Review of The Star Named EOS game; The story of a photographer

For several years, independent games have firmly established their foothold in the gaming industry, and every day a large number of these works are released on the market with lower budgets than high-budget games. One of the popular genres for indie creators and indie players is the puzzle-adventure genre. The Silver Lining studio located in Taiwan has gone for the same style in its second game; But on the contrary Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery, the studio's previous painting-focused game, The Star Named EOS, tells its story based on photography.

Day, the main character of The Star Named EOS, wants to find out the truth about her mother by reconstructing her photos. In this way, we have to help him by solving different puzzles so that he can record each photo again and get to the next environment. The production team has been able to place these puzzles and their components in the game environment, and to solve various puzzles, you have to pay attention to all the details and go step by step towards solving that puzzle. Suppose we want to find a dummy to open a chest. Before doing this, we have to solve two other puzzles to finally get to our target mannequin. This procedural system and the integration of some puzzles have added to the game's appeal.

The role of the game camera should not be neglected. In addition to the possibility of recording some images with this camera, to solve some puzzles we have to take help from the camera and record images so that we can move forward in the game. This type of puzzles in the game are well designed and the number of camera-oriented puzzles is not such that we see it being overused and there is a balance between the number of environmental puzzles and such puzzles.

Of course, one of the flaws of the game is in this part of the puzzles; Some of the puzzles in the game are illogical and in the absence of a hint option, sometimes you have to spend a lot of time to find the logic behind a puzzle, and sometimes you even have to try your luck to solve the puzzle! For example, in the puzzle above you have to line up stars to unlock your closet. Although such explanations are presented to the player, it is not clear in which direction or row these stars should be placed next to each other and there is no guidance in this regard. So, even after lining up these stars, the puzzle may not be solved and you have to re-align them to unlock them.

The Star Named EOS game tells a good story and its story twists are well embedded in the game. Also, this work does not act like a slogan in conveying its messages and concepts, and this message is conveyed to the player in an appropriate way and with the right background, so that we are not faced with a superficial work. The way of telling this story is also interesting and by looking at each picture, we enter its world. Then, the player himself must provide the ground to advance the story and go to the next picture by solving the puzzles. In this way, the player can get used to the story more easily and feel his presence in the story.

The problem of the story can be considered to be too vague in the first half of the game. In fact, at the beginning, the player's purpose of being in different places is not completely clear, and we only know that he intends to recreate the images recorded by his mother, which by itself cannot be a good motivation to advance the story. But in the second half of the game, the story plays a more prominent role, and by clarifying some issues for the player, this connection is established between him and Day's adventures, and you can empathize with him.

Visually, The Star Named EOS is an eye-catching experience, and its beautiful artistic graphics along with pleasant music convey a sense of relaxation to the player. The combination of these two items create an attractive atmosphere and you can even feel your presence in that environment. Given that the environmental game It has 360 degrees, you can watch the world around you and this has helped the game to be immersive. For example, in one of the game environments, we go to a quiet and cozy cafe. It is enough to turn your pointer and watch your surroundings so that the feeling of being in such a relaxing place will be transferred to you and you will be away from the living environment around you for a few minutes.

From the technical side, this video game offers a good experience and The Star Named EOS runs without any frame drops, bugs or other technical problems. Naturally, since we are dealing with an independent game, the proposed system and the required system of the computer version do not require powerful hardware and can be experienced on older systems as well. Finally, this work receives an acceptable grade in the graphics section and probably most players will be satisfied with the game's graphics.

All in all, The Star Named EOS offers a roughly three-to-four-hour puzzle-adventure experience that can satisfy both indie fans, genre enthusiasts, and non-gamers alike. This game works well in providing engaging and attractive puzzles, its story is effective in conveying functional concepts, and its beautiful and engaging environments convey a favorable feeling to the player. Although some puzzles are illogical and the first half of the game has a dumb narrative, The Star Named EOS is definitely worth a try.