The Gallery - Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone

love the story

Overall, there is still very few VR games that can match the production values of The Gallery Ep 1 and 2. For that, I very much appreciate them -- and especially how well they hold up in Quality.

That being said...I didn't enjoy this Episode. There's a lot of backtracking and -- especially near the end of the game -- the puzzles fail horribly, based on the VR mechanics they are trying to execute not working well enough, and becoming a practice of tedium and punishing trial-and-error, hoping the systems 'work'.

**The 2x Organ Puzzles and the very LAST puzzle (of which I gave up and will never finish) truly broke down. There's only about 2-3 games I'd committed to finishing -- ever in my life -- that became so tedious that I said, "F*** this; game isn't worth it."
This was the early days of VR though, so it's somewhat understandable that they wouldn't have everything down.

I just watched a video of the ending on YouTube, and am even more grateful I just quit, because it's another cliffhanger ending, with no Ep 3 ever having been made.
Being honest though, after this episode...I likely wouldn't have paid-or-played Episode 3....

I really do appreciate the production values of this game series, though!!!

5/10

loved episode 1, played it back in 2016,
bought episode 2, played in 2021, /w meta 2
but was buggy couldn't finish.
finished now in 2023. really tried to like it but I can't.

pros,
graphics still hold up nice.
(played with quest 3)

cons,
short play time 3.5 hrs, blind play.
puzzles are not good or satisfying,
bugs, can't picking up flash light, red crystal from bag,
(game restart or selecting other stuff, fixes it)

the ugly,
as for story wise, episode 2 is not the end,
and no news of episode 3 at all,
which may be a dead end, sad.

Once upon a time the gold age of VR gaming. It was in 2017-2020, a lot of good VR games with good graphics and interactivity were being developed and released for PC or PSVR quite frequently. The Gallery is one of them. Then came the Middle Age of Facebook/Meta and everything got worse and worse and worse. It was a regressive age, VR made several steps back. King Zuck and Prince John tried to convince consumers that you can play VR on a mobile chipset less powerful than actual Iphone chipset! They produced an ugly uncomfortable poor and cheap headset called Q2 that at best could be suitable for kids.... Well, if kids were allowed to play VR! They shouldn't be allowed! Nevertheless the King sold many headsets to kids bombarding families with commercials where the kids wanted nothing more than the Q2. Their goal was to create a new trend of mobile VR after the boom of smartphones. Do you believe it? Mobile VR is a paradoxical nonsense! Their real aim was to grab users data through social VR apps. Not by chance they forced the mandatory Facebook subscription, actually Meta Horizon subscription. They claimed that managing 3D geometry was enough for VR games! Ridiculous! They lied knowing they were lying. VR is a matter of perception engineering, it's a hot potato to handle! So a lot of ugly diminutive wii-like games were released and the good VR games as The Gallery disappeared. However after trying to push such a failed technology with aggressive marketing and manipulation through social networks for two years, the house of cards finally collapsed. 10 millions of devices sold were nothing in comparison to the hundreds millions of potential VR gamers and users. Most of disappointed Q2 users left it on some shelf to collect dust. The company was near to crash on the stock market. This was how a new era of VR revival began after the dark age, especcially thanks to the release of PSVR2. Many games as good as The Gallery or even better were released and everyone lived happily ever after.
If you like my story, put thumb up, thanks! ;)

This game is actually quite good but I have to say not recommended because it appears there will never be a part 3 and without the next part there is no point in playing this. It's an intriguing story and world but releasing it in small parts seems to have been a mistake.

First off, to get a more modern smooth locomotion control scheme, look for these settings:
Under Game Options:
- Locomotion Type: Stickmove
- Comfort Turns: On (The angle is under the Blink Options submenu, but I found the default 22.5 to be a good setting.)
In the Stickmove Options submenu:
- Axis Mapping: FwdBackStrafe
- Movement anchor: Controller
- (I also preferred the highest movement speed.)

For controllers with separate Grip and Trigger controls, there is an option for using Grip to pick up objects.

After playing, I noticed there are sections of the forums dedicated to getting the game to run on Oculus headsets, but I had no problems starting it on my Rift CV1 through SteamVR.

