The Eyes of Ara

Great game, but I wouldn't start here if you haven't played a puzzle game before. This is very much half hidden object (think pixel search) half puzzle game, so you'll really need to like both aspects to enjoy this game. I liked the freedom this game gives you to move around the house and not be stuck playing in one direction. That also means you'll probably need to revisit places in order to find your clues to solve puzzles. The difficulty of the puzzles increases each chapter and some I couldn't figure out (just couldn't get it/wouldn't have guessed in a million years/didn't find a necessary clue, etc...) and some I knew what I was supposed to do, but couldn't figure out how the game wanted me to input it. The majority are solvable with some thought and searching. I would definitely recommend this for a more challenging puzzle game and it works great to have this as a 'couch co-op.'

I recommend this game as there are many people who will enjoy this. I did to a point. The area to explore felt like it got bigger with each chapter and so by the third chapter, it was pretty big. I had to pause in Chapter 3 for a few days and when I went back, I couldn't remember most places to go, what had been found, etc.

Pros:
- When you are done with a puzzle or finding things in an area of a room you can't click on it anymore, saving you time from looking in places that won't help you anymore.
- You can't click on objects that are not clues or puzzles
- Most puzzles can be solved with clues in the nearby area
- The atmosphere and graphics are nice
- I really enjoyed the first two chapters.
- There are a ton of collectibles to find (coins, etc.)

Cons (for me):
- There are a ton of collectibles to find (coins, etc.)
- Many areas are quite dark making it hard to see things, like the obscure chain up in the dark corner I need to pull to open a gate even though I swear I searched that area already like three times and my eyes hurt from the eye strain
- Chapter three felt too tedious for me, having to remember how to get to all the puzzles and areas as I went back and forth trying to solve things. And you often need to go back and forth through the areas to get everything done.

I feel like if I had the same puzzles but in a smaller space with a wee bit more light, it would have been more enjoyable for me.

I'm a lifelong adventure player. I started with Colossal Cave on an IBM 370 in 1978, and have always favored adventure games. I am dogged and persistent, but I'm uninstalling Eyes of Ara without finishing it.

I ended up locked in the water channel room with the concentric rings puzzle. After fiddling with it for over an hour (maybe several hours - I lost track), I looked up hints, but the hints said that I was just going to have to fiddle with it until I got it (a mathematician gave a helpful "bump", but even he said that you just have to keep fiddling with it).

It used to be that lazy adventure designers would put a "slider" puzzle or a maze in the game. Nowadays, the lazy puzzle design is the "interlocked pieces" puzzle. The concentric rings puzzle could only be logically solved by an advanced mathematician. A savant could crack it intuitively, but if your not an advanced mathematician or a savant, you're stuck with fiddling it for hours. Not fun!

Eyes of Ara has pretty good ambiance, decent graphics (I ended up turning brightness and gamma all the way up), and good/very good game controls and dynamics. The storyline is "Meh" - okay, but not compelling. But being locked in a room with a puzzle that requires hours of grinding? It's just not worth the effort.

Edit: Steam says that my play time was 3.6 hours, but the game itself says over 17 hours.

Pretty sad about this one. It starts off promising, but the vast, vast, VAST majority of challenge in this game comes from pixel hunting essential puzzle pieces in dark/muddy looking environments. Once you actually have all the pieces, the solution is (most of the time) obvious. You'll spend 70-80% of your playtime wracking your brain trying to figure something out, only to realize that you just don't have a vital part of the solution, and it really galls after a while.

Just a tip for any passing puzzle game devs, because it seems at least one of them needs reminding: a puzzle is meant to be a logic challenge. It is a scenario set up specifically to test your ability to intuit a path toward an end goal. That end goal MUST be made clear to the player, because if they don't understand what they're meant to be achieving, then they won't be able to engage with the challenge properly. A proper, well designed puzzle will provide the player with both a clear picture of what the end goal is, and provide them ALL the pieces needed to get there.

The challenge must come from putting the pieces together in the correct way. The challenge must absolutely NOT come from running through a castle, clicking on every single pixel trying to find the pieces that the game has hidden from you. Sudoku works as a puzzle because you start by knowing the pieces (the digits 1-9), and the solution (a filled grid with no repeats in rows, columns, or boxes). The challenge of sudoku lies in figuring out the configuration of the pieces, as it should with any well-designed puzzle.

