Rue Valley is an indie game in the adventure genre, with an idea based on a time loop that is quite new in the puzzle adventure genre.

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THE HIDDEN SECRET OF TIME LOOPS

Our story begins when the main character named Hallow, who is going through a period of depression, is forced to attend a psychological consultation at a motel called Rue Valley.

Nothing happened until at exactly 8:47 a.m., an explosion suddenly spread and swept everywhere, including Hallow. But unexpectedly, after waking up in a daze, Hallow found himself… taken back to exactly 8 o'clock, which is exactly 47 minutes before the terrible explosion took place. The journey of seemingly endless loops begins here.

Overall, the story of Rue Valley creates curiosity, mystery, and unpredictability with many “turns” from big to small. In particular, all the characters are exploited quite well and cleverly with complex relationships. Intertwined with that is the way of thinking and perspective of Hallow, a character with many layers of mental illness, which takes place throughout the journey. Even the main character's conversations and thoughts change clearly in many quite detailed and interesting time loops.

story of Rue Valley creates curiosity, mystery, and unpredictability with many “turns” from big to small

About my gameplay Rue Valleyat the beginning of the game the player must choose the main character's personality before starting the journey. This is somewhat reminiscent of a masterpiece Disco Elysiumwhere every choice in personality will affect all choices and solutions in the game. Rue Valley also have the same ambition.

The most obvious differences are in the dialogue: the options that are unlocked or locked are affected by the player's initial personality when choosing. They also affect the smooth or lengthy solution of a problem, and sometimes even lead to some unexpected consequences, but you can rest assured that the time loop always “saves” the main character so you don't need to worry about having to start over from the beginning if something goes wrong. The game also doesn't “punish” the player, so that's less of a pain!

Although it is a pure adventure game, but Rue Valley There are no “brain hacking” puzzle segments like other games in the same genre, such as having to find this item and fit it with that item to create something with the logic of “going from land to land”, etc. The “key” to solving puzzles lies mostly in the dialogue options, as well as finding “inspiration” points (temporarily called inspiration) through exploring the environment; Combined with the time loop to quickly unlock the story lines of the supporting characters and the true secret behind this strange land.

Inspiration points will represent the “willpower” to carry out quest chains that the character suspects are related to what is happening at home. Rue Valley, or help speed up some important process. So think carefully before extracting points to see if it's worth it or not?

The most “scoring” part of Rue Valley Certainly lies in the stylish foundation, reminding the writer of the animated movie “Spider-man into the Spiderverse”, with 2D lines combined with 3D like a comic book.

Everything in this mysterious land is drawn in detail, with eye-catching color schemes as well as smart use of light and shadow to create an environment ranging from warm, to dark and mysterious, throughout the time of exploration in the game. Rue Valley.

And it would be a mistake not to mention the voice acting, background music and environmental sounds that the game brings. The voice actors for each character did an excellent job portraying charisma, tone, and emotional expression. Players will immediately feel who is lying and hiding, who is angry but then calms down or is tired and bored, even though the game does not show it through facial gestures.

The background music all creates mystery, attraction and knows how to push emotions to climax or settle down. Everything blends together quite well with the environmental sounds. Therefore, the set of negative images of Rue Valley will make you satisfied.

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THE LOOP IS GOOD, BUT IT'S FULL OF ERRORS!

It is not difficult to understand the great ambition of personalities that deeply affect choices, as well as the situations that take place Rue Valleythen getting an error is quite obvious. But perhaps the game's biggest problem lies in the gameplay.

Although it relies on the time loop mechanism, the playing time of Rue Valley was unduly prolonged because the player had to “do it again step by step” every time it was “reset” at the 47th minute of that turn.

For example, if the player discovers a way to open the door before the loop, instead of “resetting” it would have fast-forwarded to this place, the player would be forced to redo the steps, such as talking to the psychologist, then standing up outside the door and pressing play on the phone to let it fast-forward nearly in time just to… open the door, too cumbersome!

Then there are segments of time that suddenly fast forward dizzily without giving the player the right to intervene. Invisibly creates the feeling that the game is not careful and elaborate enough in properly distributing appropriate details.

So if any player does not have patience, this will be a big minus point. Sometimes there are also “testing” segments to see if your personality is convincing enough when talking to the characters or not? But it's quite funny that this feature appears “in extremely small drops”, and has no effect on developments.

But that's not all, there are plenty of options Rue Valley full of question marks when many times we thought they were important, but who knows, after just a few rounds, they… are all meaningless, making no positive contribution to the puzzle solving process.

Players will lose unnecessary time when being “tricked” by the game like that. And due to the almost complete absence of the usual, invisible puzzle solving Rue Valley looks like a “visual novel” game with light adventure elements.

Although it's just a simple adventure game, the perspective is top-down and everything follows the existing scenario, as well as the locations and scenery, almost 95% of which are pre-made. But what's surprising is when the dark and rainy segments appear Rue Valley Frame drops without braking, fluctuations are very erratic. Environmental sounds are also sometimes lost, or occur after the cut scene ends.

Besides, although the game supports controllers, there are items that are out of reach that seem to be impossible to interact with, forcing you to use the mouse, so the operation is quite cumbersome and also shows that the company is not very thorough in optimizing control.

Not to mention, there are a few segments that can be interacted with but are hidden under the interface layer, making them very difficult to see. The writer once got stuck in a few time loops just because… the door was “hidden” under the interface layer Rue Valley always!

There are many options of Rue Valley full of question marks when many times we think they are important, but who knows, after just a few rounds, they are… meaningless