Playing a pixel art point and click game like Misty Mountain Studios’ The Rewinder brings me back to my earliest days of gaming. One of my favorite series growing up was King’s Quest, particularly Kings Quest V and VI. Nostalgia was flowing during my playthrough and overall, I enjoyed my time with The Rewinder.

Story

The Rewinder centers around Chinese mythology. Rewinders are special humans with the power to alter the past. This can have effects on the game world. For example, the environment might change completely after the main character makes a change to a villager’s memory using his powers.

The main story conflict in the game is that the souls of people from Reed Village are not making their way to the underworld for reincarnation. Two characters from the underworld that manage this process recruit the last remaining Rewinder, Yun, to investigate and fix the problem. As you progress through the game your actions as a Rewinder will save Reed Village residents while also altering the landscape of the world each time you use your powers.

You will be assisted by unique creatures like ghosts, talking frogs, and mythical talking horses along the way all the way to the conclusion. The mystery of what happened to the residents of Reed Village plays out over the course of around four hours. Some could probably finish this game in three hours or less depending on how much time some of the more difficult puzzles take to solve.

Gameplay

The point-and-click aspects of the game allow the player to interact with certain items and areas of the world. Sometimes the prompts that come up are basic, saying something along the lines of, “an empty bowl sits on a shelf.” Other times you can interact to start a puzzle or even have simple interactions throughout the village where the description is more detailed.

One aspect of point-and-click adventure games that has always frustrated me is the trial and error associated with missing a click somewhere and looking around the environment for exactly where to click to advance the story. Unfortunately for The Rewinder, this problem has not been solved here either. It would be great if all points and click games implemented a feature that after a certain amount of time, the screen would highlight where to click.  

The bulk of the gameplay follows the same blueprint with puzzles and scenarios changing each time. You will investigate a certain portion of the world to find a memory. There are memories associated with about seven characters throughout the world. Each memory resulted in a death that you are trying to change. You take that memory to a shrine which will feature a different puzzle each time to access the memory.

Once in the memory, you will investigate the villagers’ thoughts in the scene and work to plant other ideas to change the outcome. There is a timeline bar at the bottom of the screen that allows you to freeze and advance time. If you advance to the end of the timeline without successfully changing a character’s thoughts, you will have a chance to try again and use a different combination of thoughts to alter that character’s memory and ultimately, save a life or alter the game world.

It’s somewhat difficult to explain the entire process and all that goes into it but once you do a few, it becomes more familiar. It’s rewarding to successfully change a memory by planting the correct combination of thoughts and see the game world change.

I want to focus on the puzzles in the game because you’ll be solving a lot of them. Solving one puzzle will lead to an item or memory that you need to alter a villager’s thoughts. As you unlock more puzzles, more items will be available for use to conjure spirits and gain valuable clues for the memory’s that you enter. For the most part, I found the puzzles to be enjoyable. Certain ones require more time and some trial and error to complete.

There is a good variety here with some being math-based, weight-based, and even combining colors to paint a mask. I think players will be surprised by the variety of puzzles and how they differ as the game goes on. It might frustrate certain players but as I said, most can be solved rather quickly and the tougher ones only require some minimal trial and error.

Audio and Visuals

The world in The Rewinder features run-down buildings, shrines, caves, and other unique environments. I really like the pixel art graphics and it looks like a game that could have come out in the early to mid-90s. But don’t take that as a bad thing. I love when developers use pixel art and if you’re a fan of new games using that traditionally old-school art style, you’re in for a treat!

Some of the graphical moments that stood out to me were the assortment of unique characters you will come across. While human characters lack detail (as with most pixel art games) some of the creatures and ghosts you will encounter are complex and it’s clear that the developers took their time creating the non-human characters. Some of the fire and weather effects, as well as night cycle scenes really wowed me as far as graphics were concerned.

In the sound department, The Rewinder doesn’t do anything out of the norm and most of the dialogue is presented as text without voice acting. The introduction has some voice-over work translated to English in text, but that’s about it. A game like this doesn’t need to have spectacular sound and as a smaller budget title, it is understandable that the bulk of the work went into the gameplay mechanics and pixel art design. Although, it still would have been nice to have some voice-over character dialogue.

What It Could Have Done Better

As I mentioned above, The Rewinder would have benefited from some voice-over work. When I think back to King’s Quest, one of the best aspects of the game was the variety of voice acting that gave those games a unique and distinct feeling. I realize that was likely a budget constraint but maybe they will have voice-overs if it gets a sequel.

Other than that, some of the puzzles and mechanics could have been better explained. Spending too much time on one puzzle or figuring out how a certain mechanic worked slightly decreased the level of enjoyment for me.

Verdict

If you’re a fan of side-scrolling puzzle adventure games, The Rewinder is worth checking out. Overall, the puzzle and gameplay mechanics are solid and the sense of accomplishment once you solve a puzzle and advance the story is very rewarding. It doesn’t do anything revolutionary, but it’s an enjoyable experience and hits all the right notes for a memorable play-through.