Moon Castle

What looked promising at the beginning turned out to be a let down.
The game is somewhat reminiscent of the Cyan games, and I was hopeful. My sense of exploration has taken a beating.
After 36 hours playing (no, “working” is a better word…) this game, this is a thumbs down.
The game is fraught with mistakes, instabilities, quirks you name it.
For example, there are flashes everywhere (e.g., blue sky) when you move and turn,
Things (puzzles) simply did not work; I tested these as I had nine games going at the same time. They worked in some and not in others. What was consistent is that it was never the same thing that did not work in the different games; so, I got to about ¾ of the game in total, with nine games going! Frustrating…
Puzzles were not necessarily hard but more like based on pure luck and highly improbable. For example, take the opening word puzzle. I had 3 crossword programs going and I could at best get 1-2 perhaps 3 words figured out. In the dictionary, these were often obscure, never used words before. Probability-wise, it was very low that you would find these even if you knew from the programs all of the combinations possible. So, this was a red-herring puzzle meant for you to initially fail and enter the game getting 1 point no matter what you did. Very disappointing and a display of a lack of game savvy – bizarre thinking at best.
Another example is the “ball under the three cups” type puzzle. You got the first one (maybe) and the others, three more, were pure luck. To render things to the absurd stage, on the third trial, a clown pops out screaming at you so that you loose track of the ball, which of course you previously had no idea where it was in the first place. These choices were pure guesses and had nothing to do with the players abilities, which is lame programming…
I started to do some probability counts pressing a button and recorded the outcome to see if there was pattern I could follow. These types of things are built on some sort of algorithm, and in some cases, this helped out get past these obscure chance puzzles.
For example, the puzzle with the marbles in a vertical column (the long one) was inconsistent and haphazard. You do a pattern, it fails, you do it again, it succeeds (a different pattern appears), then fails, succeeds and so on until you finally land on the correct one by chance, no logic involved. Just wait for the right pattern to show up again (lots of time wasted here) and embark in it and the puzzle may be solved.
I often fell into limbo. Limbo is behind the main scene of game. At first, I thought it was part of the game as you can walk around and do things. Limbo is for example behind the castle, or walking in the horizon on the hills, on the lake, behind the steel doors on paths, etc. Looking at the Discussion, I found a command the Developer gave i.e., “XSRP and Enter” which I used continuously to get back to what they call “a safe place”! So here I am in Limbo trying to make headway in the game and I’m actually stuck behind the scenes. In several games, the XSRP command brought you to an area close by to the Limbo entry point that you could explore but were confined to and hence had to restart the game from the beginning all the same. Sigh…
Other points that need improvement: Manoeuvering in this game is awful, you cannot save your game (which could have saved a lot of headaches), the pictures have a limit (need to erase some to add others; so I used my screenshot instead), the beginning or intro is out of place and should be edited or removed, music comes on when you solve a puzzle and progress which you want to turn off because it sounds like you are in a “Mario” game, need I go on?
The last example I want to share is the cave and chemistry labs where you make different shapes (cylinders, spheres, cubes, cones) of different colors. I understood the concept quite well and was able to do most of the shapes and colors (different in every game). I even calculated the permutations possible and did them all. I could not proceed though because the dome would not raise eventhough I had done the correct shapes and associated colors. There are mistakes with what the developer calls Basic, Advanced, Experienced, Master and Supreme shapes in the correct lab. So, the dome would not open, and again I overcame it, and you guess it, fell into Limbo. No matter what I tried the game was stuck. I got all the points though…
Bottom line, in my view, the quality control and testing for the game were minimally, or simply not done. Perhaps the developer counted on buyers in 2018 to do their job, quicky got overwhelmed and gave up. This Guiney pig is exhausted. Hence, I am waiting to buy the Firmament by Cyan as I read there are technical issues to be fixed.

I had low expectations about this game. The trailer did not look so good. But this game advertises itself as a Myst style game and I have a hunger for anything that is like Myst. I am so glad I played it because this game turned out to be a very good puzzle game that offers plenty of hours of fun gameplay.

