Herald: An Interactive Period Drama - Book I & II Demo

Interactive stories are quite popular nowadays, especially those that feature a few puzzles and a grand mystery to tackle. News are ideas are hard to come by in the genre, mainly because they all seem to be anime-inspired love stories with predictable plots and indigo characters. However, every now and again something special hits the market, and this inspires other developers to do the same as well.

Herald: An Interactive Period Drama - Book I & II is a very intriguing adventure game with point & click mechanics and a unique story that revolves around an alternate 19th-century history. Although it might look like a regular visual novel at first, the truth is that Herald is a lot more interactive and enjoyable than that, especially since you can move your character around 3D environments and interact with various objects.

The story puts you in the role of a man by the name of Devan Rensburg, who is of mixed heritage and works as steward on a merchant ship. This ship is called Herald, and as luck has it, it is sailing toward Devan’s home country. However, the voyage is anything but blissful, especially when the main character starts to uncover various weird things regarding the ship and its crew.

Most of the gameplay revolves around examining every scene as carefully as possible, because it’s important to collect all the useful objects and use them to solve puzzles. The dialog plays a crucial role too, especially since your decisions affect the plot and the way your character is perceived by everyone else. There are a few issues in terms of object collision and weird camera angles, but you can easily get over them thanks to the intriguing story.

The graphics are worth a special mention as well, especially when it comes to the artwork and the character design. It’s very easy to get pulled into the story when everything looks so inviting and cozy, not to mention the great colors and the attention to detail. To top things off, all of this is accompanied by a great soundtrack and professional voice acting too.

In the end, Herald: An Interactive Period Drama - Book I & II has all the right ingredients to keep engaged for hours on end, especially since more content is promised later on. The great visual design is what helps you get in the proper mood for a memorable adventure.