zero substance, and the style isn't good enough to carry it.

 

[DeepOcean]

Out of WEG solidarity, I feel obliged to point out that 46/46 reviews on Steam are positive.

To be fair, Steam reviews usualy are: "Played for half an hour and it didn't crash, positive!"

 

[MRY]

These reviews seem pretty thoughtful to me. Enough that I'd like to check out the game when I have a chance. The messages on the Steam board are a little more mixed, though.

One thing that's odd is that the binary nature of Steam reviews means that basically every WEG title is >96% positive, since almost everyone more or less likes the game. It's like the craziest grade inflation ever. Similarly, basically every WEG title is 4.5 stars on GOG.com. I think the basic story is that 5 stars = I liked the game, 4 stars = I didn't hate the game, 0 stars = I hated the game and want it to fail. Since most WEG customers are basically nice folks, every title gets almost exclusively 4 and 5 star reviews. It's odd that Metacritic, which I normally think of as a fairly annoying site, actually seems to have the most variation in scores.

 

[SCO]

User reviews are supposed to be read not resumed by score. Even a idiot blabbering about what he liked or didn't like is more information transmitting than a final score.

 

[MRY]

Both GOG and Metacritic use ratings (as well as offering the option to write reviews), and it's about a 15:1 rating:review ratio, so the unexplained scores tend to dominate what customers see. On Steam, it is better, but Steam aggregates user reviews and turns them into a percentile score, which is then used as a measure of the game's reception by Steam. I would say something like a third of Steam reviews are null content ("good game" "8/10" etc.), a third are very thin content, and a third are rich in content. I read Primordia's pretty compulsively, and I've found them informative and interesting. I can't imagine actually reading them to try to figure out whether I wanted to buy a game, though.

My strongest preference is for actual threads in forums, but those seemed to all die off about a year after Primordia's release -- there's still the occasional, "Nice job guys!" or "My mouse is malfunctioning" or whatever, but I miss the era when there were substantive conversations (primarily on GOG). The whole review ecology is kind of screwy because users get points for posting reviews, and I think more points if people upvote their reviews, so there's an incentive to say something consistent with the pack, etc. There's not as much upside to discussing it, so the signal to noise ratio is a bit better.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I don't see how could anyone get stuck at the blackboard puzzle when it's practically spelled for you.

I got stuck at it for a while myself, and I'd say it's mostly because, while it's "practically spelled out for you", a lot of the info you get about it is terribly misleading.

- For starters, the biggest one for me was the fucking calligraphy book. When I saw that the first symbol inside had "W O R D" put into random squares all around the written lines, I was 100% positive that I should be looking for a 4-letter word in the set of characters that was left on the blackboard after crossing out the M sign. I remember I was so absorbed by this thinking that I even got "kock" as one combination and I thought to myself "ahaha kock" and didn't for a moment consider that the solution could be "knock".

- The symbol on the blackboard is the same as on the seal on the letter. I was flabbergasted that Amy didn't notice this, so I thought I was supposed to somehow make her realise this basicest of facts. At one point it almost made me yell "you blondie idiot it's the same fucking symbol, it must be that house, just OPEN THE FRIGGIN DOOR"

- When Amy draws the symbol, she doesn't complete it as according to the book. For a while I thought even that was significant in some way.

- There might have been one more factor but i dun remember now.



... and now that i think about it, if the symbol the rebels use (both on the seal and the chalkboard) is the logo of the ministry of medicine

THEN HOW COME AMY DOESN'T RECOGNISE IT FROM THE GET-GO?

FFS!

 

[Berekän]

True, the part after drawing the symbol is misleading. I was also trying to figure out the WORD thing and, to be honest, I still don't know if there's any logic behind that part at all. I just saw the two numbers that were left and since there were two ways to call at the door I figured that would be it. If there's any clue or anything that would point you to that it's completely lost on me.

 

[evdk]

True, the part after drawing the symbol is misleading. I was also trying to figure out the WORD thing and, to be honest, I still don't know if there's any logic behind that part at all. I just saw the two numbers that were left and since there were two ways to call at the door I figured that would be it. If there's any clue or anything that would point you to that it's completely lost on me.

I had no problems with the blackboard puzzle, but I like complete retard missed all the hints to show the pottery vendor dude the sealed letter so that he would send you to the library for a calligraphy book. That was seriously my biggest hurdle in the entire game. Idiocy.

