Summary

• Strong visuals create a stunning first impression.
• Gameplay focuses on contextual clues over traditional item collection.
• Preview builds anticipation for a mystery-filled, immersive gaming experience.

The point and click adventure game is one of the great success stories of the indie gaming scene. A genre of gameplay that had a spectacular rise and fall, and was once thought of by the gaming industry as outdated and overly-restrictive, independent developers have given it a new lease of life in the last two decades thanks to a variety of interesting stories that differ wildly in of theme and tone. Enter Phoenix Springs, from Calligram Studio, which looks to add another strong offering to fans of the genre.

Phoenix Springs follows a reporter called Iris Dormer, who is looking to find and reconnect with an estranged brother. This journey through a mysterious game world will lead her to the town of Phoenix Springs, although a recent preview build of the game showcases the point and click game up to the point where Iris reaches the titular setting. As it stands, though, there's a promising adventure to explore and story to unravel.

A Bold First Impression When It Comes To Style

Before the player has even had a chance to take control of the game, Phoenix Springs looks to make an impression through its visuals. The game's aesthetic is absolutely fantastic, with a comic book style made up of beautiful hand-drawn locations and characters. It's like stepping into a trade paperback, shifting from location to location with Dormer, each place acting as its own mini-issue.

The initial parts of the Phoenix Springs story are clearly moody and mysterious in nature, although it remains to be seen whether the wider game then takes on a more vibrant palette. As it stands, though, the preview of the title is heavy on dark greens and blacks, while a rustling, shifting background effect adds movement and atmosphere to the game world. It all helps build the overall tone of the environments, especially the sense of urban decay.

Players should make note of the different options of interaction that Iris has available, both for puzzle solving but also to get tasters of information about the game world itself.

That said, the limited color palette also helps with the moment-to-moment gameplay too. Alongside the darkness there are then pockets of other color, from the white and light blue of Iris herself through to items and interactables being noted in red, yellow, or a lighter green. It helps the player understand what they're looking for, getting around one of the historical issues that point and click adventure games faced when interacting with essential elements of the game world.

Solid Point-And-Click Puzzles That Intrigue

Based on this preview build of Phoenix Springs, Calligram Studio has made one bold gameplay choice to separate it from the point and click games of old. Rather than collecting items from around the game world to then use as part of Rube Goldberg puzzles, instead the player will discover clues from their interactions with things around the locale they're in and tie them together to find a way forward. It feels a lot closer to actually solving a mystery, especially with how solving one element can naturally raise questions elsewhere, akin to how detective fiction is often structured.

As such, this is quite an intuitive way of progressing in the game. The core loop remains familiar to point and click fans, needing to know exactly what relates to what within the level, but there's a far greater level of contextual understanding than the typical old-school adventure game. A player is more likely to put together two elements that actually fit than some of the more esoteric approaches of the games of yore.

That said, based on the preview there are a couple of improvements that could be made. The control model does take a bit of getting used to, finding a clue and then popping into a sub-menu to combine it with something else rather than making it part of the main interactive element in its own right. Meanwhile, a couple of puzzles do veer a little into the inscrutable territory in the preview, although if that remains the extent of it it will be just on the right side of the line to keep players fully engaged.

Wanting To Know More About The Game World Of Phoenix Springs

The preview build of Phoenix Springs is simply a snapshot from the very start of the game, but it does showcase the potential for the game's story as a whole. It acts as a strong introduction to the mystery, asking questions about both Dormer's own past, her relationship with her estranged brother, and exactly what's been going on to lead up to this point. Certainly, it leaves the player wanting to find out more, and hopefully the final game ties all this together nicely with whatever is going on in the town itself.

It feels a little like Disco Elysium.

This is also true of the game world of Phoenix Springs. There's a level of decay and distrust in the preview, as if the player is sitting in a ripple of what was once a larger wave of change. It feels a little like Disco Elysium in this regard (which strangely enough received fan-made art as a point-and-click demake), as it's both our world and our time, but also not of our world and not of our time. There's something intoxicating about that setup, and ideally the final build of Phoenix Springs will build on this.

Our Final Thoughts On The Preview Build

A Game With Mysteries That Make It Worth Keeping An Eye On

Based on this preview build of Phoenix Springs, it all bodes well for an interesting final game. There's an awful lot left to uncover about this project before its release in September, so much will rely on exactly how its various mysteries build and how well its clue-based model builds in a narrative that will naturally have some complexity to it. However, currently, this is definitely one to watch.

Screen Rant was provided with a PC for the purposes of this preview.