Pneuma: Breath of Life is a wonderful puzzle game. The puzzles are all clever and creative, and they're all set within a pretty world that's a joy to explore. I really don't know what else I can truly say about it. It looks good, it plays well, the puzzles are rewarding and clever -- and what more do you want out of a puzzle game? I feel like I can recommend it to anyone that loves a good puzzler. It's not quite perfect though, but even the downside isn't much to write about.

The biggest problem with the game is the narrator, the protagonist, who talks endlessly. The things he says rarely interesting and they do little more than make you dislike him more and more, little by little. There's an arch to it, surely, but the moment I just put the voice volume down to 0 and turned off the subtitles, suddenly I was exploring a truly wonderful world, without this stream-of-consciousness semi-philosophical blabbering. The game just got better. The other thing is a pretty blatant mistake, which raises pretty big alarms.

In the very tutorial, at the very start of the game, you're asked to interact with a lever. Click and hold, then use W/D to move it --- wait, what? D does nothing. A does nothing. W does nothing. No, it's supposed to be W/S. Backwards and forwards. Easy to figure out, but how does something like this make it through playtesting? Seriously! Anyone testing the game should've found this from the start and it should've been fixed instantly. So really my first impression with the game was "oh dear, did anybody actually test this before release?".

Thankfully it was the only real problem I had. A couple of finicky puzzles, sure, but all doable. The one time I actually managed to just 'break' the game was by locking myself in a room by undoing the puzzle I had solved to open the door. I slipped inside, the door closed behind me, and then the puzzle within the room was solved -- but I had to go back. But I couldn't. The door was closed. Oops. Not a big deal since I could just quit to main menu and resume again, which saved me having to backtrack to the little puzzle hub.

All in all, I liked it.

Pneuma: Breath of Life is a wonderful puzzle game. The puzzles are all clever and creative, and they're all set within a pretty world that's a joy to explore. I really don't know what else I can truly say about it. It looks good, it plays well, the puzzles are rewarding and clever -- and what more do you want out of a puzzle game? I feel like I can recommend it to anyone that loves a good puzzler. It's not quite perfect though, but even the downside isn't much to write about. The biggest problem with the game is the narrator, the protagonist, who talks endlessly. The things he says rarely interesting and they do little more than make you dislike him more and more, little by little. There's an arch to it, surely, but the moment I just put the voice volume down to 0 and turned off the subtitles, suddenly I was exploring a truly wonderful world, without this stream-of-consciousness semi-philosophical blabbering. The game just got better. The other thing is a pretty blatant mistake, which raises pretty big alarms. In the very tutorial, at the very start of the game, you're asked to interact with a lever. Click and hold, then use W/D to move it --- wait, what? D does nothing. A does nothing. W does nothing. No, it's supposed to be W/S. Backwards and forwards. Easy to figure out, but how does something like this make it through playtesting? Seriously! Anyone testing the game should've found this from the start and it should've been fixed instantly. So really my first impression with the game was "oh dear, did anybody actually test this before release?". Thankfully it was the only real problem I had. A couple of finicky puzzles, sure, but all doable. The one time I actually managed to just 'break' the game was by locking myself in a room by undoing the puzzle I had solved to open the door. I slipped inside, the door closed behind me, and then the puzzle within the room was solved -- but I had to go back. But I couldn't. The door was closed. Oops. Not a big deal since I could just quit to main menu and resume again, which saved me having to backtrack to the little puzzle hub. All in all, I liked it.