Game: Aarik And The Ruined Kingdom
Genre: Puzzle, Indie
System: Steam (Windows) (also available on the Nintendo Switch & macOS)
Developers | Publishers: Shatterproof Games
Controller Support: Full
Price: US $7.99 | UK £6.69 | EU € 7,79
Release Date: June 20th, 2024
A review code was used, and many thanks to Shatterproof Games.
I got to play the Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom demo back in June, so I was pretty excited to play the full game. I was engrossed with the demo, so let’s see if the whole game holds up.
The Gameplay of Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom
Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom allows you to continue your game based on your progress in the demo, which is something I really like in games. It cuts down on repetition, but you are free to start from the beginning if you want. That option is fantastic, and I took the option to start from where I stopped. Oddly enough, it did make me replay the last two levels for some reason, but I didn’t mind.
As I mentioned in the last article about this game, it is very similar to Echochrome, Viewfinder, and other perspective-driven games. You can turn the map in order to have things connect that wouldn’t normally; as long as the perspective connects, that’s all that matters. As the levels progress, you get more and more jewels, and each jewel allows you to control different things in different ways. The crown you start with gives you the power to change perspective, but then you get the abilities to alter time, control robots, and move items around.
Each time you get a new jewel, you go through a short tutorial level to get you used to the new power. Then Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom throws you in the deep end hoping you’ll remember how to swim. It’s a wonderful way to introduce new concepts; there have been so many of these indie games that introduce new concepts with a pile of text instead of just showing you what to do.
Mostly, you rotate, push buttons, guide robots, move blocks, and manipulate your surroundings until you get everything in a way that you can move to the end of the puzzle, which is the glowing pillar of white light in each screenshot. The way that it adds a whole bunch of different types of manipulation that you can do other than the perspective puzzles throughout makes it much more interesting than I thought it would be. Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom continues to add new ways to interact with your surroundings all the way until the very end, keeping the whole game feeling fresh and interesting.
Maybe Accessible, Maybe Not
One thing I did notice while playing is that I don’t think Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom would be accessible to those with color blindness. It’s so easy to make the colors readable by those with color difficulties by making all the jewels different shapes. Some of the jewels are pretty hidden; I didn’t play the game in black and white to test it, but I think an accessibility mode wouldn’t hurt. I would be interested in having anyone who has any sort of color issues tell me about their experiences with this title.
The Sound Design of Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom
I don’t think I mentioned it in my review of the demo, but the sound design in Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom is kind of grating. Everything in the game makes a sound; whether it’s on-screen or not, and some of the noises, things make aren’t great. As many of you know, I always play with headphones. It took about 10 minutes for me to take my headphones off and mute the game. The music is fine, but little noises that play as robots move around, as you move a block from one place to another, as you click to move, and everything else was overstimulating for me almost immediately. If anyone else out there has sound sensitivity, I definitely don’t recommend playing with headphones.
So I basically played with the sound muted the whole time, which was a shame. Some of the music was cool. The music in the mines area was not to my liking, but I understand the vibe that the developers were going for. Overall, good music, but not great sound design.
Issues I Have With Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom
I love puzzle games, and I especially love perspective puzzle games, so I had pretty high expectations here. To be honest, the puzzles and interactions available to me were all stellar, and I enjoyed the actual puzzles themselves a lot. However, the actual playing of Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom had some issues.
There were a couple of times when Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom just completely locked itself up in the middle of loading up a level. I would be chugging along through challenges when all of a sudden, it would just stop. I wouldn’t be able to click out or anything, and I had to stop the software from Steam. It happened two or three times during my playthrough, and it was pretty disappointing.
But the biggest issue I had was with the controls. Some of the jewels were just not fun to do the motions for. There is one, an emerald, that allows you to manipulate time in order to put broken things back together. The action with the mouse was not great. You had to spin it around the screen, but the actual way you were supposed to spin it was so touchy. It would do nothing for a long time around the curve of the movement; then all the action would happen all at once at the end of the action.
The hitboxes of everything in the environment were baffling; there were a couple of times I had to change the perspective of the map just to be able to move a block into a different location because Aarik’s hitbox was so massive and in the way. There was also an issue with clicking to move Aarik and robots around; if you clicked where you wanted to move, half the time it would just deselect the robot you were trying to move instead. You had to use the WASD keys for precise movements like that, which was a little weird. I think Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom might be best with a controller, but I didn’t immediately have access to one.
The puzzles required a lot of precision, unnecessarily. And since the hitboxes of many of the items you needed to move were either too big or too small, it got pretty frustrating in several of the levels.
The Ending of Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom
I completed Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom and got to the end. The ending was disappointing, and it wasn’t the happy ending I was expecting. I thought maybe I had to 100% the game in order to get a happier version, so I went back and found all the hidden Crowns in all the levels and completed all the achievements—except one.
There is an achievement for jumping 50 times, but there is no jump button. There is no indication that you can jump anywhere at any time. I never learned to jump, and I have 0/50 jumps. I hoped that all but one achievement might give me a good ending, but alas, it did not. I ended up sending the devs a message, and I learned how to complete this achievement, but it didn’t make a lick of sense. Aarik never jumps; he definitely never jumps 50 times, and I think this achievement might be mislabeled. And it didn’t seem to make the ending any better.
Conclusion
Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom is fun, challenging, and unique in the genre. I really liked the puzzles; some of them were incredibly difficult. Without being esoteric or so out there, I would never have gotten them. I enjoyed that main aspect of this game, and I’m so happy I got to play it.
On the other hand, Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom has many issues. I hope that the team contacts me with a message about how to complete that final achievement. Also, I hope that’s not the true ending because I would be so sad if it were.
Final Verdict: I Like it.
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