Ruins of Anzar

This is a criminally unplayed game in my opinion and definitely deserves the commendation it’s got, though this might just be because I love puzzle games.

Synopsis:
When your friend takes your newly created flying machine to search for the Ruins of Anzar he goes missing: following in his footsteps you are brought down by an enormous bird. Can you find your friend, repair your flying machine and uncover the secrets of the civilisation of Anzar?

Positives:
-You do some amazing foreshadowing that Keirz is still alive even before we find his camp. The recently used water bucket confused me at first but you brought it all together really well.
-What little worldbuilding was included felt unforced and fun. I can’t tell if this is some sort of pseudo-alternate history or an entirely created world by you, but it’s nice either way. Specifically I liked how Anzarian architecture was used to explain the three keyed puzzle, that was a natural to describe a puzzle, and the birds bringing down the orthonocopter-esque flying machines because they’re territorial was cool too.
-Overall your spelling and grammar was great. I only found one instance where something felt off. On the page ‘flyer by the river’ you use ‘any one’ instead of ‘anyone’ which just feels like you’re adding a word in their for the sake of it. This is a just a nitpick but it brought me out of the experience momentarily (also it’s kind of a kettle calling the pot black situation as my spelling is subpar).

Things to improve:
-As others have pointed out I felt like my hatchet could’ve solved almost every problem here without issue. There’s a door I need three keys for? I have one key with a sharp edge. Sometimes I couldn’t use items in ways that felt natural, like the fact I couldn’t create a spear with the arrow heads and the sturdy stick. I know this would break the game, but my first thought when I saw a pool of fish was spear fishing.
-I’m pretty sure I’ve uncovered a way to softlock the game to some extent, though this may be me being foolish. If you don’t take the ball of glass on the base of the statue the first time you see it you can’t go back to it: I had to reset my game to get it again.
-I don’t understand why I couldn’t go the way the statue was pointing till I’d discovered my friend’s camp with the axe.
-While the environment descriptions were decent, they didn’t exactly pop out at me. Obviously the focus should be on the puzzles here, but it’d be really nice to get any form of deeper description: especially since exploration and discovering new things is what drives the player forward here. In addition some of the environment descriptions didn’t change even when I’d changed the environment, such as the hatchet head stuck in the statue.

Overall this is a great game which I thoroughly enjoyed: you clearly have a skill when it comes to puzzle games and that truly shines through here.

As of writing this the green key still eludes me. Although I think I know where it is, so it might be better to say the piece of steel accepted by the game for the flint and steel eludes me.

Although I think I know where THAT is too, I just don't have the item to get it. I've come to the conclusion this game should actually be titled Ruins of Anzar: The Search for Leverage.

It is a bit frustrating when I have items such as a metal knife and hatchet in my inventory which should be enough to render several of these puzzles moot (There is an entire YA novel about how multi purpose and useful hatchets are! It's called Hatchet, you've probably read it!) but I suppose this is all a traditional part of the old school text adventure experience which this game obviously draws heavily from. 'Adventure game logic' being the historical term.

Anyway, I've saved the game for now and will give it another shot at a later time, it runs just a little long to complete in one session perhaps.

The writing is technically sound with only a few typos, and the descriptions as you explore are all nice enough, although I felt the pacing was a bit leisurely and sense of urgency lacking, considering this is a rescue attempt. But that might be another artifact of the genre. The lost city (sometimes just described as a lame village) feels like it could be a bit more impressive and impactful when you find your way there for sure though.

Certain items that seem like they SHOULD be portable and useable anywhere are stuck in their locations, but I know we've discussed that and you're looking into the way other games have handled that.

Definitely a fun little game for those into puzzles and the like and games in the style of the old school traditional IF. Over the years CYS sort of evolved away from this style and they're not hugely popular with some of the veterans now, nor is extensive use of the item system, but the possibility is certainly there and it's all a matter of the talent and effort put in to change people's minds or attract new interest. Ruins of Anzar stands with the handful of better examples of how to make this sort of game here for sure, it's easy to tell an impressive amount of effort went into this and I hope it finds its intended audience.