The Gallery Episodes 1 and 2 are often discounted pretty deeply (I think I paid $8 for the pair), to the point where the question isn't if they're worth your money, but if they're worth your time.
In short, I think they are, and that's largely down to Episode 2, even with the knowledge that Episode 3 may or may not ever be released.
Episode 1 was released in 2016, and Episode 2 followed in 2017. One of the biggest improvements was the addition of smooth locomotion control options, which I sorely missed in Ep 1.
Each game could be described as a "story-driven walking simulator with occasional puzzle elements", with most puzzles taking the form of mini-game style challenges, especially in Ep 2.
Ep 1 was mostly linear, and takes around 1.5 - 2hrs to complete. Ep 2 manages to wring about 3-4 hrs of play from a similar number of environments because each area will need to be revisited at least once or twice - sometimes to use an item found elsewhere, and sometimes to explore previously-inaccessible parts of the level.
That said, while there is a similar "volume" of world to explore in Ep 2, the areas are much more detailed and interesting than those in Ep 1 so I didn't find the backtracking particularly onerous. There were frequent loading screens, but they didn't last more than a few seconds each with the game installed on an SSD.
While the dialogue can be a bit campy at times and story a bit vague, the performances are well delivered.
If you can pick up Ep 1 and Ep 2 together for under $10-15, I think they're worth it.
(Personally, I think they'd do well to give away Ep 1 for free, and sell Ep 2 for $10-12.)
I hope that one day we'll see Episode 3 to close out the trilogy, but 5 years and counting since Episode 2, I won't be holding my breath.

I'm more neutral to this game than negative. I liked Episode 1 and this sequel has a bigger scope, but it's also flawed because of it. The story and puzzles can be obtuse sometimes, I got stuck a few times for not knowing exactly what to do. And since the game has three main areas, you have to run back and forth with long loading screens from one area to the other, just to see if you missed some key answer to a puzzle in order to progress.

I think I liked the more linear and grounded style of Ep. 1. Also in this one you don't interact much with other characters, the lore and story is mostly told through text and holograms, and I didn't find the backstory very interesting.

On the positive side, it has great graphics and art direction, great physics, cool alien creatures, and some of the puzzles are fun. It's interesting to see some similarities between this and Half-Life Alyx, which despite being 3 years apart and having a much larger budget, has some very similar interaction mechanics. This shows that Cloudhead are on the right track, and the game has aged well in these aspects. (Also your character is named Alex... I know it's just a coincidence but I find it funny)

Despite my problems, I'm looking forward to the next chapter, and hope it's an improvement over this one.

Its pretty, got some good character motion and full voice acting, but in terms of gameplay there was very little innovation to keep me hooked and the story was either nonsense or hilariously melodramatic. Not much to recommend unfortunately.

This is for Index users. I definitely believe in this game but if you have an Index wait on it. I had serious control issues like not being able to use menus or the controls of the game just no longer working as a new environment loaded. I’m using a Valve Index with Index controllers. I would love for this to get fixed, but I can’t recommend it until it is.

Just a note, loved the first game.

Like the first episode, this is more of a interactive movie than a game, with a bunch of voice acting interspersed with some mini-puzzles (mostly three types, simon says, wire loop and shaped peg-and-hole) and a little bit of walking around in three small sections. Takes about 3-4 hours, and a good portion of that is loading time. I found the story pretty formulaic, with only two characters interacting with each other (good/evil monarch siblings in a power struggle), plus clips of the protagonist's sister exploring the area before you to provide comic relief. The alien "world" feels very claustrophobic and minimal, with cobbled-together steam-punk technology that doesn't match the star-spanning tech suggested by the first episode. I bought the first and second episodes with 75% and 65% off coupons, and I feel it still wasn't worth the cost. I won't be bothering with the third episode.

I hate to do this, but I had to give this game a negative review, I wish there was a neutral option.

The Gallery - Episode 1 was in my opinion one of the best VR experineces of all time, but unfortunately I cannot say the same thing about Episode 2.

