UAYEB

Review

As the Mayan calendar predicted, the event that occurred in 2012 changed the world as we knew it. The world economy fell to its knees and by 2017 the entire population of Earth began to revolt against its politicians. This led to an incredible conflict, which many could see sending humanity to extinction! A group of scientists decided to freeze as many people as possible for a period of time in the hope that these survivors would wake up long after the end of this conflict and start humanity all over again. For you, it was 2019 when you were frozen by one of these scientists, who happened to be a friend of yours. Wakey, wakey - its now 2119; time to wake up in this brand new world and find the lost civilization!

UAYEB is a first-person action / adventure/ puzzle game where you take control of a character who was frozen into a deep sleep for 100 years. His goal is to find the lost civilization as well as 20 lost golden artefacts.

At the start of the game, your character will wake up fairly chilled, in a capsule located at the basement of his friend, Joanna’s, house. After finding a way to warm himself up, he starts receiving e-mails from Joanna on his laptop. She had woken up a week earlier, and is now giving him tasks to complete in order to progress through the story. The laptop is also the place where he can access his inventory, including craft items and blueprints, as well as anything to do with his well-being, such as how thirsty or hungry he is, and whether or not he has sustained any injuries. The only issue he will encounter with his laptop, and any other electronic devices, is that the batteries run out frequently and the only way to recharge them is to use a solar panel.

There are a good number of resources to gather in the world of UAYEB, from food and clothes to minerals, and they are very easy to access and collect. He will also need to fight other survivors within this world, and it’s safer to do so using a firearm at a distance, as they will blow up when killed.  Other things that can inflict injury are mosquitos, spikes, and jumping too high. The other means of death is by drowning, which can happen if he’s forced to go underwater. He will find clues as to how to reach these artefacts either at Joanna’s house or in the lost city, but make sure he has plenty of lock picks in his inventory so he can unlock doors.  He also has access to the crafting table within the lost city. A tip for you; there are great blueprints in the lost city, including for the car. Maybe take a bit of time to explore it! Otherwise, they will be plenty of long walks under the sun. He can always teleport himself back to Joanna’s house if he is running out of water or food. Don’t forget to give your character a nap here and there as it will help him to recover from his injuries.

As I mentioned above, it is pretty easy to follow the instructions on how to get to the golden artefacts. The difficulty is in actually getting to them, and boy, it will take plenty of time to figure out which path to use, where the spikes will come up, or simply how to avoid them. What I mean by that is if your character touches one of these spikes, his health will take a dive, or even worse . . . he’ll die!   

In terms of the puzzles, I can’t say too much about them right now. The reason is that there are 20 artefacts to collect and after 9 hours of play I am about to collect my third one. I must say that the first puzzle took me a while to resolve, but the second was pretty much straight forward. Now, I got the car, I know where the third artefact is and I know when the sealed door will open and close, but I am missing a big element, which is the potion that will allow my character to hold his breath underwater for longer. I guess I’ll get back to searching!  Based on what I have seen and played, I truly believe this game will take you a minimum of 50 hours to complete and I must say, it’s impressive that it’s the work of one man.

Graphically, it’s pretty good, as are the soundtrack and controls. I did have some issues with reloading my saved games, which was frustrating!