RHEM II SE: The Cave

Some of the reviews about RHEM II say it has no story... it actually tells a subliminal story, one which I find quite beautiful to observe. RHEM II tells a heart-touching tale where you give your real-life currency to Knut Mueller so his game can let you know he's more intelligent, talented, driven and creative than you are.

Can't wait to play 3, 4 and 5!

tl,dr: If you don't mind your games doubling as homework, RHEM II will delight and confound you for hours on end. If you like your puzzles a little breezier and more flexible, look elsewhere -- perhaps Myst, or its sequel Riven?

That first bit wasn't hyperbole, by the way. I played RHEM II the way I got through math courses in college and high school: notes on hand, constantly recording information and making visual aids. I've got a 40-page document full of instructions and screenshots and even a map to prove it. And even with all that information, I still missed some important clues I had to go back for, and there was at least one puzzle towards the end I had to seek help for. That should really tell you everything you need to know about the game.

I don't want to make RHEM II sound like a chore. Far from it. The game looks quite good, with a firmly established visual language whose tightly controlled environments you can spend hours just wandering through. That's always been a substantial draw of Myst clones for me -- that rich, tactile exploration where you seem to stumble across something important every few feet, before taking a mental note of it and continuing on your way to press even more buttons and flip even more switches.

Three years of long breaks and fits of progress, sixty-two hours of pointing-and-clicking. Will I be buying RHEM III? Without question.

As someone with a lot of nostalgia for the "interactive slideshow" adventure game (preferring Myst: Masterpiece Edition to realMyst's equivalent, for example) the controls don't bother me at all. Quite the contrary, I feel at home in the tunnels of RHEM II. But while a trip down memory lane is appreciated, it's not the main draw of this franchise.

While you can't expect the storytelling present in the Myst series, which seems to have inspired RHEM, I still recommend RHEM II and the rest of the series to all adventure game fans. The puzzles may not be integrated into the world building, but they are well-built. The level of sophistication and intricacy involved in these challenges surpasses even the best-designed Myst franchise puzzles. All the more amazing is that this game is the brainchild of one man. If you want to take a trip through the mind of a genius, this game can take you there.

Of course, if you're considering RHEM II, you've probably played and completed RHEM I (or should have; I recommend playing the games in order, despite the easy-to-follow story) and I can promise the same level of quality. If you wanted RHEM I to be longer, this is for you! The puzzles are consistent with RHEM I without getting repetitive.

All in all, I hope you give RHEM a chance, and enjoy as much as I have!

My kind of game. Or so i thought. Some of the puzzles were solvable, others just down right impossible. Made me hate the game more as i very slowly progressed. had to look at a walk through more than once, and after finding the answer i was amazed as to how the hell anybody could actually work that out. My overall feel was that the puzzles were good and very challenging, perhaps to challenging, i hated that there was some math problems as i have zero math ability and that made me mad. I really wanted to complete this but found that i dont have days solving just one puzzle. Needs to have a few more hints, just to help the player along.

I love this kind of games (I won't call them Myst clones, I just won't) and Rhem 2 is my favourite of the Rhem series. Heck, it's my favourite Myst clone ever, and I've played a ton of them. For a little perspective, this top 5 list of mine includes Riven, URU, Rhem 1 & 2 and Schizm.

So yeah, I love Rhem 2, most of the puzzles are fantastic and although many complain about the total lack of story, I don't mind it. Rhem world is a lonely, mysterious world and full of closed doors and puzzles.

About the SE additional content, I'll be honest and say I didn't really like it. It felt out of place, both in terms of graphics/atmosphere and in puzzles logic. Furthermore it was frustrating that although I knew the game was about to end, I had yet to solve another bunch of puzzles (that were an afterthought) and although I used hints, I still spent an additional couple of hours in this new area, which was kind of anti-climatic.

But all in all, Rhem 2 is fantastic game and a must-play for fans of this genre.

Difficult puzzle game, not for the casual gamer. Imo, I highly doubt one could play this game without a walkthrough at times. Still I enjoyed the game in spite of this. I tend to agree with others, in that, the voice acting was dismal. Thank goodness this approach was seldom used in the game.

This is a great point and click adventure/puzzle game. Some of the puzzles are difficult and take a lot of steps to solve.

Absolutely awful, I love it!