Pros:
- Graphics were amazing.
- Interesting details.
- It performed rather well with my rig.


Cons:
- Too many LOADING screens, a lot.
- PAPER THIN characters, not like the first game.
- CRINGE moments, the dialogs were kinda cringe, unnecessary.
- Repetitive puzzles.
- It felt like a laundry list, just going back and forth, not much depth.
- VERY SHORT... unless you read the boring "books" that are laying around.
- The scenes were "bland", nothing really engaging.

I really really wanted to like this game, and I'm wondering now about episode 3 and if it's going to be any good. I was so excited about this one when it came out.

I played the game the first time and I got stock, I didn't know what to do, I was reading as much as I could an trying to enjoy the game, eventually I didn't know where to go. I had to start the game from scratch, THEN I went fast and I think it took me like 1 hour, that is when I knew what I had to do.

The game was underwhelming, and I again, I loved LOVED Episode 1. I guess I'll have to wait and see for Episode 3.

This game is gorgeously rendered and completely immersive. I was enjoying it immensely -- until I literally ran up against a wall. After having played for quite some time and having picked up a battery in the Tower of Cogs, I needed to transport elsewhere. Try as I might, I couldn't get the door to open to the transport room. I finally gave up and decided to "cheat." When I went to the walkthrough, though, I discovered that I was doing nothing wrong. The door simply should have opened. Oh, well: Stuff happens. When I reported the bug, I discovered that it had been reported 2.5 months earlier, with no response from the developers whatsoever. I'm pretty forgiving about this stuff. Had the developers given any indication that they were paying attention, I would not be writing this negative review of an otherwise beautiful game, but they didn't. There are no save points in this game because it is non-linear. The only solution for the other player was to delete his entire game and start over. I'm not willing to do that without some assurance that someone is listening. What if it happens again? What if it happens when I'm near the end of the game? Sorry, Charlie. I don't have the patience for that.

In the first game I felt like I was discovering something. An adventure where I had no idea what to find behind the next corner. In this second game I felt like I was a rat in a magic experiment.

Objects in the first game were real world objects that I knew intuitively how to use which made the game progress nicely.
Objects in this second game make no real-world sense. Most of the interaction is a blend between portal and the hl2 gravity gun or in short: the turing test. Just a lame version of it.

You need to walk back and forth between magic temples and shrines through the ever same doors and corridors. No skill required, just a lot of imagination of what the developers had in mind. This could easily be a short non-interactive animated movie and it would be just as boring and confusing. The characters are not emotionally interesting because most of them are holographic recordings from the past.

The flashlight was a really cool item in the first game because it created a sense of depth and immersion. Here it useless.

I liked the giant and the hermite crabs. I liked to sit in the make-shift tent and browse through the personal belongings. I also liked the blink locomotion better because now all surfaces are flat and I'm not constantly feeling sick from being shifted up and down like in the first game.

I agree with everyone else in that this game is a huge improvment from the first one (not that the first one was bad).

Pros:
- The graphics and world design are bigger and more beautiful than before
- The physics of the world are perfect, especially concerning the telepathy (zero-point energy anyone?)
- The plot, the characters are well written, developed, and voice acted
- The world really felt alien with the unique technology and design
- The playtime, the game took me about 4 hours to finish
- The soundtrack is beautiful

Cons:

- The price is a little high, get it on sale for $20 like I did
- Those loading screens are really immersion breaking!!!
- Sometimes the game isn't super clear on what you're supposed to do and you kinda just have to throw things at the wall till something sticks which can be frustrating

I love Cloudhead and the work they've put into this game really shines in the sound, music, movement and graphics options, and textures. And they're one of the few daring to make narrative single player (non-arcade, non-multiplayer) VR games so kudos and keep it up!

Episode 1 blew my freaking mind. But I am saddened to say that I did not like this episode.

Overall: It feels less engaging than the first because it minimizes the player stakes established in Episode 1, NPCs don't react to you, you hit loading screens a lot, and often you watch holograms do amazing and engaging actions instead of doing them yourself.

That's my brief spoiler-free review

(Spoilers and personal game design breakdown below)

To better explain my expectations for what this developer brought to the VR storytelling medium, I have to briefly breakdown the things that I absorbed from the first episode.

