Truberbrook

Review

Life is full of mysteries and surprises wouldn’t you say? As a matter of fact, it reminds me of a story which occurred in the 60’s of a young American scientist, with German origins, who won a holiday in the beautiful village of Truberbrook somewhere in Germany. The scenery was splendid, the village was surrounded by majestic mountains and had a stunning lake close by. Still, after travelling thousands of miles to this picturesque destination, the scientist in question, who goes by the name of Hans Tannhauser, didn’t understand how he won his prize without entering any sort of competition. Well, that was the surprise! But there is surely a mystery behind this . . .  And that, my friends, both yourselves and Hans will have to discover at the stunning village of Truberbrook!

Truberbrook is a point and click adventure developed by btf and published by Headup Games and WhisperGames, where you play an American quantum physician who takes a break in the mysterious and picturesque village of Truberbrook in the 1960’s.

However, the story will not start with Hans, but with another character named Gretchen, who found herself in a bit of a pickle on the outskirts of Truberbrook. You see, her motorbike seemed to be constantly over-heating and she needed to stop at the closest service station to repair the damage. She will become an interesting character with whom you’ll be interacting further on in the story. This prologue is more or less an easy tutorial, and you’ll find all objects close by with simple puzzles to resolve.

From here, it will be all about Hans Tannhauser, and the people he meets in the lovely Germanic village of Truberbrook.

The story consists of 5 chapters where Hans will have to solve puzzles within the town, by the lake, in a swamp, a treehouse, in an underground facility, and more. It will take you around 6 to 7 hours to complete the whole story, which has two endings.

The gameplay is what you would expect from a point and click game, where you can examine, pick up and use items, as well as interact with other characters. The story is fun and entertaining from start to finish! In terms of the puzzles, I found them a bit to easy for my liking. Personally, I would prefer to try to figure out how to use some of the items to resolve a puzzle, rather than to be shown which objects to use to solve a puzzle (that’s if you actually carry the right item in your inventory of course). None the less, they are fun to complete.

The handmade miniature scenery is absolutely fabulous and full of charm. You can only imagine how many hours the developers have put into these backgrounds - they are definitely made with love and are truly stunning. The story is entertaining, with some funny bits as well, to make you smile.

Nice soundtrack and I found the interface easy to use. I must say that I had a few issues when clicking around the village after the third chapter, for some reason (Hans was a bit reluctant to go where I wanted him to go). Apart from that, I didn’t encounter any other issues.