This is a very fun storygame reminiscent of old-school text adventures. There is a lot to expxlore, and a ton of different inventory items to keep track of and use to solve dillemnas.

The storyline of the game is inventive and fits right in to the adventure theme. What starts out as a simple "fix your broken flyer" turns into a rescue mission and an archeological treasure hunt. Generally most of the story would happen on specific pages, after certain puzzles were solved or items were found, while the rest was less story andmore environment desription as you travelled around. This did lead to some slight imbalance on certain longer pages, but the info dumps were explained story wise. I still felt like it would be nice to have the journal have different pages to flip through vs. laid out as one long scroll.

There were a couple week points:

- Sometimes environment text didn't update (I got the text for finding the red key over and over again, for example) - though for the most part it did.

- Sometimes puzzles were not intuitive. As in, I thought I *should* have been able to use an item I had on hand, but the game was waiting for something else. Like why can't I use a hatchet on underbrush, or distract a bird with something shiny or dancing light? This probably wouldn't have stuck out so much, except the response was always "you can't use that item here" rather than a short bit on trying and failing. This also made the game 'stick' in certain areas where I was stuck running around until I noticed the area or description I'd missed to find the correct item.

- Some items disappeared after you used them, others stayed. Much of the time this made sense, but other times it didn't. I was peevishly annoyed at the loss of my bucket, for example.

- Storywise, some items being in certain places made no sense, especially things that had been "just used" by the Professor but now were in far away places (such as keys.) Yet other things were exactly where the professor had left. This was just a minor oddity.

- One puzzle seemed to easy, as the ancient alphabet didn't really need to be "decoded" by the professor for us. Firstly because it was a very simple cypher, and secondly because the game 'solves' it for the player when you get to the right area, rather than having you guess according to the code on what light angle to use.

Back to something that really worked, but was confusing at first - the map! This is one of the coolest items in the game. However, when I first got it I was really confused at how to use it, and kept trying to use the map in each place to map it. A bit more flavor text or something to show that it only maps the "main" sections would be helpful there.

The environment description was also great. I really liked that there were several main, fleshed out areas, and enough to do in each that there was a clear sense of "progress" as I made it to each area.

All in all, well done. It was a good difficulty level where it didn't feel too easy or too hard.

Awesome game. Well designed. Supremely underrated

This game is seriously underrated.
It was incredibly well designed and all the parts fit together and make sense.
I'd suggest writing everything down in a notebook

Good:

1. It's a completed game, with no loose ends, and I did not encounter any game-breaking bugs that would have prevented me from reaching a satisfying conclusion

2. Puzzles were nicely balanced and made sense for the most part, though allowing for alternative solutions would have been nice

3. As others have already mentioned, little things like updated location names after visiting and world-building details were done well

4. Riddle difficulty levels felt just right to me


Bad:

1. Scripting errors: at some locations, I could do and get everything I was supposed to, and then return to that location later and get those old items again, like the flint and red key, but there was no longer a use for those items anymore


Ugly:

1. A lot of awfully convenient items just sitting around in random places in the jungle there lol

2. I could have used a lot of the items to solve future puzzles if they didn't magically disappear from my inventory after using them in ways that should not consume them

3. I had to use the walkthrough to beat the game. Maybe link to the walkthrough on the main description page?

Overall, an enjoyable little puzzle game.

I really liked this, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to get the long rope. Can anyone help me???

Ridiculously difficult in some areas, but fun overall.

Hoo Boy that was challenging! This story really exercises your memory muscles and gives you that nostalgic feeling of a point-and-click adventure game.

I like how you weaved storytelling in with puzzle-solving and it felt rewarding to complete this. I think for me I've always had a hard time with puzzle games because there's so much to keep track of but this one wasn't too bad as far as difficulty is concerned.

I got stuck on my first run after accessing the temple interior but was able to figure it out the second go around. All-in-all a great game and it was lots of fun.

Amazing game, lots of fun. P.S. - Using the glue at the place it should be used, before you have the other item, allows a bit of sequence breaking.