In Episode 1 it was a mostly realistic setting. It felt quaint and 80s and you felt like you could really walk around and hang around, it was a space that felt like it served a purpose more than just our playing a game in it. It felt not only like a place you wanted to be but a place you belonged to, wanted to return to - a perfect Goonies analogue. Believably unrealistic, but adventurous and mysterious as well.

Next, Cloudhead provided the best NPC interaction in VR - period - with the crazy scientist in Ep1. You felt like you knew him from his puzzles and tricks before you even meet him. He looked at you, even tried to shoot explosives at you, helped you with a puzzle. He existed before we came along, and was still there after we left. He felt like more than a game mechanic put into our way to overcome.

The reason I focus on these acheivements from the first episode is that, this game had none of the above. The NPCs were visually worse quality than the kookie scientist from Ep1, because they were just fuzzy, intentionally glitchy looking holograms. They didn't acknowledge you, they didn't interact with you, they just played their recording upon trigger. They had no feeling of persistence. They were only there to be triggered, they did not exist without a trigger to bring them to life. Very similar to the walking-simulator game Everyone's Gone To The Rapture in its NPC interactions.

Next, you're told everything, and you do nothing. They remove all the coolest bits of the story from gameplay for the player to instead watch or read about it. The Beast entity immediately becomes nothing more than an elaborate loading screen. Additionally, it cannot be interacted with! Your sister hologram even goes through an elaborate communication with The Beast using head nods, but the creature doesn't react to you nodding your head, or you hands waving, or anything at all. This is VR! Our heads have head tracking! I could have had a conversation with it, the hologram could have been a translator between us to breaking everything into Yes or No nods. But it seems like The Beast really doesn't exist at all. Most clearly demonstrated by the fact that you can even launch little plasma balls at him and they fly right through him into the background. Between only seeming to respond to your sister in the past and being completely non-interactable (sneeze when I shoot a plasma ball at his face? squint if i hit an eye?) he lost any sense of persistence he might have had because he's only there to transport and doesn't exist unless I'm needing transport. He feels like I'm just interacting with a game mechanic instead an existing creature.

Going back to removing all the cool things for the player to do, The Pit fight scene, why were we shown that like a recording instead of having the player experience it themselves? We could have been put in the shoes of the brother, or another combatant on the field. Again it was told to us instead of letting us experience it.That would have been so cool, and helped us really feel his story.

Finally, I noticed a severe decrease in maintaining player immersion within the design itself. I used the smooth locomotion, and any time I traveled non-conventionally, such as elevators or The Beast, my movement would get locked. It's bad enough when 2D games do this, and it really feels especially unnatural and jarring in VR. Standing in the Beast hands? You get to just stand there, and it's really immersion breaking because the floor is uneven terrain from his fingers so even walking in your playspace breaks the immersion. Walking around his hands would have been a great place for that elevation changing feature they had from the first episode. Here, every elevator ride locked your non-roomscale movement as well. Then several hologram cut scenes locked your movement as well. In practice this meant you were only immersed for the 5 minutes at a time while you were directly engaged in a single puzzle before needing to return to the travel zone, with its bookended loading screens where you stare at the game's logo in a bright void. You load as The Beast grabs you [game logo and themesong], then stand watching The Beast ignore you for a minute, then you load again before arriving [game logo and themesong].

I don't know what the answer is to loading screens in VR but I feel they should happen as absolutely infrequently as possible and VR games especially should strive to keep the player immersed as long as possible.

As a side note, early on I feel like the game hyped that the Red Crystal would be the hardest to get, but all it took was you riding an elevator down and taking it from a dead body. Maybe it was just saying "go for that one last" but instread it gave me the impression that I'd have an epic battle, or actually have to do something drastic for it.

