Ceville

By Lewis Denby

Ceville is an admirable but clumsy attempt to hark back to the adventure games of old. Which seems to be the in thing at the moment. A Vampyre Story tried very much the same formula a few months back, to mixed results. While Ceville is less turgid, it also lacks any of the brilliantly silly humour that lifted the former out of mediocrity. It’s certainly nowhere near the comedy talent of 90s Lucas Arts.

Playing alternately as a despotic yet lovable monarch, a self-obsessed paladin and a sneakily clever little girl, you’ll spend your time trying to save the land of Feryanis from the evils of Basilius, hell-bent on taking the throne for his own wrongdoings. The range of protagonist personalities is refreshing, but the hub-based nature of the game, along with the fact that you’re often able to switch freely between multiple characters, means certain tasks can get confusing. Particularly when the puzzles begin to descend into long-winded adventure-game-logic around a third of the way in, things can grind to a halt far too easily, a walkthrough being the only real way to keep on top of things.

Adventure game puzzles should be tough, but always guided. Ceville simply fails in this respect. It’s a game that’s adept at setting up big, multi-faceted sections with a clear goal, but the route is often unnaturally obstrued. When you do figure it out, there’s no sense of reward; only confusion, as you search the internet to find out if parsley really does make people instantly fall asleep.

Elsewhere, an unhelpful camera regularly refuses to look at what you’re trying to pick up, the script doesn’t know who it wants to aim itself at, and a number of audio bugs create a garbled mess of the dialogue. Ceville doesn’t feel finished. (Since the time of writing, a patch has been released that purports to fix some of the game’s technical issues.)

Still, the fairytale world of Feryanis is beautifully realised, sitting halfway between Monkey Island and a Pixar film, and should leave fans of both feeling right at home. Animations are occasionally a little clunky, and the textures could have done to be somewhat crisper, but the overall visual style is highly pleasing in its heavy stylisation.

As a casual experience, to pick up for a quick spin every now and then, Ceville goes some way to hitting the mark. There’s certainly nothing particularly hateful about it, except perhaps its questionable release state. Force longer stretches of play, however, and things start to violently stagnate. There are worse adventures out there, but this isn’t a successful homage.

5/10