Spellbind Review
As 16 year old Luppe, you must defeat your arch enemy Ricko in a battle of intelligence and stealth. Who will steal Lord Amatar’s most expensive bottle of wine and be crowned the “King of Thieves”?
Spellbind begins with a sweet lullaby and a brief introduction to the game. We are told the premise is to follow through a challenge put forward by Ricko, your main rival and leader of an enemy gang, to steal a bottle of Lord Amatar’s oldest, and thus most expensive, bottle of wine. The problem, you are told, is that Lord Amatar is an incredibly mysterious man. Many believe he is a dark wizard or a lich and pretty much everyone fears him. Entering his cellar is a potentially very dangerous task – but you must accept in order to uphold your reputation as the ultimate thief.
This opening story is told through a series of text and pictures – specifically segments of old scrolls depicting what is, most likely, the setting for our imminent adventure. Spellbind‘s brief introduction is surrounded in a sweet, gentle lullaby that suddenly fades into a dark, eerie chant.
You are immediately thrown into the action, starting with a first-person view of the wine cellar. All that lies before you is a small room, shelves of bottles, and a small desk with a book on top of it. The thing that strikes me first is the apparent homage to Morrowind. The sheer array of deep greys and browns in a fantasy RPG-style realm, thrusts players straight into a medieval world. Second of all, the graphics are highly unusual. Though fairly simple on the surface, under closer investigation, the game’s aesthetic is in the style of an old oil painting.
From the beige swirls of the brick walls, to the shimmer of ocean green on a bottle of wine, everything is made up of wide brush strokes. It adds a certain intrigue to the game, as many could perceive it to be “low quality” were it not so charming. It’s something I’ve never experienced in any other game before, nor have I seen a game that looks quite like this one. Quite a feat, however it doesn’t completely detract from the lack of gameplay.
The premise of the game is to steal this bottle of wine and uphold your reputation – but that is the very first thing the player has to complete, and it’s simple at that. Each step contains a new puzzle for players to figure out, the first of which is to figure out which bottle of wine is the oldest and most expensive. The challenges from then on range from fairly simplistic to really quite difficult; the trick is generally to try and work out where the clues are.
At its core, Spellbind is a very basic point and click game but I was hoping it would be made up by being full of intrigue and excitement. Unfortunately, it is only the beginning of the story that holds any interest. The set up implies a dark, medieval fantasy game, but from then on there seems to be no real direction for the gameplay, instead relying on its puzzles to keep people keen. This would be fine were the puzzles consistently engaging; occasionally a task will be require some thinking time and a little exploring, but for the most part they are fairly unispiring and miss the mark, difficult or not.
The trouble is when a game intends to have a straightforward and easy basis, it needs to then build that up with more exciting content. Spellbind‘s aesthetic is delightful, the atmosphere is created through the creepy music, but none of that can be wholly enjoyed because of the lack of story. Were there, for instance, a more epic adventure, or even a sneaking mechanic, there is just something intrinsic missing from it as a whole.
Though a compelling enough concept, there are many rookie mistakes consistently evident in Spellbind. From bad grammar within the game, to having an unoriginal title, developers Spider Key attempted something unique, but unfortunately missed the mark and as such, the game appears to have been neglected a little. Many of the mistakes could have been easily avoided, so hopefully they will take better precautions in the future and create another game with more allure.
