Eclipsium Review Summary

Exceptional Art, Sound, and Atmosphere: Players consistently praise the game's unique visual style, immersive sound design, and captivating atmosphere. The combination creates a surreal, artistic, and often eerie experience that stands out.

Engaging and Unique Gameplay: The game offers creative and well-designed puzzles, interesting mechanics, and unique level designs that keep players engaged. It provides variety beyond a typical walking simulator, with moments of experimentation and clever perspective shifts.

Profound Emotional Impact: Many players report a strong emotional connection to the game, experiencing moments of awe, surprise, sadness, and even tears. The game's narrative, music, and visuals combine to create a deeply moving and memorable experience.

Unique and Memorable Experience: Players describe the game as a one-of-a-kind, unforgettable experience that feels unlike anything they've played before. Its originality and imaginative design leave a lasting impression.

High Value for a Walking Simulator: The game is considered an excellent example of a walking simulator, often described as one of the best. Its unique qualities and engaging elements make it a worthwhile purchase.

Misleading Demo and Content: Many players felt that the full game did not live up to the promises of its demo, which showcased more engaging cutscenes and interactions, particularly with the 'woman' character. The final release was perceived as lacking in content and gameplay elements highlighted in the demo.

Unclear and Vague Narrative: Players found the game's story to be largely incomprehensible, lacking clear plot points, character motivations, and coherent progression. The narrative relies heavily on symbolism and player interpretation, which many found frustrating and unrewarding, leading to a feeling of being lost and disengaged.

Frustrating and Unintuitive Puzzles: The puzzles were frequently criticized for being unclear, counter-intuitive, and sometimes relying on random chance rather than logical deduction. Players often felt they had to brute-force solutions or consult external guides, detracting from the gameplay experience.

Repetitive and Tedious Exploration: Players found many environments to be repetitive, monotone, and overly long, with meaningless detours and invisible walls. The lack of rewards for curiosity and exploration, combined with slow movement, made traversing these areas tedious.

Overall Negative Experience: Many players expressed regret over purchasing and playing the game, describing it as boring, pretentious, and a 'gift set of unpleasant experiences.' This sentiment reflects a general dissatisfaction with the game's core design and execution.

Primarily a Walking Simulator: The game is widely described as a walking simulator, emphasizing slow-paced exploration through a surreal world. While it includes simple puzzles and interactive elements, the core gameplay loop revolves around movement and observation.

Lack of Sprint Option: A significant point of feedback is the absence of a sprint or run option, which contributes to the slow movement speed. This design choice is noted to enforce a more contemplative pace but also extends playtime.

Simple Puzzle Mechanics: The game incorporates light puzzle-solving elements, which are generally considered simple and not overly challenging. These often involve basic logic, fetch quests, or interacting with specific environmental elements.

Unsettling Atmosphere, Not Horror: While the game features an unsettling atmosphere and 'bad trip' visuals, it is generally not considered a traditional horror game. It leans more towards suspense and psychological elements.

Abstract Climax and Ending: The game's climax and ending involve a progression towards abstract concepts, with reality breaking down. Key events include an hospital invaded by pigs and an ascent to an empty heart, culminating in an embrace with a recurring female figure.

Poor Ultrawide Support: Players with 21:9 monitors report that the game stretches 16:9 content, lacking native ultrawide support or essential display options like borderless windowed mode. This forces manual resolution changes for an unstretched experience.

Minimal General Bugs: Aside from specific issues, general technical stability seems good, with one player reporting only a single minor bug that did not impact their overall gameplay experience.

Streaming Visual Load: The game's visual design, particularly saturated scenes with red tones, can cause bitrate spikes during streaming, leading to drops and a degraded viewing experience for audiences.

Missing V-Sync Option: Players noted the absence of a V-Sync setting, which is a standard feature in most modern games for managing screen tearing and display synchronization.

Highly recommended experience: Many players strongly recommend the game, often rating it highly and considering it a must-play. They emphasize its unique experience and artistic merit, suggesting it's worth the time and money.

Niche appeal, not for everyone: The game caters to a specific audience, particularly those who appreciate surreal walking simulators, artistic design, and ambiguous narratives. Players seeking action, fast-paced gameplay, or clear plots may find it boring or disappointing.

Mixed value perception: While many find the game worth its price, some suggest it would be better priced lower or regret their purchase. This indicates a divergence in perceived value.

Developer's future potential: Players express excitement for the developer's next projects, suggesting that the game industry needs more titles like this. There's a desire for more content from the creators.

Technical and gameplay advice: Some players offer specific advice, such as enduring slow movement, playing in one sitting, or looking for hidden achievements. There's also a mention of waiting for resolution/aspect ratio options for a full review.

Narrative Ambiguity and Interpretation: The game's narrative is often unclear, leading players to develop personal interpretations, such as the protagonist being in a coma or battling cancer. The story's direction also changed from earlier demos.

Surreal and Disorienting Experience: Players found the game to be very surreal, evoking discomfort and a psychedelic atmosphere. It's described as a complex art object and a stream-of-consciousness experience, with many allusions and metaphors.

Polarizing Retro Visuals: The game's retro pixel graphics are controversial and not for everyone, though some players get used to them. The pixel filter can simulate myopia, and players are advised to set pixel look to high for better detail.

Minor Technical Issues: Some players reported loading location bugs, but these were noted to be easily and quickly fixed by the developers. There was also a suggestion for save point reminders.

Specific Visual Feedback: One player suggested lowering the arm when inactive to give visuals more room. Another noted the uncanny valley effect in the latest version made a character's stare more intense.