This game just fails to structure it's 'puzzles' properly. It presents you with a round peg and a round hole, but it hides the peg behind a loose brick in a hallway wall hidden behind a wardrobe inside of a caged-off room. Putting the pieces together is a no-brainer, it's finding the damned things is what will take mental toll on you.

A fun point and click, find-the-pixel puzzle game. Not quite on par with The Room series, but interesting and challenging puzzles and decent game length.

Finding objects can be very hard because you have to search from fixed viewpoints unlike games with free movement where you can walk up and get closer. The environments are also very cluttered but most things are just part of the scenery, which makes it harder to find obscure things like loose bricks.

This game has a LOT of puzzles where you have to align photos, numbers, etc. and when you click/rotate one thing, 2 others move at once. Drove me nuts.

For the life of me, I could not figure out what the symbols did on the planetarium. I was able to solve all of the puzzles by making educated guesses.

The epilogue puzzle on the rooftop is infuriating because the programmers used an obscure math system that few people--other than programmers--would know. As a rule of thumb, you should be able to solve puzzle games without requiring outside knowledge.

But despite these nits, it was fun to play and I'd recommend it.

What kind of maniac makes people count in base 4?

It's rare that I get stumped and there were a couple of puzzles that made me apply some fairly creative thinking. Loved the game, controls weren't perfect and the flow was just a tad off but still a extremely engaging game!

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Enjoyed it overall. Sometimes the puzzles can be a bit vague, but at this point there is plenty of help available if you get stuck. Very well done in terms of atmosphere and story. If you like first-person puzzle games, check this one out.

Best game ever! It really makes you think. The time and effort that went into the creating of this game is amazing. Hoping for a new game as creative as this one is!

I'm changing my review to a slight thumbs down. Originally, I wrote this:

I recommend the game, but with a few caveats. First, expect moving and looking around to be a little clunky. As for the puzzles, there are optional ones that are not clearly designated as optional. This means you can spend a lot of time on something and then learn it wasn't necessary to progress the game, maybe it only results in a collectible of some sort. (Edit: further into the game, a few vital puzzles required pixel-hunting.)

This game requires a meticulous attention to detail and patience. If you have those qualities, you will like this game and its ingenious puzzles. It took me 38 hours to finish, even with the Games For The Mind walkthough in Steam Guides, to bail me out when stuck. So, I give a thumbs up for The Eyes of Ara.

I enjoy the immersive atmosphere, the puzzles are both fun and challenging.

puzzles are challenging, items strewn everywhere. Hints can be a bit of a challenge, but so far so good. Will comment back after I am done.

Solid game. LOTS to explore, which is the main thing I crave in these kinds of games. The logic for some of the puzzles is next to impossible to corner

Very nice and challenging puzzler.
You need to like pixel hunting, though.

So many things to say about this game. Another amazing puzzle click and point game in the gaming community, with a lot of interactive puzzles and very well hidden objects. It gives a very intricate and misty vibes, since you are surrounded by these "alien like" lights from another planet Ara.

What does make this game different?

• Hidden rooms
  You are able to find multiple hidden rooms through this game by collecting clues that are hidden around the places you are investigating in. Finding special hidden rooms allows you to complete other achievements connected with collectibles, and also find out more lore/story of the game. Not forgetting to mention the rooms are really cool looking, with a special gist given to match the vibes.
  
  
• Collectibles
  Through the entire playthrough, you can find various collectible items, which are connected to multiple achievements. You are completing a collection of figurines, coins, a photo album and paintings. Particular detail i loved about this feature is that you get to see all of your collectibles in the last chapter, all nicely put out on the table. It gives more context to the whole story, and lets you "relive" your game adventure. Also it gives a chance for items to be inspected closely, as they were not inspectable when picked up.
  
  
• Being constantly "watched"
  Since the game is connected to creatures from another planet, you are constantly being followed by them through the playthrough. It definitely gives an unique experience, and after some time gets quite disturbing, knowing you are constantly being omniously watched. There are no signs story wise that these creatures were harming any of the people residing in the castle, but were tending to become more "friendly" around them the more they were in the castle. They even "accepted" to be studied and torn into pieces for investigating them. Special bond with the creatures is known to be shared with Clementine, as they are very fond of her for the energy she is radiating with. Her connection will be really pointed out at the very end of the game.
  
