Adam's Venture Ep1

Adam's Venture Episode 1: The Search for the Lost Garden Developer: Vertigo Digital Entertainment Publisher: Iceberg Interactive Puzzle Adventure - PC HDD 1 player

The original Tomb Raider is one of my favorite games. It completely nailed the 3D puzzle-adventure and set the standard of what came next. Recently, a new title popped up on the Steam Store at $3.99 (launch discount price). The trailer looked incredible for a $4 game, and gave me the whole Tomb Raider vibe. Was it warranted?

In short, no.  I can't really say the trailer was deceptive, but they showed the most exciting parts and the rest of the game didn't quite live up.

The hero of the game is Adam, a cocky adventurer. The story starts out with him decrypting a message which shows the location of the original Garden of Eden, hence the game's subtitle.  As a result, biblical references show up all throughout the game.

I THOUGHT the game would play out like an Indie Tomb Raider with some platforming, exploration and puzzles.  But any platforming/climbing is really there to break monotony of walking.  The designers put up blockades all around you to funnel you to the next destination, for the most part, so there was little exploration to be had.  The puzzles themselves started off amusing, but devolved into repeating the same few basic types. Most of them were entirely straight-forward, and required little thinking to solve. 

Visually, the game is based off the Unreal 3 Engine. It actually looks really good for an independent game, with plenty of interior detail and lighting effects. The backdrops are fantastic, and probably helped to sell me on the purchase. But there's enough jankiness to the character animations and some odd glitches that remind you that it is not as polished as a full-fledged commercial title.


Overall, Adam's Venture Episode 1 feels like a low budget title, which should be expected given its low price.  So far there are three episodes out, but only the first is available on Steam. I should mention that the Steam version has at least one puzzle that the original indie version lacked, so there may be other differences other than the addition of achievements.  It's possible the more recent episodes have more interesting things being done.  But having completed this first episode, I ultimately found the experience unsatisfying, even at its bargain bin purchase price.