[Review] Montague's Mount

[Evildawg]

Title: Montague's Mount

Developer: Polypusher studios

Publisher: Mastertronic

Genre: First-person Horror-mystery

Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

Release Date: October 9, 2013

Price: $8.99

Montague's Mount is a tale of its own. Awash on a beach with no recollection of how you got there or even your own name, you see signs of civilization ahead, but nobody there. The mystery of Montague's mount and escaping the madness that grips you are your only driving forces off this cursed isle. Will you see through your own insanity and desperate isolation to uncover the secrets within?

Montague's Mount Review- a practice in eerie amnesia

I apologize in advance that this review is probably not too all-encompassing of the game, I had an obstacle on my way here. Namely that my version of the game proved too tricky (or broken) to advance. But that aside, let us venture forth into this empty void of our minds, to see what once lurked where memories should lay.

I'm a clever little git, gettin all yo goodies

Montague's Mount was a game that hadn't been too high on my radar, but did pique my interest when I saw the trailer of it. A dark and lonely place with tiny sparks of life still sputtering, begging for you to move onward and uncover its secrets.

As I fired up the game, beautiful music entranced me, pulling me in. It seemed a little too light-hearted for what was to come, but I cast doubt to the wind and started the game. Upon waking on a sandy and gray beach, John Doe realizes that his name is far too common and has forgotten what his momma gave him. Through the trials ahead you will aid him in his struggle for sanity and clarity, recollecting his shattered psyche from the strewn memories on the island.

I will do my best to not give any spoilers for this game, thankfully I couldn't get far enough to give many(more on that later). Now as far as sound goes for this game, i’d say it’s a solid winner, the ambient noises are ever-present but not overbearing, save for when they are a clue. The footsteps are quiet and varied so your focus won’t be interrupted by them.

The only gripe I have about anything audio in this game would have to be the children’s laughter, now I won’t say when, where, or why, but it is in a few moments in the game where you are subject to the wretched sound we all know as little ones frolicking and for some reason it is just a short audio clip that loops. Now I don’t mean to be harsh here, that is exactly how it hit me, it completely pulled me out of not only the game, but the moment that sound was supposed to be capitalizing on.

Everything else was done so very well, weather effects, rustic houses with parts creaking, haunting and mysterious music, all spot on. But that laughter was so bad… moving on then, shall we?

Now in techni-color!

Now I've heard a million times from people “God, this just looks like an Irish Myst game”. First of all, I completely made that figure up, I consulted nobody on the aesthetic of this game, and secondly, who cares? Doesn't that sound great? The Myst series was pretty well received and this game does what those games do and does it well. As for the changes, I for one am happy for the constant in motion game-play, no fixed screen shots, there are not only extra things for you to find in the game, but entire secret areas.

I think that having full movement in a puzzle-mystery game is just natural progression. Does it make the game harder? Sure, you don’t have a limited number of screen angles to work with where you can just blindly click on everything until you progress, and I like that, I think it’s much better to have us rewarded with simpler puzzles but not have the ability to have all the angles set-up for us already. Have us think about the problem and really explore for answers. One more note on that end would be that I love that there is a button in this game that will tell you whatever you are looking at is, and this is where a lot of the Gaelic promotion comes in. All you have to do is right-click and it will tell you what it is both in English(or whatever language you may speak, they have a lot of options) and Gaelic.

is it "get-the-hell-out-of-here o-clock" already?

Now unless you want to sit here all day reading this review instead of making a choice that this game is worth it or not, I’ll give you my final impressions. Montague's Mount is great, great at what it wants to do, and great at making me want to know more. The more i played this game, the more I wanted to delve deeper into the island and uncover the whole mystery. In fact the only disappointment was the roller-coaster of my experience was on a rise the entire time, waiting for any big revelation where dots connect and.. my game was stuck.

it took all my resolve and more to resist burning a path forward

Yeah, I searched for hours, resorted to clicking on everything, but alas I was in an area where I could tread no further (dead-end after a cut-scene and couldn't come back the way i came because of the nature of what let me enter the area. So I tried reloading from the main menu (it works in a checkpoint system, numbered by progression) and wouldn't you know it? I had managed to skip a checkpoint, somehow. There was a point earlier before my character’s capture as it were where there was a split in the path, left or right. I wanted to go left but the game would not allow such bold actions, so i took the path of least resistance, obviously.

Now I tried loading up my game and it would not allow me to change the course of fate, tinkering with what little there was, I could not for the life of me open up any avenue of progression. I had fully become stuck with nowhere to go.

So if you should take anything with you, it’s that this made me sad, i wanted to go further, I was enjoying this game and what it was presenting to me. If my copy had been different (or maybe me not so dimwitted) this would've been a much brighter review.

But perhaps that is what they had intended all along, for us to slowly enrapture our own minds with hysteria, to allow the creeping madness take hold of us and our frustrations and manifest them into reality.. in the form of a bugged version of the game I wanted to play.

Luckily i had that boat to search for Wilson

I’m positive that any issues with the game with be fixed post-haste, but for now this is all I may offer to whoever it may concern.

To the wonderful people at Polypusher studios, thank you for the entrancing experience you crafted. I hope to be able to enjoy it to it's fullest in the near future.

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[PeeKnuckle]

Good job. I'm excited to start this game soon. Been following it closely for about a month.

[Dateranoth]

Nice review.  Any more info on the bug?  Anyone else had a chance to play it?