Second game in the series, and I think it's a lot better than the first one simply because you don't have to walk back and forth as much to complete puzzles.
However, you can easily get stuck if you don't explore every wall, door, floor, ceiling, window, railing and path, which isn't very fun. I'm not ashamed to say that I needed some hints for a few of the puzzles.

Get a few sheets of paper out and get ready to solve some puzzles and prepare for a few jumpscares.

Some puzzles, like the glass maze, are diabolical in every way. I need a guide to get through it every time I play; there was no way in heck I would have been able to figure it out on my own. But I really like the atmosphere. What the game REALLY needs is actual music. Overall, though, the game is really good, as are the other games in the series. Really looking forward to RHEM 5, whenever it's released.

It is pure puzzle and I like pure puzzle. Also there is a very large amount of territory to map and I like mapping. Additionally one must take copious notes and I love doing that.

This game occupies a time well spent in solving problems related to sometimes difficult situations. One must remember that apparently unrelated signs or symbols are part of a larger picture.

If the original Rhem was Myst, Rhem II is Riven. Better realized world, better puzzles, and the difficulty goes up considerably as well. The difference is, Riven and Myst are worlds where everything is there for a reason, and the lore ties in to the puzzles. Not so much with Rhem, Rhem is like an immense escape room where everything can be a clue, and clues can remain in your notes unused for the majority of the game until they finally click. I can't even begin to fathom how this environment and puzzles were conceived and created by a single person, probably the most inspiring one man project I've ever played.

With all that being said, there are some things that you have to know or otherwise you'll get incredible frustrated, things that the developer could've made more clear:

- Some buttons need to be held down or pressed multiple times.
- Keep close attention to where you are, as you'll sometimes need to navigate behind walls to see where something leads. The compass is super useful for this.
- Take copious notes and screenshots of everything that may seem relevant or even slightly out of place.
- If you move something, can you backtrack to where it was to see what's in the space in occupied?
- Objects that you pick up to observe can sometimes be rotated.

Try not to use a guide as the puzzles are obtuse, but fair, and incredibly satisfying to beat.

I am a huge fan of Myst type point and click exploration/logic puzzle games and I appreciate the effort that went into this game. Wandering around an underground cavern solving arcane puzzles doesn't have wide appeal so again, thank you to Knut Müller for creating them back in the day and updating them with better technology.

I have to admit that this chapter in the RHEM saga was much harder than the previous (RHEM I SE). Lots to keep track of, not as many helpful map segments, and it is a bit excessive when it comes to transposition and "mapping" puzzles. Having to view the back of a distribution panel and mirror the image to figure out how power gets from A to Z plus taking into consideration how a color of a conduit might change along the way tests even an enthusiast's resolve. The most frustrating for this player was the maze of rooms where one door opens and another closes. That was an exercise in graph theory and started to feel more like work than play. In fact, I abandoned the game for a bit because it just became too much work. But of course I came back...

One other constructive criticism is that this game required noticing some icons in various places but didn't seem to have a helpful map of where they were like RHEM I did, so there is a chance the player might miss something - not a fan of that. I have no problem with hard puzzles that make sense but I believe it is needlessly frustrating to the player to have to look in the right place to see a required clue without any recourse. This game was definitely arcane - requiring the player to have incredible flashes of insight to connect seemingly unrelated clues.

So recommended for lovers of the genre, but I don't think given its complexity that it will attract many newcomers.

Unsolicited advice to Knut - consider adding in extra puzzles to provide additional hints, clues or maps to those who might be stuck.

READ FIRST: I've experienced what look like compatibility issues after playing this game (Windows 7 Home Premium x64). It's nothing major, just a lot of little annoyances... after I exit the game, I find all my desktop icons scrambled and dumped in the corner. I've also noticed I'm getting errors like "COM Surrogate has stopped working" randomly when I try to preview image files. There've been a few theme burps, too. All of this started after I first played RHEM 2 SE. No issues with RHEM 1 SE, I don't know what the problem is. If anyone has a solution, I'm all ears!

That said, I'm bound and determined to finish the series (I'll just have to detox this thing later...) Graphics, sound, maneuvering all the same as the first game, i.e. waxing late 90s nostalgic, but the puzzles have a little more direction than the first and I'm enjoying this one more. Hope you remember your high school algebra, you're gonna need it! My biggest beef is with the weirdo video recordings, the voice sounds fake and out of sync. Not sure if it was a bug or a budget thing.