 

[Starwars]

So, how would you fine people say this compares to something like Technobabylon?

 

[StaticSpine]

So, how would you fine people say this compares to something like Technobabylon?

Technobabylon is better IMO. Better story, makes more sense. Better puzzles. Better characters.

 

[Starwars]

Anything that Shardlight does better or does it just feel like a downgrade?

 

[StaticSpine]

Anything that Shardlight does better or does it just feel like a downgrade?

Shardlight has cool desolate/fey atmosphere and an interesting (but controversial) settng with some cool things here and there. Overall it's not that bad as Roxor describes it.

 

[JarlFrank]

So I just started playing this.

Heh, the philosophy book you can read at the old dude's library is basically a Planescape Torment reference.

The chalkboard puzzle took me a while to figure out, but I took me longer to find out how to get the chalk as I hadn't spotted the bell, so I walked around thinking GOTTA MAKE HIM THINK THERE'S GUARDS and wondering how, until I finally saw that bell. Herpderp.

The actual puzzle was rather interesting, and not *too* hard.

Spoiler

Figured out I'd have to draw over all the squares that are covered by the symbol. Then I read "knockx5" and thought eh ok knock 5 times yeah makes sense but what then? Is there any significance to "word" being written on one of the letters in the calligraphy book? Do I have to check the exact same squares where "word" is written, and check them on the chalkboard? Maybe that spells it out?
Then I read it again and realized it said "buzzx4". The way it is written is kind of confusing, but it really wasn't that hard to figure out at second glance.

Now I'm kinda stuck on how to find out where that rich guy lives whom I have to go to in order to infiltrate the ministry. Overall, the puzzles are rather easy and obvious, and some are solved by merely talking to everyone about everything.

 

[Gambler]

Before Shardlight, I played Gemini Rue, Resonance, Primordia, and Tehnobabylon, so it's fair to say that I'm a fan of games published by Wadjet Eye. This was nearly a first-day purchase, and I actually broke some of my rules about not buying more stuff until I finish older titles.

Unfortunately, the game is the weakest one of all Wajet Eye titles I've seen. It has a highly implausible plot, uninspired puzzles and rather flat (sometimes annoying) characters. I stopped playing midway. Not because the game is all that bad on its own, but because I have a large lineup of titles that are more interesting.

[Very mild spoilers ahead.]

The heroine goes from being a broke mechanic to being a spy within a single day, with no particularly good reasons and no transition period. Her reactions to it all often do not make sense, which is reinforced by illogical puzzles. Yes, many of them are easy to figure out, but they still don't logically follow from what's actually happening within the game world. This was surprising, since logical puzzles is one of the areas previous Wajet Eye titles excelled at.

Another disappointing aspect of Shardlight is that neither the artist not the composer did anything particularly clever with the setting's theme. The whole "post-apocalyptic renaissance / civil war" thing is highly contrived to begin with, so the least they could do is to leverage it for some cool art.

As far as characters, most of them are kind of one-trick ponies, including the protagonist. And by that I mean they are built around a single idea or stereotype that drives everything to know about them. That might work if that core idea is really cool, but not when it's something along the lines "he is an angst-filled rebellious teenager".

 

[JarlFrank]

I finished the game in one day. Started playing around 16:00, now it's 00:00, the puzzles are pretty easy and therefore it's a short game, only had to check a walkthrough twice and the solutions I missed were just overlooking a hotspot. Actual puzzles are either very easy, or just consist talking to person A, then to person B, then return to person A again. One of the easiest adventure games I played, for sure.

 

[JarlFrank]

So, I mostly enjoyed the game, but agree with a lot of what Darth Roxor said. There are so many logic flaws and plotholes, it's ridiculous.

Spoiler

- so this is set in the future after a nuclear apocalypse but the only guns people have are flintlocks; yeah I get how the style of buildings and clothing is based on 18th century and the aristocrats are totally into classicism, but... because they decided to go with the style of the 18th century, they also adapted the weapons of that era, despite the tech being over 200 years old and modern guns having been used just yesterday? Like, you know, even if this is set in a country where guns are not widely available, there's bound to be at least one surviving modern gun at a police station or something, taking the thing apart and analyzing how it works would be SO MUCH easier than going back to a 200 years old technology that nobody has used for 200 years and therefore nobody has any experience in manufacturing that kind of stuff.
It seems like kind of a stretch to me.

