Imagine being able to touch an object and see the past as it relates to whatever you are touching. Not just objects, but people as well. To touch several seemingly random objects that all occupied the same space to paint a vivid picture of events that happened in the past. To help a person remember the past by looking at their memories and clear up faded images to spark new details from history. Now imagine being an FBI agent gifted (or cursed) with this ability and you have the premise of Phoenix Online Studios‘ point-and-click adventure game, Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller.

A mix of comic book panel motion art with 3D modeled characters and environments, Cognition tells the story of Erica Reed, a detective with a sixth sense who is on a case to capture a mysterious figure known as The Cain Killer. Told over four episodes, the game weaves a complex narrative of family history, blackmail, serial killings and supernatural powers. Presented almost like a TV show, each episode opens with a “previously on” intro which then cuts to a short climactic build up and transitions into an opening credit sequence featuring a rocking music score by Austin Haynes. While each episode is a self-contained storyline, together they weave a much grander narrative.

The game really does make you feel like you are playing the role of a detective in a gritty TV drama. Part of this is due to the subject matter, and part of it is the excellent performance of the cast, led by Raleigh Holmes as Erica Reed. The first episode focuses on a serial killer who is murdering victims by hanging them and making it look like suicide. Reed uses her cognitive powers to examine crime scenes and piece together random clues that a non-psion would have overlooked. Like many good detective shows, there is plenty of banter and character building between Reed, her partner, and the rest of the usual cast that fills out a crime investigation story (nerdy forensics, demanding chief, grandmotherly tutor, and hard-nosed coroner). As the story progresses, new locations open up on the map and traveling between them is a simple click with the sound of a revved motor to indicate travel. For as complex as the story and puzzles can be at times, the presentation feels like an updated, classic Sierra game (more specifically the original Gabriel Knight).

Reed’s ability to perform cognitive powers on objects grows through each episode. At first, clicking on the cognition power shifts the view with a filtered lens and highlights objects with a blue aura that allows Reed to divine new information. As she learns to control her powers, items in the inventory can be clicked on to show a fuzzy image relating to a crime. The more objects that are collected and touched with the cognitive ability, the clearer the clue becomes, ultimately unlocking a new piece to the puzzle, usually through a cut scene or animated comic panel. Further improving Reed’s powers, she is able to touch subjects and see snippets of that person’s past. Each snippet can contain one or two clues that aren’t fully remembered, and through a mix of interviews and in-game cellphone web searches, the correct objects can be selected to help jog a subject’s memory.

These memory puzzles are both really cool, but also really challenging. I strongly recommend taking notes because out of six snippets that may contain one or two details (that may or may not be correct), clicking through each one to get the entire memory correct can become a bit frustrating and tedious when everything does not line up as the game intends. This is my only real gripe with the game. This isn’t necessarily leveled at Cognition alone, but pretty much every point-and-click adventure ever made. When a game offers one or two fairly obvious clues that are collected from one location, the game mechanic should offer one of two options. The first option would be to not allow forward progress until ALL clues are collected (especially if a major clue needs to be collected at a different location). The second option would be to allow forward progress but with perhaps a less complete interaction.

I bring this up because during several highly complex puzzles, I ran into moments where I was three or four screens deep into the process only to realize that I didn’t have a clue necessary to complete the logic that the game was expecting. The process of clicking back out of three or four screens, traveling to a location to find the necessary clue, then heading back to the puzzle to click through three or four screens to get back to the point I was stuck at and move a bit further, only to then get stuck again because I had missed yet another clue from a different location, is completely frustrating and breaks the momentum of the game. The challenge, of course, is to provide a way to offer clues without giving away too much. Letting gamers stumble through a puzzle is half the fun, but breaking the momentum and having to leave the puzzle, travel to a new location, find more clues, then travel back to reestablish the puzzle is frustrating.

Maybe part of my frustration is that there are several areas (mostly in the first episode) where certain actions require a specific set of steps. There is a person sitting in an interrogation room. Reed and her partner at the time are observing the person through the two way mirror. Clicking on the person doesn’t allow Reed to talk to him. Clicking on the door (on the opposite side of the room) makes Reed walk into the interrogation room. Clicking on the person to talk still doesn’t allow Reed to talk because she isn’t close enough. So you have to click on the chair to sit down. Then clicking on the person allows her to talk. Why can’t clicking on the person while in the outer room be interpreted by the game to line up all of the aforementioned steps? These multi-step clicks add up at times when clues are missing and scenes need to be exited in order to collect additional information.