Rhem II is a worthy successor to Rhem I. The gameplay is largely the same, consisting of rather complex sequences of puzzles that are usually solved through a combinations of finding the right hint and logic. The strength of Rhem lies in the subtle, mysterious atmosphere and finding your way around the map: you have to be very aware of where you are in relation to everything else, and following wires and drawing mental maps of an area is key. The "normal" puzzles (find hint, apply hint) are usually at worst straightforward to the point of being dull (i.e. at least not obtuse), and at best clever as heck. For someone new to the series, give Rhem II a try if you like pure puzzling and detailed exploration.

For someone who has played Rhem I, while the formula is the same, Rhem II loses a bit of the sprawling openness that made the first game so remarkable (for better or worse: it's easier to navigate but not quite as awe-inspiring), but makes up for it in a varied set of visuals and interesting interconnectedness between the more local and contained puzzle areas. All and all, if you liked Rhem I, buy this one! It's worth it!

Rhem III hype.

Everything everyone has said so far is right on the money: This is a puzzle-lovers game! I can't stand the story-line adventure games; they're so trite. There is a story, but it's only purpose is to tell you you're looking for "something".
I am, indeed, a physics teacher, so it goes without saying that Richard Feynman's final chalkboard saying applies here. "What I cannot create I do not understand." I've played all of them at least five times now over the past decade or so, and there are so many puzzles and so many clues that I am almost starting over each time. I usually pile up a half-inch of 3x5 cards with clues, maps and calculations. (I make sure to throw them away when I finish, though.) Part of the fun that hasn't been mentioned yet is the challenge of thinking up a way to simply represent the puzzle operation symbolically. This is a thinking game. There are no instructions, apparently, but by the time you've finished you'll agree that the game is just full of instructions - that is if you can recognize them as instructions. Stay away from the walkthroughs; read IceHippo's review - that's how it goes.
I'm running on a PC under Win 7. I recommend choosing the windowed mode over the full-screen mode. At times the full-screen mode left my screen in the limited resolution mode with lots of icons missing. I had to change the resolution to something else then back to get my messy desktop back in good shape. No problem with the windowed mode, though; the game images are the same size anyway.
Gift it to your friends; they'll hate you at first, but will consider it a compliment when they get the hang of it.
(Something is wrong with my stat on this game; I've played a lot more than 0.8 hours in the past two weeks.)
(Addendum after finishing) The SE area that was added is another of Knut's wonders! He redefines the meaning of the word 'maze', and the puzzles (quite a few) are on a par with all his others. Go for it!

Rhem II is pure madness when it comes to puzzle density and observance. You will have to keep track of hints, mechanisms, and paths. Here is some advice for those who dare to enter the cave:

* Always look what is in every side of every door. Always go through every path in both directions.
* Look at wires so that you can see what things trigger whatever.
* Some buttons have to be pushed for a few seconds.
* Remember decoration in the environment can contain puzzle hints

Rhem II lacks a lot of the frustrating stuff in the first game - the areas are more distinct and memorable, navigating is much easier and there's less backtracking and walking all the way around. For example, the game only shows you one map of the beginning area and that's really all you need, the other areas you can easily map yourself. A huge difference with the first game, where you needed more than 5 maps. (There's one little extra map for the bonus area.)
For a sequel dubbed 'The Cave' it actally doesn't look as boring as you would suspect. The Rhem series has never been about great visuals (in contrast with a lot of the sequels of Myst) but there are a lot of buildings and different looking grottos so you don't feel you've been wandering around in the same cave for hours, except for the constant lack of a blue sky.
The only gripe I have with this game is why I got stuck in the second half of the game - it's not clear you first have to focus on the underground part, then on the West half, then on the East. I got stuck really badly because I tried to focus on another part first and I - and this is my own fault - didn't realize that I already had two parts of the puzzle to progress in the underground area. Had I some kind of clue I really needed to be here first I might had found the solution earlier.

There's not much else to say about the game - a hard puzzle game, but the puzzles are fair, they're just hard. The puzzles are for the most part contained within their area (with some exceptions). Some stuff you'll recognize by now: rotating hallways, lots of tricky doors, following cables and pipes and having to take lots and lots of notes.

TL;DR Go to puzzle area, think it was impossible, put game aside, tried again a few days later, put aside, resisted looking at walkthrough, tried once more, had 'eureka' moment, solved puzzle, repeat.