Finally, have to personally gripe about one thing: this game's narrative and gameplay directly undermines the awesome hand-thing that was the culmination of the Episode 1! I felt so epic getting that thing, whatever it did, would be cool, I just knew it! I was now more unique than anyone else with this hand! But Episode 2 proves that hand gadgets are super common here, just go get one for your other hand. The awesome things I could only imagine my right hand was now capable of was... opening doors mostly, and being 1/2 a gravity gun. I thought that hand made me Godlike, or at least a superhero or something grand but no, it turns out any sense of stakes (losing your hand, but gaining a unique power) was entirely thrown out with this episode. Turns out just about everyone has hand powers and they created a mechanical version of it so you had your hand scorched and destroyed in Ep 1 for no real reason.

I was so excited for this game, told all my friends about it after being so overwhelmed and blown away by the first. I've shown the first off to sososo many people, of all ages. This developer can deliver great work in the VR narrative space, but for some reason this episode threw away the game design philophies it had pioneered and excelled at in the areas of immersion, level design, puzzle design, and NPC interaction and player stakes.

All of that said, I want to again reiterate that I'm still ok with the money I spent and still appreciate all the hard work that went into making this game, I've talked to Cloudhead before via Twitter and Reddit and expressed my love and passion for Episode 1 to them many times. Seems like this Episode is a hit for everyone else so cheers and good luck on Episode 3, I'll grab it Day 1!

TL;DR: I hope Episode 3 has way less loading frequency, actual NPC interactions like the kookie old guy shooting at us/calling after us down the tunnel in Ep 1, raises player stakes again, and has actual NPC models for the humanoids I'm spending most of my game time looking at and standing next to.

Cloudhead is on to something here. Their games are not quite long enough yet, but the content makes the magic of VR shine.

If you have a VR headset, do yourself a favor and get both this and Call of the Starseed, as well as any future games Cloudhead makes.

Here's to hoping their team gets bigger and they attack larger projects!

How to give a fair review on this?

Overall I will give it a thumbs up, because the mechanics and graphics are awesome (again).

BUT: The whole game has not more than 7 different rooms to offer. 30% of my playtime were loading screens, or elevator rides. Additional 10-15% for reading written story.
The game is good and a lot better than the avarage, but its still too short.

This is written with Ep. 1 being my favourite VR game and the one that convinced me VR was the future.

Completed game without rushing in 3.6 hours, all 'extras' found/read/listened to. Game uninstalled after finishing (I still keep Ep 1 installed to demo to people).

So incredibly disappointed in this. While the story is interesting and the production quality is the highest you'll find it VR right now, the gameplay is a huge backwards step. The first game was a progression through a story with each 'level' being a different, interesting and often challenging, puzzle. This is just 4 hours of running back and forth through 3 areas doing 'fetch quests' and stopping to watch a story being told. You go through the whole game doing variations of the same puzzle over and over and I ended up absolutely sick of it. The most challenging part of this game is figuring out which area you're supposed to be going to (for the fifth time).

While you're running back and forth between the areas there's a great immersion-breaking loading screen for you to enjoy every 5 mins. Another review has mentioned this too, there were other reasonable possibilites that wouldn't have been nearly as invasive.

PROs:
* Interesting next step in the story.
* AAA production value.
* Locomotion controls to suit everyone. (Blink or trackpad + head/controller direction)

CONs:
* Backwards step in puzzles and general gameplay.
* Constant re-use of the same few puzzle mechanics throughout the game.
* Constantly running back and forth between 3 areas.
* Immersion-breaking loading screens.
* The new mechanics introduced to the game are almost purely superficial.

I'm hoping that Episode 3 can build on the new mechanics and make them into something more meaningful and take a step back towards the puzzle styles and storytelling style of the first episode.

I'm sad to say I ended up refunding this and I'll explain why.

For me it's nowhere near as good as the first episode. This one just felt like walking down corridors to rooms, do a puzzle, walk back through the corridor, go to another room, do a puzzle, go back down more corridors, do another puzzle etc etc. It made the game feel super small in comparison to the first episode. That really felt like you were moving real distance from start to finish through interesting locations on route. This might not be the best analogy but Episode 2 felt more like being on a Space Station with rooms connected by corridors, but you're still in the same small space station the whole time.

