Notes on The Gallery
Continuing my progress through my SteamVR library, this week I finally got around to playing The Gallery: Heart of the Emberstone.
I first played Chapter 1 (The Gallery: Call of the Starseed) in 2017 shortly after getting my Vive. I think this was even part of the bundle of games I received with the Vive. This 2016 era VR game was far from perfect, but it did a great job of building a world and making me feel part of it. The first scene on the beach does so much right. You can interact with just about everything and they leave plenty of clues for how to proceed with the gameplay without subjecting you to a long tutorial.
The game play is simple and can be described as exploring an environment to find objects and clues about what to do and where to go. Along the way, you slowly uncover the story. I really enjoyed this at the time, and I enjoy revisiting it from time to time.
The second game is a bit of a departure. It picks up the story right from where the first game leaves off, but the game play is subtly different. Whereas Chapter 1 has you solving things with real world objects (flares, tools, machines, etc.), Chapter 2 hits you with a bunch of abstractions. You must solve puzzles by moving your controllers through little mazes, quickly popping gears into a machine against a timer, and playing little songs on… checks notes… on crystals? The game play in chapter 1 felt like part of the story, whereas the puzzles in chapter 2 felt completely out of place–not part of the world, just in the way of it. Frankly, the puzzles were not fun. They all relied on doing precise motions with the controllers–something that I have a hard time doing with the state of my arms and wrists. These puzzles were more of a frustrating chore than a fun mechanic, at least for me. I’m guessing that is why I quit playing this in 2018…
It’s not all bad. Silly puzzles aside, chapter 2 looks fantastic, and it moves the story forward. They did an amazing job on the visuals and audio.
My hope is that the developers finish telling this story someday, but if they do, I hope they step back from the puzzles that they relied on so much in chapter 2. They could even consider telling these stories as a non-game experience, with just enough interactivity to let the player explore the worlds.