- so Danton is a cliched overly violent rebel leader just because. She was fine as a character in the beginning and the middle, but in the final section her "hurr I want to KILL ALL ARISTOCRATS and DESTROY ALL THEIR ARTWORKS because they are EVIL OPPRESSORS and I will be SO MUCH BETTER" went totally overboard, there wasn't a single scene in Tiberius' tower that didn't show how violent she is in her fight against the aristocracy. After a full game of making her look like a relatively reasonable choice, the writers suddenly decided that she needs a drawback and focused the entire final part of the game on showing off her brutality. Ok.

- I get why Tiberius wants to prevent another bombing at all costs, considering what he lost. But still, it's kinda retarded. If the enemy nations - if they even still exist - find out about the area being prosperous, why would they bomb it when they want their resources? If you want someone's resources, you send in the ground troops. If you bomb the place to oblivion, the resources will be gone, too. Then again, Tiberius was crazy and blinded by his grief so he was pretty immune to logic. I found his whole plan, as stupid as it was, relateable enough and didn't have any problems with it.

- oh boy, the way you get into the rebellion has to be the biggest "it only happens because the characters involved are retarded" moment in this game. When Danton confronts me about whether I went to her place to spy on her, I answered "Yes! I did come to spy on you, I was hired to do this!" for teh lulz, expecting to be killed for it.
Uh, no. She didn't kill me. Instead, she was like "oh ok you only agreed to spy on us because you need the vaccine, well ok I'll let you join the rebellion then I promise you more vaccine... which I don't have right now, you gotta do a dangerous task to get it, but hey you can still join if you're loyal, k?"
Ok. So I went in there, said I'm a spy, and bang I'm part of the rebellion.
And, of course, after doing the initial test tasks, I am given the super important infiltration job that will make or break the rebellion. There are like 6 rebels down in the basement, and there are three more guys in the market who are members of the rebellion. THERE IS EVEN A GUY WHO HAS INFILTRATE THE HEALTH MINISTRY ALREADY. But guess who gets to do the super dangerous and super important job? The newbie who just turned up this morning and openly admitted to having had contact with the government.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG?!?!
Even better: when the rebels get slaughtered by the aristocrats, you find out where the survivors went and go meet them. Of course, Danton wants to kill you because you're responsible. You say "it's not my fault, I was bugged without my knowledge!"; she still wants to kill you because she doesn't believe you. Then you say that you were in the prison and escaped.
"Oh no," says Danton, "you poor thing, you were in the prison that nobody ever escapes from! Now I totally believe your story and have pity on you, because they kept you in that big bad prision, you know, the one nobody ever escapes from. I'm so glad you managed to escape!"
And then she believes your entire story and trusts you again. Because you just told her you escaped from the reputedly inescapeable prison.
Ok.

- so, I'm not an expert on physics, but I thought uranium was radioactive? As in, really goddamn radioactive? As in, you shouldn't keep large amounts of uranium in your living room if you value your health?
Everyone is using shards of the stuff to light their rooms, to light the streets, to light pretty much everything. Yeah ok, no wonder everyone is getting sick if they're surrounded by highly radioactive stuff all the time. Lol.

- the endings... well, I get why killing both is the best option. He is crazy, she is ultra violent. Killing both removes two leaders who would be incapable of a competent rule. But then... you become the ruler, just like that. Because the doctor tells you that you'd probably be good at ruling. You're even reluctant to accept the position. And then... everyone just accepts it just like that? "Hey, aristocrats, I just killed your leader! Hey, rebels, I just killed your leader, too! And now I will rule over you as supreme dictator, how does that sound?"
Really? That's not how things work. Better ending would've been that she goes underground for a while and the political and social situation stabilizes itself a while after the cure had been issued. But the way it plays out now? Pretty hard to believe.

 

[Name]

...if I'm reading right, Wadjet Eye is currently declining? This game is not great, and the previous Gold Wake which I couldn't find any thread for is worse?

 

[JarlFrank]

This is solid but previous offers like Technobabylon and Gemini Rue are better.

Haven't played Golden Wake, it kinda slipped under my radar, so I can't comment on that one.

But since many (most?) of Wadjet Eye games aren't actually made by them, only published (writers and coders are indie teams who team up with WE for publishing), it's hard to generalize them.