![](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125606300/484476885.jpg)
Apr 30, 2019 Truberbrook - Nintendo Switch Sci-fi mystery adventure with an atmosphere reminiscent of 'Twin Peaks', 'The X-files' and 'True Detective'. Gripping storyline covering universal themes like love, friendship, loyalty, rootlessness, self-discovery and dinosaurs.
Truberbrook Nintendo Switch Developed By: btf Published By: Headup Games Category: Adventure Release Date: April 17, 2019Truberbrook is a point-and-click adventure title from developer btf set in 1960’s Germany. It first came to life as a KickStarter project for PC and now has made its way to the Nintendo Switch. The developers cite X-Files, Twin Peaks, and Star Trek as inspiration for the mystery and sci-fi elements of the story.Story elements involve the mysterious as you play Hans Tannhauser, an American physicist, who arrives in the small German village of Truberbrook after he won tickets to stay there. On his first night he wakes to find a stranger rummaging through his belongings, only to find when he flicks on the lights that the intruder vanishes, taking a paper about quantum physics Hans was working on. Now, Hans must investigate the village and question the locals to find out who stole his paper and why.In order to solve this mystery, you’ll be interacting with the locals and solving different puzzles throughout the village in classic point-and-click fashion. A few different puzzles were clever and required some serious thought to figure out. However, too many were inventory/object based puzzles that had solutions which didn’t make much sense like some classic point-and-click adventures.
On top of this, the puzzle events had to be completed in order, meaning I repeatedly had to go from one area to another highlighting everything to try and get a result. Unfortunately, if I stumbled upon the solution too often it would be only the first part of what I needed to do and I would still have no idea what was needed afterwards.Solving the puzzles wasn’t the most exciting thing to do, but admiring the beauty of the village itself was a site to behold. From the moment Hans steps off the bus, you are immediately immersed in its gorgeous, handcrafted aesthetic, realistic lighting, and use of natural background sounds. Each set is actually a diorama the team at btf built, painted, lit, and photographed. They digitized the pictures to capture the specific look and charm of the models. The results made the landscape with the village look unique, and the amount of detail and effort in the models was impressive.Sadly, Truberbrook’s audio does not translate as well with the voice acting somewhat sounds disconnected, as if the actors didn’t understand their motivations or situations for some of their lines. Attempts at humor also fell flat due to poor timing and bad delivery.
The music was somber in tone and provided an eerie backdrop to all the mysterious happenings of Truberbrook. Likewise, it’s soft and jazzy, evoking the feeling of mystery and teasing the supernatural. It makes for some excellent background music and something I could see myself listening to in peaceful locations.The presentation was on point from a visual standpoint, however, one specific problem lead to frustration. When an object or something can be interacted with, it will be highlighted when you place the cursor over them.
Occasionally items would not highlight when they were supposed to, or they would be too small and easy to miss.Overall, Truberbrook had a neat setting, lovely environments, and some of the elements from the story were intriguing, unfortunately none of these positives brought Truberbrook up to a must-play title. Truberbrook ends up being a messy collection of underdeveloped ideas and characters that never delivers on any of the interesting ideas it introduces.
It ends up being more boring and frustrating than an enjoyable and engaging experience. I wish I could recommend Truberbrook as it is a beautiful experience, just marred in execution and an ending that was disappointing.
2.5/5Buy Truberbrook $29.99Check out btfAlso, be sure to follow Headup Games.
In btf's new adventure game, a vacation in the tiny village of Truberbrook could lead to the destruction of the universe.
I love narrative games and Trüberbrook stole my heart when I saw the trailer for the first time. It has such an amazing art style and I love when a mystery exists in otherwise ordinary settings. That's exactly what Trüberbrook delivers: a ridiculous, unbelievable tale in a tiny little village with nothing for miles around as well as a plot that could lead to the destruction of our entire universe.
I often praise games for bringing high stakes to a story without resorting to the 'oh, by the way; if you fail then somehow it'll lead to the destruction of everything and everyone' shtick. In Trüberbrook's case, some of my highest praise would be that it actually manages to apply that threat to a plot where I never saw it coming. In fact, the entire premise is that the main character (Hans Tannhauser) won a vacation in a contest that he doesn't remember entering. Nonetheless, knowing it's too good to pass up, he travels to Trüberbrook. Unfortunately, on his first night there, a mysterious man somehow ends up in his room and steals his quantum physics thesis, leaving behind some very suspicious radioactive footsteps. Trust me; things only get weirder from there!
