Quern – Undying Thoughts by Zadbox Entertainment

The point & click adventure genre has seen a resurgence in recent years thanks to indie developers, but we haven’t seen many classic Myst-style puzzle adventures. This is about to change thanks to Zadbox Entertainment and their first major title, Quern – Undying Thoughts. Influenced by the works of Jules Verne and inspired by the visual style of the Myst series, Quern is a first person puzzle adventure where players get to explore a mysterious island.

The developers are fans of story driven games and wrote the entire backstory for the island before working on the story that players will experience. Finding themselves at the entrance to a deserted ancient city, players will be given free rein to explore their mysterious surroundings. Although it will feature an open world design and first person perspective, the heart of the game is still classic puzzle adventure gameplay. That means players will have to find hints and clues while collecting objects stored in an inventory until needed to solve a puzzle. Although the island is seemingly deserted and surrounded by oceans players will receive guidance from two different sources. On the one hand, there are the rational, logical letters left behind by a scientist and on the other the visions of spiritual guidance from an ancient spirit. It will be up to the players to decide whose guidance to follow in regards to the island.

Judging by the trailer and screenshots the developers definitely captures the style of the Myst titles. However, the game is powered by Unity 5, which means players will actually have the freedom to explore instead of just looking at a pre-rendered scenes. According to estimates by the developers it will take about 12-14 hours for players to complete this adventure.

Quern has already been Greenlit on Steam and at the time of writing it is also very close to reaching its Kickstarter funding goal. There is little less than a week remaining, so fans of the genre should definitely check out the trailer and show their support. We were very impressed by the visuals showcased in the trailer and the glimpses at the puzzles featured in the game also looks fascinating. Quern definitely looks like a very ambitious project, but judging by what we have seen so far the developers know what they are doing.