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3.5Cats_AndHalfAFish

"Leaves : The Journey" - ZAR 21.

June 15, 2022 game review, point&click, puzzle
2d puzzle point&click game (2017).

'Leaves : The Journey' - ZAR 21
"Leaves : The Journey" - ZAR 21 (2017)


Note : Please take these game reviews with a good chunk of salt. They are about my personal experience with a game ; yours might be very different.
Also, I have a professional interest in figuring out what works in a game and what doesn't. I know from experience how hard they are to make !


"Leaves" is a beautiful game. At first, it reminded me of the Amanita games, but as far as gameplay is concerned, "Leaves" is a very different kind of game.
Puzzles are a pleasant mix of item collecting, pattern recognition, observation, and logic. I actually quite enjoyed playing this game.

The team : Eve Nohl (idea, concept, design, artwork, photography, editing), Moritz Krohn (programming and animation), and Gary Marlowe & Daniel Hoffknech (music).


The good :

This game is -beautiful- :

Leaves - Menu.
Leaves - Menu.
Leaves - Map.
In-game map (also showing where leaves can be collected).
Leaves - Game.
And this is how the game begins ...


There's also a whimsical aspect to the game which, strangely, I enjoyed a lot. Almost everywhere in the game strange creatures can be found :

Leaves - Creatures.
Strange creatures lurking everywhere ...


And even the puzzles are gorgeous in this game :

Leaves - Puzzle pieces.
Puzzle.
Leaves - Word find.
Puzzle.
Leaves - Leaf.
Hidden object : leaf (no, not the big metal one).



The not so good :

Unfortunately, "Leaves" does have some shortcomings as well.

Technical problems : as mentioned in the forum, the game doesn't cap the fps. With my (older) laptop, this meant frequently 1600+ fps and a -very- hot computer! (Steam makes it easy to display fps for games.)
I tried imposing vsynch through my NVIDIA Control Panel, but that didn't seem to have any effect ...

Leaves - Fps problem.

Another technical problem I encountered was that navigation arrows randomly disappeared from the screen as I was playing the game. A bit annoying, but not a huge problem since the navigation hotspots were still clickable.

And finally, not so much a problem as perhaps a design decision that didn't quite work out : the help system :

Leaves - Help menu. Leaves - Help with 'help menu'.



In summary : "Leaves : The Journey" is a beautiful & fun 2d point&click game. A definite 'recommend' if you appreciate beauty, and enjoy pattern recognition games & observation puzzles in general.