Trüberbrook is a whimsical point and click romp that sneaks a dash of dry wit into the writing alongside a pinch of science that goes over my head. At its heart, it's an exercise in walking around and picking stuff up then using that stuff on other stuff. The entire game can be completed in a few hours although I took almost 7. Some of the puzzles can be solved right away and others make enough sense that you can figure them out with some messing around. However, there were several that resulted in me walking around every square inch clicking on everything and following every dialogue choice possible. Keep in mind, the world is huge toward the end of the campaign.
You can inspect, interact with, use items on, or talk to things although most people and objects only allow for a few of those options. Sometimes, you need to look at something or use the right dialogue option to open up new choices which can get incredibly annoying. At one point, I actually had to inspect an object twice before it allowed me to do more with it. Because this was so out of the ordinary, I spent at least 45 minutes with a checklist of every location thoroughly interacting with everything possible until I figured that out.
Sadly, the majority of my time with Trüberbrook was similar. I rarely actually had fun or felt good about figuring puzzles out although the times when it worked out were pretty awesome. Figuring out how to use a whistle to break a satellite dish which makes a little girl get away from a TV was pretty fun, for example, and all of the puzzles are absolutely ridiculous in the best of ways.
My complaints about Trüberbrook don't end there. Another annoying issue is that it typically treats passwords like an inventory item but at one point, you get a password with seven sets of numbers then have to repeat those numbers back in dialogue. I ended up having to travel back to write the numbers down and to make matters worse, the second set of numbers was purposely smudged, meaning you have to guess at what it is. Also, Trüberbrook doesn't allow you to use the Switch's touchscreen so you have to use the joystick as a mouse. This would be fine except that it helps you a bit by magnetizing your mouse to an object when you go near it and this sometimes makes interacting with small objects difficult because the cursor wants to zoom to other objects instead.
![Switch Switch](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125606300/697188106.jpg)
Another example of poor game design is that dialogue often gives you multiple options but to select them, you point the analog stick at the one you want. The radial wheel only uses the right side of the joystick thus making precision difficult. Even walking is a chore at times as Hans gets stuck on objects near him easily, especially on the very narrow circular stairways.
In addition to these issues, there were a couple of major bugs. The lesser of these is that at least twice in the game, a character would get more or less lighting on them rapidly back and forth, causing their art to jitter between two distinct images. However, the worst bug is how summoning birds to a specific location would sometimes create a new dialogue option in a blank space in the air. If you try to speak with that spot, your cursor becomes permanently unusable until you manually restart the game. There are a handful of other minor complaints but they all add up to one thing: Trüberbrook needs some major bug fixes and fine-tuning.
Finally, there's the art; the one thing that really sold me on Trüberbrook from the start. Everything in the game world is beautifully rendered and playing it felt a bit like walking around a stop motion movie. After playing through, I learned that there's a good reason for this: the developers actually hand-crafted real objects, set them up, and then used 'photogrammetry' to digitize it and create a world that the player could explore. In addition, many of the backgrounds truly look like they're straight out of a postcard and if I wasn't so busy being constantly frustrated with figuring out what I needed to do, I would've adored these environments more.
With everything being said, I really hope that btf continues making games and using this spectacular art style. I'd love to take a vacation in one of their worlds but this one just left me longing for a different trip altogether.
I wanted to enjoy Trüberbrook but mediocre frustrating gameplay can only be helped so much by amazing art. I can only recommend it to people who absolutely love point and click games and don't mind being bogged down by major gameplay issues.
- + The art is unique and gorgeous
- + Contains a beautiful village complete with witty situations to gradually untangle
- + Fully voiced dialogue
![Truberbrook Switch Truberbrook Switch](https://cdn.shazoo.ru/226832_EvsZLGwpf7_truberbrook_bushaltestelle_pre_a.jpg)
- - Confusing puzzle solutions
- - Very repetitive exploration
- - Numerous bugs and minor issues
![](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125606300/484476885.jpg)