Amanda the Adventurer Review

After two great betas and a lot of hype, the full game of Amanda the Adventurer released in April. It follows the story of a woman named Riley, whose late aunt, Kate, left her a letter inheriting the house to her. She states in her letter that she might come to regret leaving it to her. The letter contains instructions for Riley and a warning: go into the attic and play the tape you find there, but once you do, there’s no turning back.

The story of the game is focused on the mystery surrounding the weird things happening in the child-like show called Amanda the Adventurer. The moment you play the first tape, it’s clear something is off. The characters (Amanda and Wooly) act weird and Wooly seems to always be sad and not want to be there. There is clearly a mystery going on, and throughout the game, your purpose is to uncover it. 

After starting, you play the first tape titled In The Kitchen, you are met with a baking episode. Amanda and Wooly want to bake an apple pie and need you to help them. They ask you what tool they can use to cut the apples and for your help with finding sugar. After finishing the episode, you are provided with an oven and fruit inside the attic. You can bake an apple pie by copying what you see them do on-screen to be provided with the next tape, or you could bake other things that have other consequences, which I will not spoil. Amanda the Adventurer has multiple endings, and none of them answers the mystery perfectly; although you can figure out a lot through the hints in the game and partial answers from endings, it’s kind of underwhelming, especially in comparison to the betas.

The gameplay is a combination of puzzle and horror, although the horror aspect isn’t very well-built. The game isn’t particularly scary at any point, except in one ending, and even that one is more of a jumpscare than actual scary content. The environment is a bit creepy, but once you get used to it after around 15 minutes, it loses that as well. The game isn’t very good in horror terms and playing Amanda the Adventurer for the horror is definitely not something anyone should do.

The puzzles are pretty well-designed, on the other hand, the items you get for them can be used for multiple things, and almost every challenge piece has multiple uses and solutions. The game also utilises the existence of multiple endings to make some puzzles only solvable by doing multiple runs, which is an amazing system that adds a lot of replayability and fun. Not all of them are perfect, though; there are some that don’t make particular sense, but it’s only a few. For example, one of them requires you to look for a drawing in the tape and then resemble it with the puzzle tools you have in the attic, and it’s never implied you should do that.

The graphics aren’t anything to be impressed by; they are just average for today’s indie standard. The game is based on analogue horror, so there are cool graphical effects while you are watching the tapes, something that definitely adds a lot to the experience. The recordings sometimes glitch out in an analogue-like way that makes it scarier.

The sound isn’t particularly interesting but isn’t bad; there are the random scary sounds most horror games have and some effects for certain items and objects. A very cool thing we don’t see in many indie titles that Amanda the Adventurer has is the fact characters have voice acting! It adds a lot to it, making it feel much more real and letting the player connect with the experience much better.

The music of the game is fine, fitting the theme of a children’s show and having to do with the current situation. It only plays while watching the tapes and fits the current episode of Amanda the Adventurer. It isn’t very interesting and doesn’t really matter much other than contributing to the child-like feel of the tapes.

Overall, Amanda the Adventurer does a pretty good job staying interesting all throughout the playthrough. The main gameplay isn’t very engaging and some of the puzzles don’t make sense, which can make certain parts of the game very frustrating to play. The game disappoints massively after experiencing the betas. The solution to the mystery is very underwhelming and makes the story much worse than it had the potential to be.

All in all, the game is pretty fun. It definitely disappoints and doesn’t hold up to what was expected. It doesn’t play badly, but the story is a major disappointment and isn’t as good as what was expected after the demos. I definitely would still recommend Amanda the Adventurer, but only when it’s on sale and to analogue horror fans.