The actor for Leonardo da Vinci does a nice job, charmingly conveying his irritation as you interrupt him during one of his small paintings-you know, that little doodle, The Last Supper. There is a small bit of serviceable voice acting in the game (though the character you play never speaks), with your mysterious benefactor sporting a curious and unidentifiable accent. Your first trial will be to make it through an intricate labyrinth if you can solve that, you’ll get to meet da Vinci and enter his tutelage, where of course there will be more puzzles for you to solve. Actually getting close to Leonardo, however, means passing a series of tests to prove your intelligence and usefulness. He seems to be a very powerful person who needs your services in getting close to da Vinci to spy on him, just a little bit, and you don’t seem to have much choice in the matter. However, your helper hasn’t aided your escape without any strings attached. Helping Giacomo escape his cell might seem too easy, because it is, as you soon receive a letter and discover that you’ve received help from an anonymous benefactor. Some of the object rotations take some getting used to, as I found that swiping my mouse up or down would sometimes over or under spin the item, forcing me to repeat the motion and refining how much I flicked my wrist. It’s important to inspect all of your inventory objects thoroughly, as many will have hidden contraptions that you’ll only find on the opposite side of the object. However, you may have to locate other things that will complete them before they can be used. You’ll also acquire a limited inventory that never contains too many items at one time. It also means that some areas contain twice the beauty, as one summertime locale gives way to the same scene draped in winter snow. The past is frozen in place, so you’ll encounter strange sights like birds just about to take off into flight, or you might catch your breath as you encounter a series of figures that look like they’re just about to turn and catch you in a forbidden room. If you’re stuck, click on the tool and you’ll travel back in time, when a bridge may be repaired where you couldn’t previously move forward or where rushing water is no longer flowing and blocking your way. This unique lens, which appears as a clickable golden orb icon, opens up a portal into the past in the same area you’re currently located. Making its encore appearance here is a magical tool that da Vinci created to help you travel back and forth between two points in time. Or, it may mean you have to break out the good old Oculus Perpetua. One challenge is that it’s not always easy to tell where you can double-click to enter or leave an area, so finding yourself at an impasse may just mean you haven’t found the right entrance or exit. You’ll use mouse motions to push doors open, lift up wooden lids, or spin wheels around. The camera movements add great dynamism to the presentation, swinging and swirling around mechanical objects as they open up and expand, or swooping over great heights (hopefully, you don’t suffer from vertigo) as you zipline from a balcony across a courtyard, wheeee! You can also control your camera view from where you stand, clicking and dragging as in the first game to look up, down, and around. Travel around corners, and the camera swings with you. The House of Da Vinci 2 is conducted in first-person viewing mode, and you’ll use your mouse to click on items to investigate or use them, as well as to move from node to node through the environment. The echoing clicks of a guard’s boots above your cell and the slow plip plip of dripping water awaken you to your situation, and you must figure out how to escape. But this is no picturesque travelogue, as a short tutorial introduces you to the character you will play, Giacomo, someone who has unfortunately been accused of witchcraft and has been left to molder away in a decrepit jail cell. In the opening cutscene, an angelic woman’s voice smoothly sings as a camera swoops over an old map showing that you are in 1495 Ferrara, a city in northern Italy. Supporting, rather than artificially gating, the mystery is a wonderful array of logic puzzles that, for the most part, have a lovely flow, slowly building in complexity and beauty. The sequel to the 2017 first-person puzzler sees players leave the confining boundaries of Leonardo’s workshop and tour locations in several cities around Renaissance Italy in the service of solving a larger puzzle involving secret societies and a mysterious contraption that da Vinci is working on. Blue Brain Games once again delivers on this desire in their second deep dive into the The House of Da Vinci. These days, when everything seems chaotic and out of our control, it can be satisfying to set reality aside and immerse ourselves in deviously intricate mechanical puzzle solving.
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