I purchased Zemblanity a few weeks ago and just today got around to finishing the game. If I recall correctly, I believe I spent 2-3 dollars for the game and it’s one of the better purchase’s fun wise I have made in horror gaming recently. You start off the game locked inside of a house and you need to do the gratuitous exploring to find keys, hidey holes, and collect information/exposition to get you immersed and progress through the game. After the first few minutes of the game you will discover a fun mechanic which pervades the first ‘level’ of the game. The game is not really in levels. From what I surmised it might be a better fit to call the levels in the game chapters. There are four or five chapters in the game. Save game functionality does not become active until you complete the first level/chapter of the game. Admittedly I think I may have spent the most time on that first level, but it turned out being a plus because starting the game so many times allowed me to really get a solid layout on my surroundings and made the subsequent attempts that much faster.
From the store page:
Zemblanity is an atmospheric first-person horror game. What seemed like a little creepy invitation over from an old childhood friend turns into disturbing uncovering of mysterious forces ruling in the mansion. Will you find a way out?
Steam Store Page
Zemblanity is not a huge game and if you’re hardcore and really good at survival type or horror games in general you could probably complete the game in a single hour to hour and a half sitting after which if you were like me, will come away with satisfaction that you’ve played a fun little game for an excellent price. The graphics are good and if you have older equipment like myself (3rd generation i5 with 2gb Nvidia 1030) the game runs beautifully at the higher resolution’s. High settings were just fine for me though there is an Ultra graphics setting as well which I did not run the game with as I noticed the slowdown on my ancient computing equipment or gaming station, if you like. The game probably took me about 2.5 to 3 hours to complete, but that’s because I started and stopped a bunch of times and then just played the game at a nice slow paced level per day.
There are some really fun puzzles to figure out. A few of them actually. One of the puzzles find you locked inside a crypt. This is basically a solid stone building with over reinforced doors and once locked in you might think that it’s impossible to get out. Or is it?
Anyways, Zemblanity was a great game at a price which almost beckons you to own it. You can find the game here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1897380/Zemblanity/
I really couldn’t find anything bad to say about this game but this. There are no Steam achievements in the game. To many this doesn’t even matter but those achievements kind of kept me invested in games and that little dopamine hit you get after passing a particularly tough spot (think switches 😉 is sometimes amplified when you get the pop up for the Steam achievement, however this game does not have the Steam achievement system. There is a thread about this in the discussion section on the Steam website and I also posted a message there saying that an achievement system would only be a good thing for the game but honestly, the game is good the way it is and if Steam achievements were ever added, it would just be frosting. Additionally all reviews of the game are predominantly ‘Vert Positive’ which I’ve always found to be a good indicator of a games playability.
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