It has been a pure coincidence to play another game about witches and being alone in the house. But CLeM is far darker compared to The Cauldron Kids. I honestly didn’t know what I got myself into. I tried the prologue demo and thought it was fun but you don’t see a lot of story with it and the game has a unique style of being cute but also creepy at the same time.
CLeM is mostly a puzzle adventure game with some notes scattered and one short cutscene every time you carry out your task. See the tasks as chapters and there are about 5 you can expect. You don’t know who you are and who the girl is. She keeps asking you to bring her something. You slowly piece everything together to a satisfying conclusion. The game is described as ‘Puzzlevania’ and it’s understandable why it’s described as such. There will be rooms where you see things that can be done but this will only be possible once you’ve acquired some magical objects. These magical objects are fun to use and it’s worthwhile to re-visit rooms to solve puzzles with them. The puzzles themselves have been great. They have the right amount of challenge for the most part but they’re also approachable. There is help online for the instances you do get stuck (it happened twice in my case). The game is also good at being personal through environmental details and notes. While you slowly get to learn the situation through notes, you also see where and how people lived while exploring. And then we have the achievements. Most of them are related to progress but there are ones where you need to find everything (2), do certain actions perfectly (2) and 2 fun little secrets. I managed to get all of them on my own and that’s a good thing. They’re reasonable.
There are a few flaws that might be minor or major depending on your preferences. The game has a bit of backtracking due to the way it’s designed. It’s mostly solved when you unlock teleportation but you still need to check every room with every chapter to see if something has changed. Luckily the house is small, so it’s not as bad as it sounds but it’s still a thing. The game felt a bit short. But it feels like stretching this longer would not have been beneficial for the game because everything feels just right in terms of story and pacing. What I’m trying to say is, the price might be a bit on the high side for what you’re getting. In my case it was over €14 for about 4.8 hours according to Steam. The good news is, it’s better to end on a high note and wanting more instead of having filler content for the sake of making the game longer. Pure point and click adventure fans might not like CLeM because it’s not really a traditional P&C game. It’s advised to play with a controller, there are no object hotspots and you can’t save manually. The game auto saves every time you enter a room or when you finish a chapter. So there won’t be instances where you’re forced to play longer than you want.
CLeM is highly recommended for gamers who enjoy these type of unique games that remain strong and don’t overstay their welcome. It’s a bit difficult to judge if the price is worth it because I expected more content but I still felt positive about playing the game. Just make sure you get it at some point whether that’s now or when it’s on sale. This experience was so positive that I’m looking into playing more games from this developer.
CLeM is mostly a puzzle adventure game with some notes scattered and one short cutscene every time you carry out your task. See the tasks as chapters and there are about 5 you can expect. You don’t know who you are and who the girl is. She keeps asking you to bring her something. You slowly piece everything together to a satisfying conclusion. The game is described as ‘Puzzlevania’ and it’s understandable why it’s described as such. There will be rooms where you see things that can be done but this will only be possible once you’ve acquired some magical objects. These magical objects are fun to use and it’s worthwhile to re-visit rooms to solve puzzles with them. The puzzles themselves have been great. They have the right amount of challenge for the most part but they’re also approachable. There is help online for the instances you do get stuck (it happened twice in my case). The game is also good at being personal through environmental details and notes. While you slowly get to learn the situation through notes, you also see where and how people lived while exploring. And then we have the achievements. Most of them are related to progress but there are ones where you need to find everything (2), do certain actions perfectly (2) and 2 fun little secrets. I managed to get all of them on my own and that’s a good thing. They’re reasonable.
There are a few flaws that might be minor or major depending on your preferences. The game has a bit of backtracking due to the way it’s designed. It’s mostly solved when you unlock teleportation but you still need to check every room with every chapter to see if something has changed. Luckily the house is small, so it’s not as bad as it sounds but it’s still a thing. The game felt a bit short. But it feels like stretching this longer would not have been beneficial for the game because everything feels just right in terms of story and pacing. What I’m trying to say is, the price might be a bit on the high side for what you’re getting. In my case it was over €14 for about 4.8 hours according to Steam. The good news is, it’s better to end on a high note and wanting more instead of having filler content for the sake of making the game longer. Pure point and click adventure fans might not like CLeM because it’s not really a traditional P&C game. It’s advised to play with a controller, there are no object hotspots and you can’t save manually. The game auto saves every time you enter a room or when you finish a chapter. So there won’t be instances where you’re forced to play longer than you want.
CLeM is highly recommended for gamers who enjoy these type of unique games that remain strong and don’t overstay their welcome. It’s a bit difficult to judge if the price is worth it because I expected more content but I still felt positive about playing the game. Just make sure you get it at some point whether that’s now or when it’s on sale. This experience was so positive that I’m looking into playing more games from this developer.