Developer: Whipstitch Games
Publisher: Black Shell Media
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Monumental – Review
Everybody loves a good story about extraterrestrials every now and then, don’t they? In Monumental, you are in an alien world, trying to find out more about an alien species and the team doing research on them, who have recently gone missing. All may seem quiet now, but be careful: you don’t know what the alien temple has in store for you just yet.
Story
Five researchers have gone missing while investigating an ancient alien temple, somewhere on a distant planet. You are charged with the task of finding out what happened to them, as well as uncovering the secret of this extinct alien species. By solving all kinds of different puzzles, you will slowly come closer to the truth. This basic storyline is given to you at the beginning of the game. Later on, you get a bit more insight into what they discovered, both about the alien species, as well as each other, through log entries that they all made every now and then. This keeps the story somewhat more exciting, but as it is just given to you very gradually, you shouldn’t expect too much excitement.
Graphics
The graphics of Monumental look simple but fine, yet certainly won’t blow you away. Everything looks quite basic and when you come closer to objects, you will often find that there is no real sense of completion. In the laboratory of the researchers for example, there are many computers and other devices, but the screens all show the same blurry image. It doesn’t influence the game in any way, yet it would have been nice to have some more detail. Other than that, the color scheme does add a nice touch to the overall look of the game, going from darker colors within the lab, to bright colors when outside in the sun.
Sound
It must be said, the music that accompanies Monumental sounds amazing. It sets the right mood immediately and while it merely stays on the background, it is quite enjoyable to listen to and doesn’t get boring at all, even after several hours of playing.
The challenges you’ll have to face also contain some musical elements that are not so easy to be honest, certainly when you’re not particularly musical. Nonetheless, when trying to solve these puzzles, the background music does stop, to help you concentrate on the task at hand.
Gameplay
As stated before, the goal of this puzzle-exploration game is to find out what happened to the group of researchers who went missing, and along the way also to learn more about the alien species they were researching. The controls to do this are quite straightforward. All you need is a mouse and the arrow keys on your keyboard.
You’ll have to do a lot of walking around to find all sorts of clues that will help you move on in the game. In the beginning, most gates are closed, but the clues, often notes from one or the other researcher on the team, give hints as to how to open the gates. Every researcher has his own room, which will have to be unlocked first. Sometimes the hints just plainly give you the code you will need to open a certain gate, while most of them are more subtle than that. For opening almost every gate, you will have to solve a puzzle. These puzzles are very various and range from arranging the right color scheme to recreating a tune you heard or unraveling a cryptic text.
Hints are given in all sorts of forms. The obvious ones are the log entries that all of the team members made every now and then. These will be captured in your book and give you some information about the relations between the team members, next to helping you open doors, which adds some well appreciated story content. Other than that, there are also signs on the wall or, as stated before, sounds that you will have to recreate. It’s up to you to find out which hint is for which door, but most of the time, that is not the most difficult part to find out.
To register the hints, you can use a camera, a microphone and your book, and also a flashlight is at your disposal if you need it. All these things you can access through a small menu on the left side of the screen, by using the left, middle or right button of your mouse.
To be honest, the puzzles you have to solve are often quite hard an require a lot of logical thinking. It can get quite frustrating when you don’t have a clue as to what to do next, but luckily there is an extra tool you can use that will give you a hint to open the next gate. Nonetheless, if this tip doesn’t help you out, it is just a case of trial and error. This might actually get more frustrating, as trial and error might take you a really long time to eventually pass through. When you do find the logic behind the different challenges though, they are quite amusing to solve and do make you want to solve some more.
If you are looking for some alien company, you might get slightly disappointed. Since the alien species that the researchers were studying are long extinct, and the researchers themselves are missing, it’s pretty much you alone the whole time.
Conclusion
In Monumental, you will constantly have to solve all kinds of puzzles to get further in your investigation into the disappearance of a five man research team. With the help of clues that are scattered all over the place, you will have to open doors and continue your search. Nonetheless, the puzzles are quite hard to crack at times, even after using an extra tip. Thus your gaming experience can go two different ways: either you like the challenges ahead, when you do find a solution to the puzzles, or you get extremely frustrated for not being able to move on, causing you to probably just give up. If you’re looking for something to crack your brain, then certainly go for it!
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