Review: Into Blue Valley – Guided Adventure into Something Strange and Beautiful

Warning : This game contains flashing lights and “tracking” (videocassette tapes used to do this – the picture moves up or down, sometimes clipping completely, like a fast slide show), as well as general brightness in the environment.

: This game contains flashing lights and “tracking” (videocassette tapes used to do this – the picture moves up or down, sometimes clipping completely, like a fast slide show), as well as general brightness in the environment. Take care when playing if you are photosensitive.

is a story-based adventure game, similar to Dear Esther , where you’re attempting to figure out what has happened in an area (I hate to have such a short opening, but that really is the basis of the game). However, rather than a live-action sort of adventure, this one takes place via found-footage reflection. You can walk around, interact with your environment, and everything you would do in an ordinary exploration game, but you play the role of an older man who filmed the actions, acting out a part that seems to have already been played. Found-footage is associated with films like “The Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity,” and while this game is definitely creepy, I wouldn’t put it in the “horror” category. Developers Kuchaluhave several Ludum Dare titles under their belts, as well as a Frogger -esque app called Cat Cross , but I nto Blue Valley is their first major title, and is much more ambitious than past projects. While this game is short (and you know exactly how short, as there is a timer in the corner on par with recordings of that era), it can be quite a full experience, though not without some (minor) issues that are more annoyances than problems.

Two younger men, Ryan and Matt, have discovered a pile of videotapes, and one of them is unlabeled. They discuss briefly the antiquity of videocassettes, and what might be on the tape, and your gameplay begins as soon as they press “play.” You never hear them; the only connection you have to these narrators is via their dialogue on the screen. Matt is the narrator who’s seen this all before, while Ryan is the reactionary voice, asking the questions the player might have over the course of the game, and reacting to Matt’s answers, as well. As you begin to walk down the path, it becomes clear that they are not merely narrators – they are guides, letting you know when you’ve missed a key point, which direction you should aim, and occasionally which items you should look for. The game does have challenges, but you can generally rely on Matt to steer you in the right direction when you get lost…usually.

Yes, very helpful, Matt, thank you

Into Blue Valley , as the name suggests, is blue – practically everything is in shades of blue, black, and white, giving the environment an otherworldy feel. The graphics are crisp, objects are easily-identified, and paths are easily-spotted. It’s rare that you have to veer off the beaten path enough to lose your way (though that didn’t stop me, naturally). The brightness, as mentioned, can be a problem, but the main issue I had with it is that in the outdoor sections, with the snow-covered ground, it was sometimes impossible to see objects with which you could interact. I completely missed a vital object until I looked it up on YouTube. Matt and Ryan will say things like, “He’s missed something. He’ll go back,” if you leave an area without retrieving/reading everything, so I spent more time than necessary wandering around the town desperately searching for whatever magical thing would allow me to progress.

It’s not that you’re blocked from progression if you continue onward, it’s just that you can’t complete the game without collecting all of the items. With my poor sense of direction, it was just frustrating. It would have also been nice to have been able to adjust the resolution and other aspects of the game without having to restart it to get to the launch options – the “options” screen on the menu of the game merely deals with volume and FOV. A gamma adjustment might have helped with some of the brightness issues, as well.

A room containing one of the objects

The eight items you must collect are rather random, and clues on how to find them are scattered around the town in the manner of notes and diary entries, which you can read at your leisure. There is an axe, a bucket, a bird toy…all of them are necessary, for some reason, but you literally don’t find out why until the very end. With the clues are also notes that hint at something having happened in the village, a pact or oath that was broken, and the consequences seem rather harsh, but there’s not a clear description of what those may be. You’re merely a witness to the anguish present in those scattered bits of paper. To read them, or to pick up items, you merely click your left mouse button. In fact, with the only necessary keys being WASD to move and P to pause, it doesn’t get much simpler to play a game, but there are still some challenges. Thankfully, the scenery is dynamic enough to take away some of the frustrations you may encounter.

For my part, I insisted on walking everywhere I could, and when I veered off the stone path, I discovered a point where I was trapped between a stairway, a large mound of snow, and…the path. I couldn’t get back onto the path no matter how hard I tried, and had to step away and try to see if I was missing something. Eventually, I found an incredibly small point where I was able to regain access to the path, and continued onward, but it was irritating to have that limitation. The mouse sensitivity can be a bit of a bear, too, with the camera control sometimes being so fast that you may miss something you were turning to view. There’s a similar issue to one I found in Ether One , as well, where if I was slightly off-course on a staircase, or happened upon a bit of jutting rock or wall, I was stuck unless I specifically maneuvered away. This took away from the immersion a bit, though it’s not an insurmountable issue. To be perfectly honest, the tracking that became more frequent as the game progressed was causing me more issues than any maneuverability problem I came across, and I imagine this might be amplified once this game is played in earnest on Oculus Rift, as it’s slated to be.