Four Fat Chicks -- Time Stand Still Review

Time Stand Still

Review by Enigma
November 2006

Have you ever wished you could travel to Sweden? I certainly have, and I feel as though I've done that with Mikael and Eleen Nyqvist's fun little games Remedy, Hope Springs Eternal and now their newest, Time Stand Still. The title of the game is grammatically correct ("stand" is an imperative), as you learn during the game while snooping into the mystery surrounding a possibly haunted house.

The Nyqvists, who clearly love adventure games, decided to produce their own using Adventure Maker software, and they came up with a nifty idea: take photos of their own Swedish home town, enhance them in Photoshop to make them look like watercolor paintings, and build their games around these. In their games, we stroll around Norrköping's lovely gardens and parks, colorful houses and town buildings, meet nice people and a few quirky ones, tinker with some fun if somewhat conventional puzzles, and try to solve a detective-style mystery.

So You Want to Be a Detective?

This is another "Carol Reed Mystery," as are the previous games. Carol is a young Englishwoman who has relocated to Norrköping, Sweden, where she runs her own one-woman detective agency. This time she tackles a case that will delve into a dark side of Sweden's past, when the nation was neutral during World War II. It seems that things are going bump in the night in a house built by Sweden's, and the town of Norrköping's, great architect, Carl Bergsten. Is the place haunted? Carol will investigate while the owners are away on vacation to warmer climes.

As she snoops, Carol finds information that leads her to investigate the past, including a poignant illicit love affair that apparently had lasting consequences. Along the way, she learns about Carl Bergsten and visits an interesting museum exhibit devoted to him, walks down lovely park lanes, searches old newspapers, finds hidden and lost keys, and talks to folks.

She'll find puzzles that will yield clues to the mystery and objects that open up new gaming areas. Sometimes she'll investigate a large area just to find one small item, but there are usually lots of interesting things to see while she's doing it.

Old-Style Pure Adventure Gaming

The game is first-person point-and-click, retro style with off-screen voiceovers from "Carol" and on-screen voices over still photos of other characters. You converse by clicking on conversation options, and all speech is fully subtitled. Entry into new game areas comes via a clickable map that adds locations as Carol finds them. The game loads completely onto the hard disc and plays perfectly without the CD, always a nice feature.

In Time Stand Still, navigation has become much easier than in the first two games. Only a few times did I find myself a bit lost on the screen in this game. However, it's easy to miss whole areas, and crucial inventory items, unless you turn exactly the right way, so players must remember to always, always visit every possible node allowed by the game. You'll miss some nice eye candy if you don't, anyway.

Because it's a detective story, the game is necessarily linear, but in a few cases you don't have to adhere to strict order. I learned that I'd done several things much earlier than they appear in the walkthrough when I consulted it. You can wander around the major areas of the game at will and return to them at any time, although a few minor areas appear and then disappear from the map when no longer needed. You can repeat dialogue as long as you're still in the area where the conversation occurred, but you lose that option when you leave. Several times, in out-of-the-way places, you collect items that must be used to solve later puzzles, mostly inventory-based. Inventory management is easy. Very little note-taking is necessary, although at one point you had better spot and note down the clue to a major puzzle, or you'll have to go through plenty of backtracking to find it again.

(Or you can sometimes save and use the puzzle bypass option, see the solution, then reload and go back to the puzzle, but that's really cheating, isn't it?)

Yes, major puzzles, mostly of the manipulative type, come with a bypass option, which is a much appreciated feature, although if you use it you won't get all of your stars when you finish the game. Stars are awarded for completed puzzles, to give stalwart gamers a little reward.

Even those major puzzles are not terribly tough, although you do have to play with them a bit to discover how they work. One, for example, is an easy game of concentration—but that's not immediately apparent when you first encounter it. One involving an old pocket watch has several layers that were nicely done. Another is a music puzzle, dreaded by many gamers. I think this one offers enough visual clues that even mildly tone-deaf players can solve it, as you can easily limit it to three options and then just hack your way through, but the bypass button is there for the truly deaf, and they will need it.

The inventory puzzles and some of the others are quite well integrated into the gameplay. Most are logical. A few, though, seem to be there just because adventure games are supposed to have puzzles, with the excuse that Carl Bergsten liked puzzles. That's fine by me. I like puzzles too. These, while fun, will not take hours to solve by any means.

In short, the gameplay, while completely conventional, is entertaining and works well.

But ...

That Was It?

The game has flaws. Stuckness is a certainty if you miss something small, for example.