This is just a minor complaint (and something that could fairly easily be addressed in the future) when looking at the rest of the game as whole. Some of the powers that are introduced in the first episode are then expanded upon in later episodes, and the game does a good job of offering a tutorial when new concepts are introduced. Often a new cognitive mechanic is added which simply takes previous powers a bit further, and through repetition and familiarity of the process, these additional powers quickly become second nature during the investigation. Clicking on the cognitive power highlights objects that can be examined individually, or clicking on two or more allows Reed to see events unfold. The subtle baby steps that the designers put forth in the game are huge but very welcome.

As the third episode gets moving, another mechanic to the game is introduced via another psion with cognitive powers, however this time the power is to see into the future.  As this character is the yin to Reed’s yang, they mesh and the game allows players to switch between Reed and the other character. I don’t want to be too specific because the reveal of the character is one of the better moments in the overall experience. Needless to say the ability to switch between both Reed and this other character who will remain nameless provides some complex puzzles where at times the expected outcome and logic isn’t entirely obvious, but the UI of the game provides subtle context by menu objects switching from color to mono once a particular path is complete.

As I mentioned above, each episode is its own complete story, but events from each tie together for a larger, highly impactful end. The music and voice work is fantastic and helps to overlook some of the janky aspects that crop up now and again. Some character animations are off–timing is slow, and then speeds up to almost unintentional hilarious effect. Objects that are collected for inventory sometimes aren’t positioned correctly when a character is holding it during a cut scene. Several of these have been fixed, but be aware going in that there are moments where things just appear a bit off. Also, one word of warning to our readers who enjoy the use of the Raptr desktop app: The game may crash if you are using the app while playing. I experienced this most noticeably during episode 4.

Cognition proves that mature themed games don’t have to be solely about shooting dudes in the face, or have to thrive on T&A. Phoenix Online Studios have put together a complex narrative that explores some dark behavior but also has some genuinely funny moments based on the excellent performances by the characters and the actors lending their voices. Grisly images and mature language are seen and heard throughout the game, so I can’t recommend it for kids or to be played as a family, but I strongly urge anyone who loves murder mysteries and point-and-click adventures to pick this game up.

Pros:
+ Fantastic, complex story
+ Great voice acting
+ Interesting “super power” investigation mechanics
+ Atmospheric music

Cons:
– Puzzle logic can be frustrating and obscure at times
– Pathway clicking isn’t always intuitive
– Some distracting visual glitches

Game Info:
Platform: Reviewed on Steam, also available for iPad
Publisher: Phoenix Online Studios
Developer: Phoenix Online Studios
Release Date: 9/19/2013
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
Source: Review code provided by developer

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Truly frightening games are tough to come by on consoles these days. Resident Evil has continued its necessary evolutionary shift towards action. Even the latest Silent Hill has taken the form of an isometric dungeon crawler. But on PC, indie developers are keeping the horror alive.

This year, three particular games deliver standout performances in the horror adventure category, and with Steam and other digital download sites offering discounts for Halloween, now’s the time to jump on these creepy sleeper gems.

Home:

Billed as a unique horror adventure, Benjamin Rivers’ Home isn’t your run of the mill point-and-clicker. Closer to old-school text adventures than an actual video game, Home is a pixel art murder mystery that unfolds like a side-scrolling work of choose your own adventure fiction.

Your character wakes up in a strange house, unaware of where he is or how he got there, and over the span of an hour you guide him on his haunting journey home. Along the way, you’ll come across dead bodies and stumble upon lost personal effects, choosing [Y]es or [N]o as the game asks whether or not you picked up or used/examined what ever it is you’re looking at.

Once you reach the end, the items you’ve collected and choices you’ve made clue you in on what happened, but leave the story open ended for each player to subjectively solve the mystery. The game’s website even has a page available for players to share their interpretations of the story.

