App Army Assemble: Evan's Remains - Does this narrative-drive puzzler platformer deliver?

Evan's Remains is a puzzler platformer that tasks you with looking for the titular character after his disappearance. So alongside finding the solution to numerous puzzles, you will have to unravel the mystery of where the boy genius went. That's no easy task, so we sent in our App Army to see if they could locate the boy genius.

Here's what they said:

Mike Lisagor

Evan’s Remains looked like it was going to be a puzzle platformer which made me happy, one of my favourite categories. However, this is very heavy on story and very little on puzzles or platforming. I could not get into the story and found myself clicking through the dialogue to get to the next puzzle. Even doing that, I was bored and uninterested in the game. I stopped and came back to the game the next day and I still could not get into the story. There may be an audience for this game, but it’s just not for me.

Jason Rosner

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with puzzle type games. I’m always looking to find something new that grabs my attention and makes me want to play. With Evan’s Remains - I’m loving it! I especially like games that take creative chances and blend the best parts of my other favourite genres all into one. Platformers tend to be my thing, and when you throw in puzzle sections that challenge, and not frustrate, it can really shake things up nicely.

While I love the art style of the colourful, clean, pixelated graphics, it’s actually the story that took me by surprise and it’s not something I expected from this type of game. It made me want to keep playing to find out what happens next, what happened to Evan? The controls feel good, and I loved the option to skip a tedious puzzle if needed. Evan’s Remains was an awesome surprise and it deserves to be on gamer’s wishlists this Christmas.

Bruno Ramalho

I'm a fan of puzzle games, so when I first encountered some monoliths and platforms that I had to overcome by solving some puzzles, that was very good news right from the start. But the art, the graphics, the animations, pixelized graphics, but everything oh so beautiful, top-notch. The soundtrack and sound effects, such detail and care, all of this make this game a premium experience. And then there's the story that's being told, and there's a lot of narrative here, so be prepared. It's mysterious, it's engaging, and gets us hooked on what comes next.

I like the little scenes that come up explaining something that happened in another time and place, which gets us even more curious. You can skip puzzles if you want, but you shouldn't want it. The puzzles are not too hard, until the middle of the game at least, I guess. Very nice game. Gonna keep on playing to see where it all leads to. Still got a lot of puzzles to solve. Very nice game all in all.

Mark Abukoff

I generally enjoy puzzlers and platformers, but there is just something about this game that eludes me. First off, I found the onscreen controls too big and awkward for the sometimes quick-moving you need to do in this game. And to be honest, I was stuck on the second or third puzzle, so I had to skip it. (Which is a good feature, to give credit where due). But then I had to skip the next one. And the one after that. A tutorial that takes you through a few of these kinds of moves would help.

Because if I get stuck that early in a game and my immediate thought is to find a YouTube video to help me through it, the odds of me sticking it out are pretty long. The story was interesting enough. The graphics were okay and kind of charming. And I found the basic mechanics of the puzzles interesting, but again, it suffers from unfortunate controls and either a steep difficulty curve or needing a tutorial. As it is, I think it’s a good idea, poorly executed. Updates could fix a lot, and if that happened, I’d give it a better review.

Oksana Ryan

I was really looking forward to playing this game and in some ways, I did like it. However, it fell short of expectations. The graphics were beautiful, the music and background sound was annoying so I played on mute, and the actual mechanics of the game were easy to pick up. On the whole, I found the puzzles to be doable after jumping from shelf to shelf and landing in the right places and they weren’t insurmountable, though on occasion I felt I finished more by luck than skill.

However, there were two things that stopped my total enjoyment of the game. Firstly, the forward/backwards controls on the larger screen of the iPad were too big. It was awkward for me to reach across to the forward button and, at times, I had to use my right hand instead, which made it particularly difficult when jumping back and forth.

Secondly. the storyline. There is the main story which is the search for a boy called Evan but then there are glimpses of a second story dropped incidentally. Both of these storylines were rather empty and quite frankly I tapped my way through with very little interest in them.
The main thing for me was the puzzles which I thoroughly enjoyed. Not sure if anything else was really needed.

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