Review: Looking for Fael (Nintendo Switch)

Our game today has a title which hits the subject on the head: Looking for Fael. Yes, your roommate’s name is Fael; yes, you are looking for him; yes, he is lost; and yes, he is lost in your apartment. This is where things start to get interesting.

You’ve been having a nice day, so far, when you notice a voice mail from your roomie, Fael. He sounds only mostly coherent, but he says he is lost somewhere in the apartment. Because you are a good roommate, it’s your duty to find him.

As the game starts, you find yourself in the entry of your apartment building. The elevator is still out of order, there is nobody about, and there is a large black cable snaking across the floor. When you get to your apartment, the cable has beat you there, but there is no trace of Fael.

Some of you will already have taken the sci-fi leap I did, and you are correct; your roommate created something which—say it with me)—disrupted the space-time continuum and opened a doorway to another dimension. It’s either that or it’s a bit of the Doctor and, “It’s bigger on the inside…” (iykyk). This is a little bit adventure and a lotta’ bit puzzle game, so you are going to have to explore everywhere, examine everything, and try lots of stuff to get to where you need to be next to continue the search for your roomie.

Let’s take a minute to cover some of the boiler plate stuff. The visuals get a B. The graphics are smooth and the environment is appropriate for each area (this will make more sense as you play), but I have a gripe regarding scale and camera position. As you walk around your apartment, the perspective feels a bit off. The doorways seem too close to your head, the ceilings seem too high when you look up, and moving around is just about enough to induce a low-level motion sickness if you are susceptible.

The audio, likewise, gets a B. During the entry level you have only the sound of your footfalls ringing in your ears. A bit Spartan, but the more significant issue is the cadence of the sound; it’s not quite the regular gait you expect to hear, and it can pull the player out of the moment. Moving around the environment is easy and has limited options, which keeps it simple. You need only movie in two dimensions and use the joystick to change the angle of the camera. There is no jumping, ducking, climbing, etc.. There are stairs, but that’s just walking with an upward style.

Now, let’s get down to the puzzling part. Do not expect this game to give you much in the way of tips or hints. Much time will be required to look around at everything, put 2 and 2 together, throw in a dash of sideways thinking, and figure out what you need to do and how to do it. Solving the puzzle is the tricky part; once you have the solution, execution is easy. That said, expect to take a few attempts to get the right combination of steps or order of steps to unlock a puzzle.

The puzzles are not rocket science, but figuring out what you are supposed to do is a challenge when the game doesn’t volunteer much information; “you’re in a place – now figure things out” is about it. As you start solving for one thing, another “apartment,” ( which is your apartment, only different) will open and you get to start exploring again, solving more puzzles, and opening new variations of your apartment. All to find your roommate who was silly enough to get lost in an unfolding set of alternate dimensions—the nerve of some people.

By the way, for some of the levels and puzzles, you may want to keep a notepad handy; you can’t leave a breadcrumb trail, so the notepad will be good to keep track of information you will need in another area.

You may be happy to know there’s a sort of messed up version of Tetris you get to play to advance in the game. You need to acquire the “GameLeaf” in the introduction level to get anywhere else. Plug the device into the appropriate port (don’t worry, it will be very obvious) and solve a mini-game puzzle. It has a Tetris feel but with a couple interesting twists: you can undo moves and try again until you get things just right, and the way the pieces move start to make sense quickly.

There are other puzzles which involve combinations, a series of moves, flipping switches, and other standard devices. Some of these options can be a bit involved and will require a lot of back and forth, so make sure you have your extra strength patience potion at hand.

The game provides some interesting twists on what your apartment “is” in some of the other dimensions, and this provides some very interesting atmosphere to the game. If the background music was different, and the developers accentuated the suspense factor a bit, this game could be a real thriller, bordering on spooky. As it is, it’s still trippy enough to be a bit of a mind bender.

Taken all together, Looking for Fael has some very interesting elements going for it. There are some concerns regarding the visuals, and some of the sound effects could be improved. There is a QR code you can use to get additional clues, but it would be better to just have them in the game as an obscure but findable thing. There is plenty of play time to be had, but some of the puzzles require a fair bit of patience for the trial and error phase before getting things just right.

Some of the puzzle solves are a bit anticlimactic, but some come with a flourish and an interesting revelation. The game-within-a-game tool is nicely done and forces the player to keep thought processes flexible. Even with some desired changes, Looking for Fael is quite a good option for the puzzle enthusiasts.