Shardlight

I like Wadjet Eye games: they scratch my itch for old-school point-and-click adventures with pleasant retro graphics, competent writing and puzzles which are neither frustrating (no pixel-hunting, for example) nor so easy they become pointless... although the trend seems to be heading towards easier solutions: compare the Blackwell series to Shardlight, Unavowed and Lamplight City. While overall I enjoyed all these games, I really hope they don't go further in that direction.

Shardlight has an interesting setting, probably inspired by Dishonored: a post-apocalyptic society with a Neo-Victorian style and a strong class division. The masses live in poverty and are plagued by a deadly epidemic, the Green Lung; the ruling Aristocracy hoards the cure and distributes lottery tickets with the chance to win a treatment to those who volunteer for dangerous jobs. Add to this a death cult focused on a mysterious masked figure, the Reaper, and you have a compelling premise.

Shardlight starts strongly and never lost my interest, but the last act is rushed. For example, an evasion from a supposedly inescapable prison feels anticlimactic, and so does the revolution which has been building up for the whole game.

I don't particularly like adventures which punish you at every turn, but in this case it would have been nice to allow the player to make mistakes and plan poorly, with negative results. There are three different epilogues depending on a choice at the last moment which isn't influenced by previous in-game decisions. Frankly, some things about the endings don't make a lot of sense, but I won't go into that as we would enter spoiler territory.

Voice acting is excellent, in particular scavenger Amy (Shelly Shenoy), who is the protagonist, and main villain Tiberius (Abe Goldfarb, who played Joey in the Blackwell series).