App Army Assemble: The Library of Babel - "Should this stealth platformer be on your radar?"

The Library of Babel is a stealth platformer from Neon Doctrine that sees you solving a mysterious murder in a dystopian and post-human future. It draws inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges' story, which unsurprisingly shares the same name. All of that sounds like excellent building blocks for a game to me. So, we handed the game over to our App Army to see what they thought.

Here's what they said:

The Library of Babel is a sci-fi platformer set 20,000 years after humanity. The game is based on the story of the same name. In it, the library holds the books which contain everything that will ever be written. It’s your job to investigate a murder case, and how this all ties in. Visually the game strikes all the right notes with me, really setting up its futuristic world. I always love hand-drawn graphics.

The game is also a unique mix of different genres. While the majority of your time will be spent with stealth platforming, you’ll run into numerous puzzles, along with point-and-click scenes. I liked this mix as it does a nice job of switching up the gameplay. The story not only complements the tone, but it does an excellent job of giving you plenty of dialogue options. All this leads to some deeper philosophical questions that come from the works that inspired it.

This is a good-looking immersive sci-fi adventure. Good soundtrack, an appealing art style, and plenty of interesting characters and side quests. Good combination of puzzles and platforming and an engaging point-and-click adventure. I liked that the background and scenery went kind of deep and had places to crawl under that I didn’t see at first. Occasional minor problems with controls but not bad enough to put me off.

I did find myself talking to various NPCs more than once and while the text conversation sometimes seemed a bit lengthy, fast-clicking the second time around got me through them quickly enough. Overall this is a nice mix of game genres in an immersive setting with a decent story. A more satisfying experience in my opinion than most games like this. Happily recommend you try it out.

Humanity is extinct and the world is populated by intelligent robots. You play a robot called Ludovik who is tasked with solving a murder. The storyline takes the robot to various locations gathering useful items and information on the way. The mechanics of the game are simple enough but I have to admit that they were, at times, frustrating, as the jump button didn’t always work accurately and after climbing some way, I would end up falling back and having to start the climb again.

There is only music in the game which means there is quite a lot of interactive reading between characters. There are question lists to be scrolled through, where information or requests are exchanged, moving the story forward and giving clues. There are objects to be found everywhere, so collect everything as it will be useful later. There was more than enough to keep me interested and on the whole, I found it an enjoyable game.

Library of Babel is described as a stealth platform game and feels like an arcade game crossed with a point-and-click adventure. Set in the far future where humanity is gone and a society of robots exists. You play as a seeker who is called in to solve a murder. As you play you will receive objectives from various NPCs and find objects that let you explore further into the game.

The visuals and SFX are impressive. The touchscreen controls are a bit loose, leading to numerous deaths that can make the game frustrating. I also wish the mini puzzle game when using keycards to open doors was better explained. These are minor points though as this is a good game with an interesting plot that I want to play to completion.

The first 30 minutes of Babel's plot are quite slow, with the focus primarily on the narrative. However, as the game progresses, other elements, such as stealth, platforming, puzzles, and crafting, become more prominent.
Because there is no voice-over in the game, it relies heavily on text. Additionally, there is no way to modify how small the text appears on mobile. On the other hand, we have various settings for touch UI. Amazing views and fine detail of the city, people, and everything can be found in the 2D atmosphere. Dynamic BGM and sound effects are on point.

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The Library of Babel is a game focused on 2D stealth. The game has many dialogues that make you travel in the tales of this world. The game is inspired by the tale of Jorge Luis Borges where everything happens 20,000 years after the extinction of humanity. Here you won't find so much action, here what counts is to play in stealth. The gameplay works well on the touch but if you want you can play using the controller. The game has beautiful graphics. If you like short stories this will be one of the best games you can find for mobile. Amazing game!

I really love the hand-drawn art style and the world that has been set up. I just find the navigation part slows it down. The game gives me flashback vibes crossed with Prince of Persia and Dex. I agree with the point-and-click part as well. Just I felt the game was a bit slow with the exploration side. The trailer made it out to be a Metroid-style game but the pace is slower. Sometimes the controls made it when climbing I would continue to keep falling off of the platform. I do like what I have played so far and look forward to playing more.

Well, this game runs really well on an iPhone 12 Mini, and I thought the smaller screen would be an issue, but no, it works really really well. This game is beautiful. I love the art style, I love the soundtrack and the sound design. From the get-go, I just loved everything about this game going in. It has a nice mystery ambience to it, and the platforming aspect of the game reminded me of my youth when playing Flashback on the Amiga. This game mixes up some genres, you have platforms (a lot of jumping and going up and down the several ledges), you have some puzzles to solve, you have a point-and-click adventure, you have to talk a lot to people if you want to get into the story of the game, and also to get objectives to complete, and advance in the game.

It has everything to be great, but then I hit a wall. I'm not quite fond of this particular wall, which is why I get lost a lot, because there are a lot of places to search and not many directions to know where to find the stuff people ask you to find. I can bear the platforming aspect of the game, but the avoiding your enemies stealth part of it gets annoying fast. I lose my patience waiting forever for enemies to go past me, and I start dying a lot. Also, it's like the enemies have no brains, they just follow their path, the same path, every single time. Even if they see me for a moment, they just go back to the same path, and that's it.

So there is a lot to search for in this game, you can lose many hours playing it, and you can die a lot avoiding traps or enemies. Timing is key when trying to avoid the moving traps, but when I start dying, my patience for the game goes way down. It's a pity because I really like the story about this robot society far away in the future. But I have to say that the first hour of the game was still very beautiful, and I enjoyed it very much. It's the later stages that get me.

So, this game is a really nice surprise, a good mixture of a Metroidvania platform with a classic adventure game (the forest reminds me of the great old Flashback). I love the cyberpunk sci-fi environments, the story, the gorgeous graphics, and the excellent gameplay. it can be said that command responses are excellent, a lot of languages are supported and it works really fine on older devices. I can only highly recommend it.

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The Library of Babel