After playing it I can confirm that this game is 100% a Myst style game. The game has a room with rotating walls, a rotating temple, moving platforms, a cleverly hidden room, laser beams, strange devices to operate and a rollercoaster ride. The game has plenty of puzzles that are very good.

An extra thing I liked about this game is that there is text to read in this game, but it is not a lot of text. The text is short and to the point. I welcome that because I don’t like lots of reading as it is sometimes the case with Myst style games.

What I did not like was that the game contains two mini-games that involve quick timing. One of them is the famous three-cups-and-a-ball game. Luckily both games can be won easily by using the film-camera on a mobile phone.

Another negative part of Moon Castle is that the shadows are 100% black, this makes parts of the environments non-visible. There was one elevator button in particular that I was unable to see. Even after consulting a walkthrough I had great trouble in detecting that button. I even thought for a while that the walkthrough was wrong.

Other than that I only have positive opinions about this game. It is a great Myst-style game to play while waiting for the next game made by Cyan. A must play for Myst fans.

This thing was fun for awhile and then it fell into the trap of being seriously overcomplicated. I was ok until i stumbled into that underground lab with no real motivation to solve it. Games jump the shark when puzzles seem pointless. I can handle difficult in context (Riven) but can't handle tedious grinds for filler.(Myst 4) This started out promising but became a chore. When the fun is gone and it feels like work, I'm done. Sorry.

it's virtually impossible to count the flashes of light to start the 3 button generator! flashes way to fast, 2 +
flashes per second, stuck there for 4 hours, it sucks !

Generally I love this type of game, having played Myst and Riven. However, this one will not function with my Rift system. It works fine up to the point where you ride the car from the castle, then the whole point of view goes out of whack. from that point on, you are looking at the ground and to see horizontally, you have to look straight up (very uncomfortable). I tried different settings to no avail. It might work on other systems, but if you have a Rift, forget it.

Positive:
- Puzzles are very good in the last third of the game. Developer definitely knows how to design nice challenges and integrate them into the gameworld through interesting mechanical devices. Rotating bridges, giant telescopes, lasers.. etc. Nothing too original, but it is well executed.
- Pacing and overall flow is well done. Once the game picked up around its midway point, I couldn't turn it off and finished it in a single 7 hour session.

Negative:
- Control scheme is bizarre.. I have no idea why this game does not have standard first person controls.
- Early puzzles are a bit over-clued and does not offer the same satisfaction level as the later ones. It is obvious that the developer matured his design skills as he was completing the game.
- Music doesn't really fit the atmosphere.
- Point systems is not a bad idea, but since you end up gathering all points as you finish the game (there are no extra/secret puzzles that makes you earn additional points), it doesn't really add anything and works more like a progress bar for finishing the game.
- I think the game would have been more interesting if it was nonlinear. Current design has three major areas that should be completed in sequence.
- Visuals are adequate but some of the shadows are too dark, which makes it difficult to navigate and observe clues in such areas.

Being a huge Myst fan, I enjoyed Moon Castle a lot. Unfortunately first few hours of the game is its weakest part, hence I think a lot of people will be put off by the weird controls, muddy graphics and medicore puzzles. However, the game definitely picks up after the initial areas and later stages have some very solid puzzle and area design. If you are a hardcore puzzle adventure fan I think you will like this game. Hopefully the developer will continue to pubish new games.

Very interesting range of puzzles to solve and also liked the visuals

As long as the developers keep working on updates this will be a decent Myst clone. As of right now, there are little issues like being able to get stuck on certain parts of the map. These need ironing out, but it has great potential.

Finally completed the game. And I think it's a 100% myst-like game with enjoyable environmental puzzles (my favorite one is about lasers; *those Myst feelings*). Yes, graphics and optimization leave much to be desired, but don't let it scare you off :) This game is a little gem. If you are a fan of mystoids - and there are not many of them nowadays - just give it a try.

Absolute garbage

If you enjoyed Myst and Quern, then you should enjoy this game. The puzzles are fun. The graphics are very good, of course. I've played it twice and enjoyed both times.

It is myst like and doesnt hold your hand. Good puzzles fun atomosphere and all around enjoyable experiance if you like Myst like games buy moon castle.