Backseat Game Designer: Nibiru Critique
Nibiru is a modern PC adventure game by the prolific Adventure Game Company. Like their other graphic adventures, Nibiru offers an
elegant 3D point-and-click interface with which to move a pre-assigned character through a sequence of puzzles and a largely linear plot. This one
is a supernatural thriller from the same game design team who wrote the horror adventure
The Black Mirror. Nibiru is less frightening and less violent than Black Mirror,
but still rises to the level of suspense in places, and corny though it may sound, I recommend playing at night with the lights out. It's creepier that
way, and the graphics look excellent in the dark.
There are no bugs in Nibiru (at least, none that I found), and no serious gameplay issues. However, there are a number of things you may want
to be aware of before beginning to play in order to get maximum enjoyment out of the game. Without spoiling anything:
Time Management: Like most graphic adventure games, time does not pass normally in Nibiru. If you're supposed to wait until an NPC
is done painting a picture or eating his lunch, you can't just stand there and wait--nothing will ever change. In many cases, though, you don't actually have
to do anything relevant--examining a random nearby object is often sufficient for the game to believe time has passed. So is leaving the screen and
returning. But if you roam around the screen for 20 minutes fruitlessly pixel-searching, the picture will never get painted and the lunch will never get eaten.
You have to be a proactive clicker to get anywhere in this game.
Clicking and Reclicking: Nibiru game interface is graceful and intuitive in most ways, but there is one frustrating exception:
sometimes an object remains active (clickable) after you have already used it. When this happens, you need to either click it again or else right-click it to search it
more carefully. There's no logical reasoning behind which mouse button you need to use to get this additional clue. (The manual claims that a left-click means 'use'
and a right-click means 'examine,' but that is only true in inventory--in the environment itself, the effects of left and right clicking is essentially random.)
You're bound to forget this at least once or twice, so if you reach an impasse in the game, go back and make sure there isn't something you've already used that's still
active.
Main Character: You control one character in Nibiru, the blase grad student Martin. You will never have any input
into Martin's personality, attitudes, plans, or reactions to anything. That's too bad, because honestly, it's hard to sustain a feeling of
suspense when the main character is so underwhelmed by everything going on around him. But if you want to enjoy this game, you'll
need to think of Martin as a character in a movie you're watching rather than 'your' character.
There are not even any conversational choices to be made and you will never be able to affect Martin's behavior at all.
Movement: Although it can be rather slow, movement in Nibiru is easy to navigate; you can check the exits out of any room
by hitting the tab key, and double-clicking on an exit cuts to the new game location immediately, without having to wait for Martin to stroll leisurely across
the screen. However, one thing it's important to be aware of is that whenever Martin enters a new screen, there's an unskippable animation of him walking a few
steps and then stopping. Sometimes this results in him standing right in front of an object or other hotspot. If you seem to be stuck, make sure you move him
over a little and see if there's anything behind him.
Conversations: Even if you've figured out what you need to do next in the game, Martin, who obviously did not play
Infocom games very much in his youth, is often at a loss, and there's no good way to communicate with him. The only way to move Nibiru's plot
along is to click on things yourself and see if he catches on, or have him talk to another person about the situation. Once he's discussed matters aloud, you'll
often have more options available.
Problem Spots: There are a few timed challenges in Nibiru that can result in death, but if you fail one of them, the game will automatically
restart you at the beginning of the challenge. Due to this incredibly convenient feature, you don't really need to worry about savegames much--there's no way
to lose the game, other than getting tired of it and quitting, and there are no in-game choices for you to go back and try doing another way.
Go on to the Nibiru game walkthrough...
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