I couldn't believe how many books there were to read. I didn't want to read all those books, but I felt like if I didn't I'd be missing vital information. It didn't seem very clear what you were supposed to do sometimes. You'd go into a new 'level' and think there must be something I can do in here, but after 20mins of wandering around trying to interact with everything, you then realise you have to go back down the corridors yet again, don't forget the loading screens, to get to another level to grab something, to then go all the way back through the corridors and loading screens to use the thing you needed in the first place. This just wasn't fun for me.

As you might be able to tell, the amount of loading screens frustrated the hell out of me, to the point where I just said to myself, sod it I'm not playing anymore, I want my money back, which is a real shame. As well as the amount of loading screens, the timing of them frustrated me too. The monster transporter dude would be just about to reach out and grab you, but before that can happen, LOADING SCREEN!!! Is it bad that I wanted him to grab me and everything go dark, to then, instead of an immersion breaking loading screen with the same music and bright orange in front of you, just stay black when he grabs you, with maybe a few dots pulsing so you know it hasn't crashed. That would have been so much better. When in an immersive VR world the last thing a player wants to see is a massive logo loading screen!!!

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad, the graphics were awesome, very immersive and detailed environments are really shown off with supersampling and a 1080Ti and the audio was really well done, but I also had controllers popping in, flashes of steam here and there, which was immersion breaking also.

Despite all I've said, never in a million years did I think I would write this kind of review for an Episode of The Gallery. I really can appreciate the time and effort the Devs must have put into creating this game, you really can tell they put a huge amount of effort into it, which is why It saddens me to write this as I really loved the first one and I so badly wanted this one to be just as good or even better. But alas, for me, it wasn't to be :(

Wow! Cloudhead Games, I salute you. Nobody does it better. 9.8/10

18 months ago, Episode 1 blew my mind - graphics, sound design, gameplay mechanics and story were leagues ahead of the competition. Episode 2 manages to surpass all of that and deliver, in my opinion, the best VR game yet created.

It's clear that the team at Cloudhead play a lot of VR themselves as they understand what works and what doesn't. More importantly, they understand what is fun. The gameplay mechanics pay homage to many other great games like The Lab, Waltz of the Wizard as well as a few others.

Pros:
Amazing Graphics (1.5xSS on 4790k/GTX1080/!6gigs Ram/SSD) Sometimes relying on async reprojection but mostly a smooth ride.
Sound Design & Music - The best in the business IMO.
Movement Configuration Choice - I like to stick/strafe but my friends like blink. Choices for all, Hoorah!
Diverse & Fun Puzzles - Not too tricky but just right.
Immersion Factor - I care for Elsie more than my real life sister!
Difficulty Level - Game doesn't hold your hand but allows logic to prevail.


Cons:
It Ended! - I got 4.5 hours out my first playthrough and will be playing through at least once more. I feel I got excellent value for my money. However, some may feel this is a little short.


I'd recommend this game to anyone who enjoyed Episode 1, anyone who enjoys AAA experiences and anyone who enjoys being alive.
I do not recommend this game to anyone who thinks that £4 per hour of world class entertainment is somehow "bad value." (is your name Sebastian?)


Anyone considering purchasing should not hesitate - allow the imagination of Cloudhead Games take you on an adventure for a few hours - is this not why you bought a VR system?

Played on HTC Vive with full locomotion enabled.

4.4 hours in and im not done yet ive never been so incredibnly immersed in a VR universe. if you dont buy this, you really dont know what you are missing. I cannot believe how polished this is, its honestly incredible. The graphics, the physics, the sounds, everything is just absolutely incredibly well done. This is a AAA VR game hands down. Im NOT exxagerating when i say that. Its so far beyond any other VR game on steam hell its better than the damn oculus games with millions of dollars of funding. you know why, becuase these developers put their heart and souls into this masterpiece of a VR game. You need to buy this, these devs clearly put ALOT of passion into this. I cant wait to see what happens next. also there so many options :) yes you can walk if you want or you can teleport and customise how you do that. This is a fantastic peice of art. im blown away .. bravo!

One of the best VR titles out there. AAA quality. Epic locations. Daaamn, even unlockable doors are made crazy cool) Graphics, physics... they are gorgeous.