  
• Adorable developer room
  When you reach the last chapter, one of the doors you open at the end is like a "shrine" for all people who were working on the game and contributing to it, as well as supporting the people working on the development. I found this really heartwarming and it was presented in a way i never seen before in any other games. There is also a special achievement for this particular room, and it's given for reading the journals of Backer, which contain special messages, even for people who sadly passed away. A very interesting thing was that they also included easter eggs from through the entire playthrough scattered across the room (and very well hidden), so you get to solve the last puzzle and also feel very overwhelmed by all the awesome people who created it.
  
  
• Lore - a ton of various ways to write it down
  In other games, the only storyline/lore behind the game is usually put on the small piece of paper and it's not even sometimes obligatory to pick up. In this game you have various things to pick up, since you also have an achievement for picking up particular notes and books. You can find journal pages, posters, books - containing paintings, stories and a lot of astrological content (mostly zodiac sign related, as well as the planets). Not to forget there are also computer logs, and clues that help you keep moving, aka. thinking what to do next.
  
  
[*]Special season events
One of the rare puzzle games i've seen that has an Christmas and Halloween event combined in it, with complimentary achievements for both. Sadly i was late for Halloween, so i will need to wait for next year, but i am looking forward to the Christmas one.

Why did i like this game particularly?
I loved the game simply because of it's originality, and a new approach to some things. It's definitely different from other puzzle games i have already played, especially with some of the features i've written beforehand. Though i do have to add, some of the hints are in very tricky locations, and since there can be quite a few rooms, you really need to keep searching and have your brain working at all times, remembering where you found something. Some riddles took me more than an hour just to figure out what to do next.

What would i change?
If i was able to give advice on what would i change about this game, i'd say adding hints. No need for massive hints to reveal the entire solution, but just to guide you in which direction to go. Since there is many rooms and things to pick up, it's easy to get lost in all the things you need to do. Some parts of the game are also confusing in a way that you oftenly miss clues or missing parts under your nose because they are very well hidden, and you have no clue how to proceed after you did something. Other than that, everything else is brilliant.

If you get lost or just simply can't find some of the things, and are striving for all the achievements, there are quite a few helpful guides on Steam, which greatly help with revealing the pesky locations of the coins, figurines and photos.

Definitely recommend for all puzzle enjoyers!

Game started out fun and towards the end got way too complicated for me. So much so that I was completely relying on a you-tube gameplay video. Where's the fun in that! I am a finisher. I finish all games. I did not finish this one.

One of the most clever point and click I've played, all puzzles are great and solvable on your own. Lots of hidden things to find, the low point would be the lacking plot.

Decent little Myst-like, although it leans a bit too hard on pixel-hunting.

Can't play event. Game crashed when set time to future date. The game itself is great. I'd recommended if you didn't have achievements for the 4 seasonal events. I'm not waiting to play the events. After this review, I will just uninstall and forget all about it.

Eyes of Ara is an escape room puzzle like game that, in theory and on paper, is a very interesting story- at least as far as I've gotten.

The problem with the game is that it is too clever for it's players to the point that even the "Spoiler Free Walkthroughs" are too clever to understand. For example- You have to find three orbs for a puzzle, and i found the one I was missing by randomly clicking around in the room the walkthrough said it was in. It was at this point in time that I trashed my attempts to use the steam walkthrough and went to another "spoiler free" one, this time to find the answer for the missing gargoyle head. It too told me where all of them were but it was so painfully "Spoiler free" that I couldn't find it.

It was only going to an actual "Spoilers are here" guide that I discovered that the missing gargoyle head was actually not anywhere that I had access to yet and I needed to do about three more puzzles to find out where it was.

The game is good, but it's so painfully meant for those "Big Brain Players" (not that I'd ever count myself among them, that most of us normal players are stuck looking for hours on dumb pointless guides that we might as well watch an entire spoiler walk through just to see the end before we even play it ourselves.

This is one of the best games of this genre. Very good and not that easy.

We really enjoyed the game. Something about it really kept us hooked. The puzzles were well thought out. I don't think we encountered any puzzles that required us to seek help.

Very interesting. Puzzles are fun, even if you have to look some up.

it became annoying,

Very boring ... Waste of time and money
How did this game get an average "very positive" review?

A very fun game. Be forewarned, if you don't have good attention to detail, you will miss things easily, and those end up being things you need to complete the game. If you get stuck, there's a lot of great walkthrough stuff on the interwebs to help you out.