Trϋberbrook – PC review

Review by Richard Winstone

Trϋberbrook, the perfect get away for the curious mind.

Tranquility steeped in mystery, science fiction and otherworldly action.

I just want to highlight that this game has some crude humour and smoking, but the Dev’s also have put in a kid mode, this removes the crude components and the smoking making it enjoyable for anyone.

As you travel up the steep mounting sloops towards your final destination the sleepy former mining town of Trϋberbrook with promises of tranquillity in a nature health resort, your instantly drawn in by the stunning visuals, and this isn’t only for the opening credits either.

The entire game, each individual set is hand crafted giving an unprecedented level of detail to the game it instantly draws you in as you walk in awe through the charming village to the guest house. Its perfect almost to perfect, quite town, stunning views just what a researcher need to get away from the hustle and bustle of 1960’s berlin where you Hans Tannhauser Are currently working on quantum theory research.

But that’s where the tranquillity ends, your fist night a mysterious stranger sneaks into your room and steels your work, nothing else just your papers on quantum theory. Leaving behind nothing apart from a very obvious trail of glowing blue footsteps, as you follow you introduce to Greta a fellow scholar an anthropologist on the trail of a Proto-German race, this is where your quest begins from tracking down a thief while searching for an ancient sacred ground, to saving the work with the assistance of otherworldly traveler. dry humour, betrayal, new friendships all await you on the path ahead with your trusty Dictaphone your record your finding as you explore.

As you solve your typical item find and placement task associated with this genre Hans finds ingenious ways to use these basic items to create all sorts of contraptions to assist you on your way. Your grated with a range of puzzles, dialog challenges as you barter for item you need to progress and develop friendships with the bizarre towns folk, you get a feel very early on from the game that’s is inspired by stranger things, the x-files, twin peaks and Star Trek,  as you uncover a scientist that puts you through psychoanalysis to make sure your not an alien, and stumble upon a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist. 

Venturing into an ultra-high tech facility, with the trusty Barbarossa 2000 ensuring its safe keeping, you slowly uncover the mystery that lead to the end of Trϋberbrook’s long mining heritage. Gaining the trust and befriending Barbarossa along the way. It’s at this point the plot take a real twist and you discover your true reason of being in Trϋberbrook to save the world, I will not go into anymore about the story as this would spoil the game but as you can tell by the narrative up to this point the game plot is very x-filesish, mystery, ancient civilizations, high-tech gadgets talk of alien, the plot only thickens.

So lets change it up and talk about how I found the game to actually play, as stated the graphics drew me in right away the level of detail truly surprised me, I started playing about 10 pm thinking ill get a quick half an hour in get a feel for it and work through it tomorrow at 4:45 am I couldn’t keep my eyes open and had to go to bed it really griped me with every chapter leaving me wanting more, the sometime not so subtle humour like the phallic shaped vibrating massage rod that a reoccurring joke through the game kept me entertained also, it was akin to being in a lengthy x-files episode with an injection of humour and a real sense that thing were only going to get more bizarre, and never did it disappoint.

There was however one puzzle that broke me and it was the one and only time I needed to refer to the developers basic yet handy walk through, it’s a door with 5 lights, and 5 things to highlight for the door to open, the hint to the key is way too subtle and maybe getting Greta to point out the hint as its her area of expertise is seriously needed, I honestly spent 45 minutes desperately trying to figure it out, it may just be me but without knowing what the hint its damn near impossible with 120 possible combinations.

I would also like to talk a little about the graphics as this truly intrigued me, BTF use Photogrammetry to create the amazing visuals while keeping the file size relatively low and not requiring the latest and greatest graphical processors to reproduce it in game, meaning this could be ported to switch, and maybe even mobile while retaining the quality. So how does it work, you take a real life photo that is then mapped out into a 3D model this creates a moving image rather than huge processing power heavy 3D wire frames typically used.

The developer painstakingly produced every set in the game, significantly more work and required a large team of highly skilled artist and modelers, but the end result truly show the value in the technique bringing superior graphics to the masses and not just those fortunate to have the latest and greatest high-power gaming PC’s

Besides the game play and the story being very good in its own right, Trϋberbrook could also be a real turning point for the genre with there great use of this technology and it really is paving the way for a very bright, vivid and detailed future.

Score overall 8/10  

Graphics 10/10

Story 10/10

Gameplay 6/10 (that damn puzzle) 

Replay ability 6/10