Elysium Demo

Elysium is a first person adventure game that offers players a relaxing experience while it also challenges them to find the answers to some puzzles.

Not all games require players to blow things up. Elysium is a first person adventure that doesn’t put any kind of pressure on the users, and it just invites them to solve the puzzles. It’s not a difficult game, but it will require some out of the box thinking from time to time. With no time limit, health, or any baddies chasing you all the time, searching for the next clue can be described as leisure time.

First person adventure games have evolved a lot since in the past couple of decades since Myst was all the rage, and players can now move about, not just looks at scenes from different angles. I’m not saying that Elysium is like Myst, because it’s not, but it goes to show what are the expectations for such a title.

The reason I don’t mention a story is because there doesn’t seem to be one. From the looks if it, the developer hasn’t got around to that part yet and it’s still building the world. The demo encompasses about a third of the entire game, so there is quite a bit of exploring.

The player seems to be stranded on an alien planet, and you just keep pushing forward in an effort to escape. There isn’t much to do, but you can pick up certain objects, and you have a diary to help you.

There is no HUD and no arrows to point you to the next stop, so you’ll have to use logic to get around. There isn’t also any kind of map, so you’ll also have to remember where things are. Fortunately, the items and the clues for a particular puzzle seem to be constrained to a specific area, so there isn’t much need to backtrack a lot.

From a graphical point of view, the limitations of the Unity engine are showing. The game doesn’t look too bad, but the jarring textures are really annoying. It’s possible that the overall look of the game will improve, but the one thing that it lacks is some background story.