I like it a lot - the environment is attractive and atmospheric. The puzzles are difficult but not impossible - until the rectangular pictures with moving squares. Having reached them and wasted a lot of time trying to make progress - I hereby give up! The hints in the discussion did not really help either. An expensive exercise as I can't really request a refund after playing for 6 hours....... Good things: * Contains a lot of very good, original puzzles, and is much harder than the demo would suggest. * Really, really pretty, and runs even on quite low-end PCs. * Superb writing. The characters, though not appearing on-screen, are charmingly characterized through the notes they left behind. * The game is divided up into five areas (although the first and last are very short), and you can't carry items from one area to another. This helps reduce the combinatorial nightmare that you might otherwise encounter from trying every object on every other object. * Similarly, hotspots become inactive once they've served their purpose, which saves you wasting time on puzzles that have already been solved. * If you don't like hidden-object nonsense, there are a few options you can turn on to make it a bit easier - making the cursor change when it's over a zoom-in spot, making collectible objects occasionally shimmer gold, and playing a chime when you enter a room with collectibles. * If you like hidden-object nonsense, you'll find plenty of it here, but it's almost all optional. Bad things: * ALMOST all optional. There is at least one mandatory puzzle that requires playing find-the-hotspot. * A common flaw in this type of game, but barely half of these puzzles have a good reason to exist. The in-game letters make a vague attempt to justify them - some were created as entertainment, for example - but unless your suspension of disbelief is particularly good, you will find yourself wondering why on earth you need to do all of this puzzle-solving just to make your way around a castle. * There are a couple of moments where an item I wanted was visibly reachable, but access was blocked by a table that could easily be climbed over, crawled under, moved, or squeezed around. This was annoying. * Some of the puzzles aren't that great; but there are enough hits that I don't mind the misses. I would recommend the game with the warning that you may not be able to complete it.

Fantastic game with layers of entertainment. I like that the game tends to get progressively harder, which is a bit of an art in itself for a game of this type. If they plan on making a sequel, I plan on being in the brigade of people signed up to buy it.

The Eyes of Ara is a Kickstarter funded adventure and puzzle game with a similar style to the old Myst games. You will move through static locations, animations are typically limited to machinery you interact with, but you have the ability to turn and look up and down for things to interact with. Some of the puzzles are simple but even easier ones might lead you to information you won't know what to do with. It has the difficulty of older games of this style, even common features like a hint system, map, or ability to highlight intractable objects is not going to be found in this game. If you enjoy challenging puzzles in the Myst formula then this will be a game you want to check out, as the puzzles are a strong and challenging part of the game. The story, setting, and music will likely not be of the quality needed to interest fans of the adventure genre or those looking for story.