Review: Haimrik

 Goutham Jayaraman

Ravencrow Game Review #17

 

Haimrik

https://store.steampowered.com/app/492180/Haimrik/

Genre	Puzzle, Action, Adventure
Platform	PC
Developer	Below the Game
Publisher	1C Entertainment
Playtime	5 hours
Date Completed	9/4/2021
Date Reviewed	25/5/2021
Overall Grade	B-

 

Haimrik is a rather bizarre puzzle adventure game that features very creative wordplay at the core of its gameplay.

The story has you play as Haimrik, a young scribe in a medieval town who randomly stumbles upon a book with a quill beside it. For whatever reason, he suddenly uses his blood to write in the book, activating its magical powers, which consist of creating an object or changing something about the world.

The gameplay consists mainly of action sequences where Haimrik slashes his hand, gets transported into the book and has to solve puzzles to proceed on.

He does so by walking around on platforms containing words, some of which are interactive and can spawn the corresponding objects which are then used to deal with whatever problem is at hand, whether that be a dragon, soldiers, natural hazards or whatever else random you can think of.

Personally, I found Haimrik’s game design to be very original and charming and could appreciate the level of detail put into the puzzles.

However as sad as it is, I just couldn't enjoy playing the game as the gameplay felt more like a chore than anything else.

What I liked

-          The highly unique and innovative puzzle design

-          The characters in the game, who were memorable and had humorous interactions with one another

What I disliked                                                                   

-          Some of the puzzles which were a tad annoying to solve

-          The controls, which were also a tad annoying

-          The overall presentation of the game, which felt like lost potential to me

-          The tedious gameplay

Gameplay 8/20	+ Unique wordplay + Good usage of humor made for quite a few funny moments + Some action sequences were decent, mainly the combat scenes and side-scrolling scenes where you had to defeat a pursuing enemy whilst running on a repeating platform. = Wandering around the world like in an RPG was nice, but very limited. - Somewhat uncomfortable controls. They are only shown sparingly and I had many instances where I simply forgot what keys to press and couldn’t even look them up because there is no controls option in the menu - Many puzzles came with fair amount of frustration, either because they were obscure, required many tedious steps or required precision platforming. - Gameplay also tends to be very repetitive. - Overall, not particularly fun
Game Design 15/20	+ Intricate puzzle design based on using words to generate objects that can then be used in various ways + Good variety of situations implemented across all the puzzles + Combination of action-based combat with puzzle-based wordplay - Words not having any option to be highlighted, combined with lack of key input and precision positioning made finding the solutions to some puzzles frustrating - Game is definitely the kind of game where you have to put it down after about 30 minutes of gameplay, but many aspects of the game do not accommodate for that (lack of reminders mainly)
Graphics 14/20	+ Sepia cartoon rendering of a medieval world was charming + Well drawn characters with good animations + Well-depicted gore made for more effective dark humor - Graphics do start to feel drab eventually - Puzzle sequences all look far too identical, which reduces willingness to play - On the other hand, the gore can also be seen as excessive
Audio 8/20	+ Soundtrack does have an original feel to it and suits the game and its medieval setting well - But the music can get repetitive and be annoying at times, especially because the gameplay levels largely have the same music. Having to face the same bland platforms accompanied by the same music will start making the gameplay feel taxing - Lack of voice acting
Story 7/20	+ Fairly decent story that is enough to keep you entertained long enough to finish the game - But the story overall is rather blandish and fails to leave a mark - Story can also be hard to follow - Some typos which stand out in a game built around words - Very poor pacing. Story segments are very short and frequently interrupted by gameplay. This is really the biggest problem as it takes something that would otherwise be fairly engaging and turns it into a chore. - Not very engaging or immersive
Lore 20/20	+ Memorable character design. Their personalities stand out and they have great interactions and chemistry with one another. I particularly liked Masamba and her developing relationship with Haimrik + Medieval setting
Value 14/20	+ High uniqueness value - Low playtime - No replayability value
Overall Grade 11/20	B-
Score	60

 

Haimrik is an interesting little indie game with an innovative game mechanic and creative puzzle design that absolutely fills a niche that no other game can.

However, the sad truth is that I really didn’t have much fun playing this game, and that was due to how repetitive the gameplay became, even rather early on into the game. It was difficult to play for too long, but coming back into the game for another session only caused more frustration because keys were not displayed and I sometimes had to fiddle around to try and get an object to spawn.

Haimrik also had a good enough story, but suffered dearly from poor pacing. It was hard to get absorbed into the story when I was getting pulled into bouts of tedious gameplay on a frequent basis. I would have loved to see better pacing that would place equal emphasis on the story and on the gameplay for the story to be truly engaging.

Unfortunately it is difficult to recommend the game for these reasons, but the idea at the core is still solid and I would hope that a sequel builds upon those ideas in a more meaningful manner.