Most seriously, and this is hugely serious, it abruptly ends just as we're starting to close in on the central mystery: who or what has been haunting the house? Without giving away the ending, I'll simply say that we players aren't given enough latitude to solve that mystery by ourselves. Likewise, another interesting, minor plot thread about a decades-old murder comes to a sudden, far-too-early end.

The Nyqvists spend plenty of time developing an intriguing background story, then don't allow players to use that knowledge to piece together an intriguing solution to their mystery. Frankly, their quickie solution is a complete letdown.

The major problem here is that the game's story, actually the game itself, is only about two-thirds finished. That was the major flaw in Remedy and Hope Springs Eternal as well. The Nyqvists really need to work on completing their plots, starting from the end and working backwards, scattering clues for players to find and build upon throughout the game so that the puzzles and story merge together into one satisfying, complete game. Instead, it feels as if they spend their time on lovely graphics and fun gameplay, then tack on a brief explanation when they feel they've done enough, as though their story were only a peripheral excuse for the gameplay. But in their chosen genre, mystery, the story, especially its ending, is centrally important.

Well. They've attracted attention with these first three games, so let's hope their next effort will allow them to create a more complete, more finished product.

But the rest of the game is much more satisfying than its lame ending.

On the Bright Side

Eye candy has always been a major aspect of graphic adventures, and this one has it. As with the two previous games, one of the most enjoyable aspects of Time Stand Still simply is the town of Norrköping itself and the way the Nyqvists have portrayed it. The watercolor effect they have used to enhance their photos seems toned down from the previous games, and I rather liked that. It's still a nice effect but allows the town to stand on its own more than in the first two games.

Another aspect of their photos that I eventually came to appreciate is that the Nyqvists don't erase the ugly stuff. If an area has an unsightly metal railing, or stains on the cement, or flotsam at the edge of the water, there it is on the screen. The town may be watercolored, but it isn't whitewashed. This is the real town of Norrköping, warts and all, and it's very pretty even with the warts. That honesty helps players believe we're really there, in the real place. It was the right choice.

As in Hope Springs Eternal, we find some humor in the game. A pierced and tattooed caretaker with a definite personality deficiency reappears here, adding a chuckle or two. Jonathan Boakes, who thankfully seems to be supporting nearly every independent adventure developer, does a bit of voice work. A few nods to the "Just Adventure" site pop up, in the forms of a photo of Randy Sluganski and a newspaper article by that famed Swedish journalist, Ray Ivey. There is another surprise or two for adventure veterans.

Occasionally, some Jonathan Boakes-style sound effects insert a little flush of fear into the gameplay. As you're in a possibly haunted house, these work nicely. There's one well-placed jump-in-your-chair moment involving someone you don't expect to see. And Mikael Nyqvist's original music enhances many areas of the game.

And who wrote that achingly sweet love poem? It lifts the story to a higher level.

Oh, and there's also that hunka-hunka Swedish gardener with whom you get to spend quite a lot of time. Norrköping ain't the only eye candy in the game.

There Is Joy Here

Somehow the Nyqvists' simple joy in what they're doing seeps through into the game. That's a major part of its appeal and makes their work rather special. This isn't a slick moneymaker from some bottom-line developer. It's a true labor of love. That's how adventure games started, and it's refreshing to return to that level of care even if the game has some rough edges. The beautiful photo technique, for example, demands the slideshow presentation. The puzzle bypass option demonstrates the Nyqvists' concern for their players.

Voice work is resolutely at amateur level, but, believe it or not, that works. The Nyqvists cast their friends in these roles. Normally I rage against poor voice work, but my rage is aimed at sophisticated developers who easily could use real actors but don't care enough about their product or their customers to do it. This is a game produced on a shoestring budget that relies on imagination, hard work and kind, helpful friends. The Nyqvists' friends simply come across as the real inhabitants of Norrköping because that's what they are. It's difficult not to enjoy them. Their amateur quality actually enhances the home-like atmosphere of these games.

Even with its underachieving storyline, Time Stand Still is immersive and truly enjoyable while it lasts. It's an entertaining and improved product from this family-and-friends team, who should be encouraged to continue developing their work. It deserves a "thumb up" for loving effort at least. It's fun, pretty, involving, and has some entertaining puzzles that aren't too easy, aren't too tough. Plus, you visit a charming town and feel as though you've really been there.

It's very sweet and I liked it. If I ever met the Nyqvists, I think I'd like them, too.