Somerville Review – Atmospheric Puzzle Adventure

One of the sad truths of life is that puzzle-based adventure games are no longer as popular as they used to be. Even with the sheer volume of titles being released each year, this genre manages to stay under the radar unless a truly unique experience manages to catch the public attention. And with our Somerville Review, we will see if this new title manages to be something special.

Somerville is an indie Sci-fi puzzle adventure game that is similar to titles such as Limbo and Inside, and if you’re fond of these types of experiences, then be sure to stick around as we discuss this interesting new title.

Story And Setting

Your story begins in the countryside, not too far from the hustle and bustle of urban civilization as we are introduced to a small little family. They are happily living a normal life until one day, disaster strikes.

As the game opens up right after the intro, you are shown an ominous purple light circling the outside of their home, and as the family begins to wake up after dozing off in front of the television, everything turns upside down as an unknown supernatural calamity strikes their property and the world.

Somerville’s setting and story are quite the highlight here as the game hardly features any proper voice acting aside from the usual mumbling from the characters.

The Husband, whom you control in the game, quickly rushes to escape the house with his wife and toddler son as well as their pet dog. However, their car was struck down by the malicious entity and now they are forced to seek shelter in the basement, where the game quickly flips the switch yet again.

Unbeknownst to him, this causes him to blackout in front of his family, and when he wakes up again, he learns that his arm is mutated with a supernatural ability.

Now you must venture through the once calm countryside, where you will soon learn that the world is no longer what it was as you fight to reclaim your place alongside your family.

Somerville’s setting and story are quite the highlight here as the game hardly features any proper voice acting aside from the usual mumbling from the characters. It offers a unique style of visual storytelling where you, the player, will slowly unravel what this ominous threat is and how it has doomed humanity.

The mysterious storytelling beats in Somerville are something that I absolutely adored right from the get-go, and the twists and turns toward the end are sure to intrigue almost anyone.

However, it might not be the best-selling point here as the ending might just leave you with more questions to be asked than answers. But you will be glad to know that the whole experience is fairly short, so you can get through it pretty quickly.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Somerville is mainly composed of carefully designed puzzles and quick-time events where you must successfully evade the extraterrestrial threat during certain key story situations. The mutated arm of the Father allows you to alter the physics of your surroundings into a watery-like alienated substance. The key factor here is that this power may only work with a light source such as a lamp or spotlight.

Joining you on the adventure are your family dog and a few mysterious drones who will aid you in crossing certain locked barriers or activating structures hidden in the environment. You will mainly be traversing the desolated lands of the countryside, figuring out the whereabouts of your family and unearthing the grim secrets of this invasion.

The puzzles themselves aren’t really so complex that you can’t figure the solutions out after a few minutes of experimenting, but the annoyance of figuring out where to go next might become mildly infuriating for some players since the game isn’t always good at conveying that information.

As you slowly make your way through the different chapters of the game, more layers will be added to the powers of the main character, but again, the puzzles will mostly be simple enough that they will hardly require any effort to complete aside from some very few exceptions.

The gameplay of Somerville is mainly composed of carefully designed puzzles and quick-time events where you must successfully evade the extraterrestrial threat during certain key story situations.

Furthermore, there will also be certain encounters in the story where you will be required to evade a looming threat. You have to use your powers to escape, but if you manage to fall prey to it, then the game will restart you from the last checkpoint. So pretty par for the course to be honest.

Additionally, inconveniences such as the annoying camera make it hard to navigate the world, and the janky movement of the character during some sections may or may not hinder your overall enjoyment as well.

Nonetheless, Somerville isn’t so frustrating that you’ll find yourself unable to finish the game. And like me, maybe the mystery behind the invasion will be enough to carry you through.

Visuals And Performance

One of my favorite aspects of Somerville is easily the visuals of the game as it brilliantly incorporates a blend of gritty cosmic horror elements with an alien invasion theme.

The way the game establishes an oddly appealing dystopian setting within the first twenty minutes of playing can be breathtaking to look at and admire. Whether it’s the desolated countryside area near the family’s house or the forbidding forests in the latter levels, the visuals of Somerville are nothing short of stellar.

Performance-wise, the title isn’t demanding, and I was able to easily run it on the highest settings with my GTX 1080. But there were a few bugs that annoyed me such as the game auto-locking to a 4K resolution even though I changed it to a 1080p mode several times from the settings.

One of my favorite aspects of Somerville is easily the visuals of the game as it brilliantly incorporates a blend of gritty cosmic horror elements with an alien invasion theme.

The absence of a few features such as a frame rate cap or V-sync is odd, but here’s to hoping the game gets these minor issues resolved with future updates.

Verdict

Somerville is a fun game with a somewhat intriguing sci-fi premise. It’s not the most creative or unique indie you will ever play, but it’s a great way to spend a couple of hours.

The visuals are splendid, with the striking colors of the environment and the background scenery of each level hiding intricate details that are sure to leave you staring for a few moments.

There are a few dull moments that may annoy you, with some puzzles and navigation being a bit too annoying. However, despite everything we mentioned, the highlight is the heartfelt storytelling with zero dialogue or voice-acted moments that will make you invest just a few hours to complete it from beginning to end.

This has been my Somerville Review. While you’re here, consider checking out some of our other articles.

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• Pentiment Review
• Godlike Burger Review
• Sonic Frontiers Review
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