I wouldn’t call Home scarey, but it is suspenseful and deeply immersive, especially if you shut the lights off, strap on a pair of headphones, and play out the adventure in a single sitting as intended. Only $2.99 full price, or $1.49 for the next 15 hours or so as part of the Steam Halloween sale, Home is a narrative experiment worth taking part in.

Lone Survivor:

A survival horror game from indie game maker Jasper Byrne, Lone Survivor is sort of like what Silent Hill might have been if it had first appeared on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Yet such a statement doesn’t fully describe the intricacies and unique touches this game has to offer, which as usual are better left experiencing for yourself.

While action has taken over for scares in many of the genre originators, Lone Survivor is a return to survival horror the way it used to be. Supplies are limited, starvation and exhaustion are constant concerns, monsters are lurking the halls of the abandoned apartment building in which the game takes place, and you– yes “You”–are left to fend for yourself with naught but a pistol and some hunks of rotten meat as the lone surviving human of a mysterious disease that has sent the city straight to hell in a hand basket.

Lone Survivor likes to play tricks with your mind as much as it enjoys sending terror through your heart whenever you stumble upon an infected creature standing between you and the next potential door to salvation, and the choice to sneak by or gun the monstrosities down is entirely up to you. It’s not the most sophisticated game in terms of mechanics, but it’s the perfect game to play late this Halloween if you’re in the mood for some thrills and chills before calling it a night.

Grab it on Steam right now for just five bucks!

Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller:

Phoenix Online Studios, makers of The Silver Lining, have launched the first chapter of their latest episodic adventure series this week. This investigative thriller has the the point-and-click basics down pat, with thoughtful puzzles, a mature storyline, and a chilling atmosphere powered by a breathtaking score.

Haunted by the death of her brother at the hands of a torturous serial killer, titular heroine Erica Reed becomes embroiled in a new case about a mysterious murder by hanging. The twist with this game is Erica’s cognitive abilities, which allow her to envision past events and interactions with certain items to collect clues her fellow FBI detectives are blind to. However, due to her past trauma, sometimes these premonitions are followed by terrifying visions.

A beautiful graphic novel art style, complete with pop-up action panels and text blocks, ties the presentation together, providing a detailed, thought-provoking crime drama to lose yourself in until the next episode comes around–which can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned.

Cognition‘s first of four episodes, “The Hangman,” is currently available for $9.99 on Rain Digital Games, GamersGate, and GameStop, or in a season pass bundle for $29.99. The game is still up for Greenlight approval on Steam as well, so be sure to vote it up the ranks. This game deserves Steam distribution–and it deserves your attention.

Reverb Publishing sure is pulling out all the stops to get its stable of PC digital downloads approved on Steam Greenlight. They’ve already pledged to donate money to rescue homeless kitties from euthanasia if Edge of Space is greenlit, and now they’re trying hard to push episodic point-and-click adventure game Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller through the approval process.

If Cognition, developed by The Silver Lining makers at Phoenix Online Studios, is voted into the next top-10 wave of Greenlight titles by the October 15th deadline, Reverb will give away 500 season passes to download the game’s complete series of four episodes which will be released roughly a month or so apart and will each take around 4-6 hours to complete.

So, go ‘Like’ Cognition on Facebook and give it the ol’ thumbs-up on Steam Greenlight to help push the game towards digital distribution and enter for your chance to play it for free when it releases. It’s that easy.

Watch this narrated gameplay demo walkthrough to make your voting decision a no-brainer.

Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller is the next adventure game from indie developer Phoenix Online Studios, a team you may know for the episodic King’s Quest homage The Silver Lining. It is the story of a Boston FBI agent named Erica Reed who is blessed (and cursed) with the post-cognitive ability to sense the past of any object she touches. She must use this innate gift to solve the mystery of a serial killer responsible for murdering her brother.

The first episode, titled The Hangman, is due out on digital download platforms this fall, and today gives us our first look at the game’s 3D cel-shaded graphics, creepy storyline and atmosphere, and traditional point-and-click puzzles and play mechanics. Yep, I’d say adventure game fans are in for yet another indie thriller. Be sure to swing by the Reverb Publishing booth at PAX Prime for a hands-on look at Cognition, if you’re in the Seattle area between August 31st and September 2nd.