Rhem II is a game for visual puzzles and the occasional audio puzzle. There's no real dialog, just puzzles and pictograms (which might be a clue to another puzzle). If you need a partial map and more hints, check out my guide. Most of the fun is figuring out just what the puzzles are in the first place. Each puzzle brings you a little bit closer to re-starting the systems in this strange, deserted complex and finding a way to get out. The Rhem series was released over the past decade and a half. There is a loose plot that links the four Rhem games together, but you don't have to play them in order. I'd recommend skipping Rhem I and trying any of II-through-IV first (the game play of Rhem I is not nearly as smooth as the others, if you like the series you can always go back). Although Rhem II is as good a place to start as any to see if you really like the series. The general thread is that you are searching for some items in a mysterious, hidden complex (and have to find your way back out!) This game doesn't support SteamSynch. The graphics are simple and in a limited color palette (Rhem II dates to 2005). The colors are muted (it is an abandoned, dilapidated complex) and there is limited animation but this doesn't detract from the game.

This is a game for puzzles. There's very little hand holding here -- you really need to walk around and explore the game world. Taking screenshots, notes and mapping are essential (I use a smart phone). The puzzles do not have directions spelled out -- most of the fun is figuring out just what the objective of puzzle is , or even if something is a puzzle (why is there a button there?). I recommend taking screenshots of the puzzles because sometimes you will find a clue and realize that it relates to a puzzle all the way back on the other end of the complex (I've had issues with the steam in-game screenshot hotkey with this, so I just use the Win snip app or a smartphone). Other times a puzzle needs a clue that you just haven't reached yet. Even the slightest detail in a scene might be a clue, like numbers, buttons or wires (where do they lead?). Look everywhere for clues -- up, down, behind doors... nothing is off limits.

You need to have your sound on because when you push a button or enter a code it helps to hear the difference between the "it doesn't work" buzz (like a game show contestant getting the wrong answer) and the "it works" ding (like a microwave). Also being able to differentiate a small green light from a small red one helps too (later games have color pickers to help with this).

There are no jump scares, nudity or violence in any of the Rhem games. They are puzzle entertainment for all ages.

I spent several weeks stumped on a particular puzzle. There were three parts to it, and even though two were staring me in the face it didn't click for a long time. This is why it's best to resist the urge to go to the walkthrough. This is a game to be savored, for puzzle fans everywhere.

Just when you solve a puzzle and open what you think is the final door... you see a whole new wing of the complex with puzzles waiting to be solved. By the time you are done, you'll know the layout of the complex better than that of your neighborhood and have typed in some passcodes so many times that you know them better than Jenny's number 867-5309. By the time you've solved everything, the achievement will leave you full of relief and excitement like you won the Stanley Cup. This is again why I recommend avoiding the gameboomers.com walkthrough until you have been puzzling as much as you can.

I've completed three play-throughs (one from when I got the game on CD, twice with the Steam edition). Highly recommended and a few dozen hours of enjoyment for a decent price!

I played this on Win 10 and had no issues.
If you need a partial map and some hints to get you started, check out my guide!

Edit for the Steam Special Edition (Rhem II SE): There's an additional area that wasn't part of the original Rhem II but has been added for the SE. Towards the end of the game it may not be entirely clear if you are getting clues that you need to solve the game, or ones for the optional SE area. There's a "Gameplay Hints" discussion thread that might be useful.

Edit: True story, I am playing this again and loaded a saved game after a break. I went to a location where I had to enter a code to get something, and each time I entered the code the door wouldn't open. I checked things again, went over my notes in case I had made an error, typed the code again, but still nothing. I ended up starting the game from the beginning, only to realize that the code had worked the first time I entered it and got the item behind the door (I did this before I saved, and promptly forgot that I had done it already). Because I had the item already, the game wouldn't let me open the door anymore. Oops. YMMV

If you're into puzzle adventure games but you get annoyed when pretty graphics and story exposition get in the way of the puzzles, then Rhem 2 is for you.

This game is like drinking pure distilled grade-A puzzles straight from the firehose. You're overwhelmed with symbols and diagrams and clues and control panels and pipes and wires and you need to keep track of where they all are because maybe a diagram on one wall might be logically associated to a control panel on the opposite side of the wall. If this sounds up your alley and you've never played a Rhem game, start with Rhem 2 or Rhem 4 -- they're a bit better than 1, and there's practically no story continuity between games to speak of.