gemini rue
i got gemini rue through the indie royale launch bundle, having never heard of it. it looked like it might be the same style of game as the adventure games from sierra i’d played years ago, and it turns out it is. it even has a few easter eggs referencing some of those games. it’s another example of the best part of indie game bundles — getting exposed to great games i probably wouldn’t have otherwise tried.
from the look of the logo and opening scene i was expecting a detective story maybe in the noir genre, but was surprised to find it’s set in the future and involves some travel via spaceship. you get to alternate between controlling two different characters in different locations. clearly there’s some relationship between these two character’s stories, but its exact nature isn’t revealed until just before the end. i enjoyed sorting things out in my head and coming up with ways the two stories could be connected as i played through the game. i managed to get some things figured out before they were specifically revealed but missed one that i probably should have thought of. the story has a general theme of whether we truly have choice and whether our experiences make us who we are and determine how we will act.
given the low-resolution graphics, i was surprised to find that it has voice acting. for the most part this is done well, though there are a few cases where it’s noticeable that you’re listening to someone reading a line. back to the graphics, the game is natively 320×200, though it certainly doesn’t need to appear that small on your screen. the first time i ran it, it was in fullscreen mode filling my entire 1920×1080 monitor, for a retro pixelated, yet full-color look.
unfortunately that was the only time i got it to run in fullscreen. the second time i tried to launch the game it said the graphics mode wasn’t supported. to get it running again at all, i had to find another exe in the install directory to set it to windowed mode. thankfully there are filters to choose from so the window is able to be as large as 1280×800, nearly the resolution of my monitor. i ended up playing the rest of the game like that, which was a mild inconvenience. another graphical issue i noticed is that loading a game sometimes only drew the left half or so, leaving the rest of the screen mostly black. this would resolve itself as soon as you left the area but made the game feel buggy. another issue i ran into was that sometimes objects needed in order to progress weren’t distinct enough and blended into the background so that i didn’t notice them. a specific time i remember this happening was when one of the main characters gets tied up in the maintenance area.
most of the game though it was easy enough to see what was a thing and what was just background texture. the puzzles did a good job of not being too obvious or too obscure. this lead to satisfaction over deciding to try the door of the neighboring apartment after not being able to pick the lock of the one you need to get inside, for example. i also enjoyed that during the middle section of the game you could switch between the two main characters at will. if i got stuck with one character i’d just switch to the other.
an unexpected inclusion was some cover-based shooting. here the game temporarily switches from mouse-based point-and-click to keyboard-based. you start behind cover with enemies shooting at you, and need to pop out and shoot at them before they hit you. it took a little getting used to, but i was able to get through all the gunfights without getting hit (granted, i did load the game if i did get hit because i wanted the achievement for not getting hit). even if you’re not used to shooting or worrying about timing i don’t think it will be too much of an obstacle to you, and there’s an easy combat mode which i think lets you get hit more times before you’d die. i ended up enjoying these parts of the game.
i logged almost 11 hours in gemini rue, with about 8 going to my first playthrough and the rest playing through again with developer commentary on and picking up the achievements i’d missed. you’re likely to pick up a handful of optional achievements by just playing how you’d want to play, but probably not all of them (especially since one is for beating the game with commentary enabled). its regular price is $10 which is probably a little high unless you’re looking for more good adventure games, but at $5 or less i’d recommend it to anyone.